Review: The Elements of Content Strategy by Erin Kissane

The Elements of Content Strategy by Erin Kissane
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

This short book is a good overview of content strategy. It presents the concepts and includes many references for deeper reading. I’m a web designer who creates websites for small businesses, and those sites are too small to warrant a sophisticated content strategy, but this book was still worth reading for the fundamentals such as making content useful, concise, and supported.

I liked the quote from Kristina Halvorson in Content Strategy for the Web:

"...online, you don't have a captive audience. You have a multi-tasking, distracted, ready-to-leave-your-site-at-any-time audience who has very specific goals in mind. If your content doesn't meet those goals, and quickly, they will leave."

I liked Kissane's advice to "Act as user advocates...reduce distractions in sidebars, fight ads that obstruct content, and give readers the equivalent of good light and a quiet room." He also makes a good point that content strategists must turn soft, aspirational goals into specific, measurable success criteria.

Good Content

"Good Content is Useful"

"Define a clear, specific purpose for each piece of content; evaluate content against this purpose."

"Good Content is Concise"

  • "Omit needless content."
  • Why is too much content bad? It makes everything more difficult to find, and results in lower quality content.
  • Common needless content: mission statements, press releases, long feature lists, rambling video and audio.

"Good Content is Supported"

  • "Publish no content without a support plan."
  • "Information published online is a live green plant." Content must be posted, updated, and removed as appropriate.

Storytelling

  • The inverted pyramid: order information from most to least important to the reader.
  • 5 Ws and an H: what, who, when, where, why, how.
  • Show, don't tell: demonstrate, don't describe.

Persuade and sell with rhetoric

  • Rational argument (logos)
  • Emotional appeal (pathos)
  • Appeal to reputation or character (ethos)
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