A content strategy shouldn’t include tactics

Sorry, let me amend that — any strategy shouldn’t include tactics

A strategy is a plan designed to achieve a goal.

And selecting a strategy is very important for groups of people because, well, we’re people. We need to understand where we’re headed and what we should do to get there. Otherwise, it’s a mess.

For those who like a more formal definition, allow me to roll out the standards here:

• Webster’s dictionary defines strategy as: A careful plan or method for achieving a particular goal usually over a long period of time

• Oxford dictionaries’ definition is very similar: A plan of action or policy designed to achieve a major or overall aim.

Here’s what it’s not — a strategy is not a list of tactics.

For sure, tactics are the way a strategy gets done. But the strategy itself needs to be a longer-term view; it needs to define how the goal will be achieved. Short-term things like tactics need to be developed, but they have no place inside the strategy itself.

Why? As things outside the group’s control — market conditions, the competitive environment, regulations — change, the tactics designed to achieve the goal will need to change, too. But the overall strategy should remain the same.

Here comes the analogy!

I once read that a commercial flight is actually off course 80% of the time. So a plane from Chicago to Los Angeles is almost constantly adjusting its direction to get back on course. But it always has the same goal: get to LA.

The strategy here is to use air travel (because it’s fast, efficient, etc.). The tactics of choosing an airline, a departure time, whether or not to check your luggage, are not part of the strategy because they may need to change.

Still with me? Great!

How the heck does this relate to content marketing?

As content marketing continues to grow, it’s natural that some folks will offer up their own recommended content strategies to help brands take advantage of it.

But a closer look at some of these content strategy documents reveals a disappointment — some are nothing more than a list of recommended tactics. Examples of these tactics include: choose your keywords, select your audience, define personas. This tactical work definitely needs to be done, but it shouldn't be part of creating a content strategy.

It’s like telling someone to always be at the airport at noon for that flight from ORD to LAX. But what if you need to get there sooner? You may need to fly to LA at eight o’clock in the morning to meet your goal. Tactics need to be able to change.

Today, some content marketing tactics, like choosing an audience or identifying key words, are becoming almost universal — everyone needs them, right? It may seem like that at first, but there are risks to this thinking.

As tempting as it is to adopt an existing list of silver-bullet tactics that will work perfectly for every brand — don’t do it. The perfect strategy for you doesn’t exist until you create it.

While creating a content strategy is a key first step for anyone who wants to enjoy the benefits of content marketing, any strategy should take a long-term view and the tactics designed to reach it should be developed separately and specifically with your brand in mind.

Now to the important stuff. It's cold here. Anyone want to go to LA?

Why words are so important in the so-called age of video

Video killed the radio star. That was the 1980s mantra of the MTV generation, courtesy of the band the Buggles. Today, video everywhere you look. People consume more and more video and, as if you needed more evidence, YouTube is now the second largest search engine inthe world.

Not so fast. I would argue that words are still more important.

A recent call for banning the word ‘bossy’ from our vernacular by Facebook’s COO Sheryl Sandberg reminds us that word choices can be critical not only in business, but in civilization as a whole. While a picture may be worth a thousand words, it’s interesting that words are still the currency we use to describe them.

In communication, words are the gold standard.

Of course, I don’t mean to suggest that you should stop making those videos (and Slideshare presentations and podcasts), just remember that the words you choose as you’re defining them are critical. Yes, Vine videos are fun and attention getting, but the attention your brand can get from a six-second video can be as fleeting as the video itself.

Words are where the investment needs to be made.

So before you create that epic video, that mind-blowing Slideshare presentation or that in-depth podcast, consider investing time in the words that will describe them. I’m not talking about the words that are actually used in these tactics (e.g. the script), but the words used in the strategy that defines and inspires them.

The strategies you develop as you pursue these tactics need to lay out your thinking for who, what, when, where why and how this will happen. As Joe Pulizzi and others have said, we are all becoming media companies. The big difference here is that we aren’t reporting the news. We are the news.

And who cares about us? No one.

That’s why things like storytelling and content strategy are so important. In order to make ourselves relevant to those whom we want to engage, we have to create a story.

And, to do that, we have to use words.