Delivery strategy is separate from content strategy

Posted by Christopher S Penn on Dec 2, 2010 in Advertising, Blogging, Marketing | 5 comments

Something occurred to me as I unwrapped my copy of Content Rules, the new book by CC Chapman and Ann Handley, both very good friends. (I got it yesterday, so I haven’t started reading it just yet) Maybe they’ll address it in the book. Maybe not. Content strategy is something of a misnomer.

Here’s why: content strategy the way most people describe it can easily be retitled “build it and they will come”. Build great content and people will find it, share it, and love you for it. Except it doesn’t really work out that way. You really need two strategies: a content strategy and a delivery strategy.

Content is the good stuff. It’s the blogs, tweets, podcasts, the knowledge, data, information, and insight that you are going to share with the world. If your content sucks, nothing you do will be sustainable. No one will want to read what you have to say, listen, watch, or participate because they get no value from you.

Delivery is who gets the good stuff and how it gets there. What content you have dictates how you’ll deliver it. Nothing drives me up a wall faster than an audio photography podcast – show me what you’re taking pictures of instead of talking about it! Likewise, most music videos are a waste of time – the musician could have saved themselves time and energy by making more songs I want to listen to than dancing around in a silly costume.

Delivery also encompasses audience. It’s fine to have a blog or a podcast, but if no one is listening or reading, it doesn’t matter.

Which do you do first? Content. You must build damn good content first, then find people who want it. How do you find people who want it? You listen to them ask about it, knock on their door gently, and try to provide value quickly.

Let’s do a Twitter-based exercise together.

Start by filling your Twitter stream with great content. Interact. Lots of replies. Share stuff that’s useful. Put up a decent introductory landing page.

Then do a Twitter search like this:

Let’s see who we get, assuming we are blogging about content strategy. Hey look, there’s someone writing about it now.

Go follow them.

Wash. Rinse. Repeat until you’ve followed everyone talking about content strategy that’s working on it or you hit your daily limit of 1,000 follows. Then do it some more tomorrow. Some percentage of folks will do their homework, investigate you and what you’re about, and as long as your content is dynamite, you’ve built audience as part of your delivery strategy.

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2010 Holiday Gift Shopping Guide

Posted by Christopher S Penn on Dec 1, 2010 in Blogging, Technology, World of Warcraft | 1 comment

The holiday music is playing in the malls, the commercials are on TV, and it’s holiday shopping season! Got a friend that you have no idea what to get them? This gift guide might help! Absolutely everything on this page is an affiliate link if I can help it, so consider that the blanket disclosure.

Books

David Maister’s Strategy and the Fat Smoker. Unquestionably one of the best reads of the past few years. I try to live it professionally.

Avinash Kaushik’s Web Analytics in an Hour a Day and Web Analytics 2.0. Avinash is unquestionably the king of the hill when it comes to learning how to measure things. He tackles not only what, but why. Essential reading.

Garr Reynolds’ Presentation Zen is a must read if you want to learn how to communicate more effectively with presentations.

Bag

Osprey Slipstream travel bag. My highest endorsement of this bag can be summed up in one sentence: I haven’t broken it yet. It’s ridiculously durable, holds a couple of days of clothing and a laptop plus iPad, cabling, etc. I love it.

Camera

Canon Powershot S95: Canon’s little pocket point and shoot is ideal for one reason only: it goes as wide open as f/2.0, which makes it great for indoor use without a flash. You’ll be able to shoot with more natural and ambient light without having to resort to a flash than with other pocket cameras.

Nikon D90. I own this camera and it’s the workhorse of all my serious digital imaging. I shoot with the kit lens, which is good enough for most everything except very specific cases. It’s not light, small, cheap, or convenient, but it is extremely good at what it does.

Computer

If you run a laptop and do anything that is computationally intensive, get a Targus Chill Mat. I have a MacBook Pro made of aluminum, which is an ideal heat conductor. Unfortunately, Apple designed it so that the case radiates heat but not as efficiently as a fan. A Chill Mat underneath does an awesome job of cooling the machine down by 20 degrees or more.

Games

Logitech Gaming Headset. Prior to this, I had the ClearChat headset, and that was not bad at all. Light, small, thin… and easy to lose. Which I did. I tend to be just absent minded enough to leave the “small, thin, ultraportable” stuff behind, so I prefer to buy things that are a little bigger, just so I don’t forget them in an airline seat. This USB headset is great for Skype, video, gaming, and music. It’s not small. It’s not light. It does sound great.

World of Warcraft: Cataclysm. Out in just a week. Can’t wait.

Productivity

Get an iPad. That is all.

If you get an iPad, get this incredibly sexy Aidacase, which provides a soft Bluetooth keyboard integrated with a case. The keyboard is small and squishy and better than the on screen one, but not as good as the hard dock version. That said, the hard dock version from Apple is a pain to lug around. Virtually every case out there is identical to this one because they’re all made by the same Chinese manufacturer. This is wonderful on the road.

I also own the Apple hardware keyboard iPad dock. I like it at the office as it’s a monitor stand and full size keyboard all in one. If you’re going to crunch a LOT of text, this is the way to go.

Business Stuff

As I’ve mentioned in my personal newsletter, two services I strongly recommend are SEOMoz for managing your SEO efforts and Elegant Themes for great looking WordPress blog templates. Both of these are high quality services, though I’m not sure SEOMoz would make a good personal holiday gift.

Whatever you celebrate, I wish you a happy holiday season, and hopefully this gift guide will be helpful to you.

If you enjoyed this, please click here and share it with your network!

Want to read more like this from Christopher Penn? If so, please subscribe right now!

Click here to read my blog on Google Currents on your mobile!

Marketing White Belt Basics for Digital Marketers is now on Amazon & B&N

Watch me speak: Attend virtually!

I recommend: for Twitter audience building.