As I publish a short series of posts on content curation this week, it’s occurred to me that there are a few core assumptions I’d like to clarify in something like an addendum to the credo on my about page.
- Content strategy is as obviously important in web development projects as UI design or project management. Someone must deal with content, and anyone who believes otherwise is unlikely to produce good websites.
- The modern practice of content strategy arises from a number of venerable professions and takes its core principles from editorial, analytical, curatorial, marketing, and managerial work. This doesn’t mean that it “is” any of those things.
- In particular, content strategy is not a subset of marketing. Marketing is one application of content strategy.
- Many marketing people are brilliant, ethical, and very good at their jobs. Some are not, and their influence can be very destructive. The former group should not be held responsible for the actions of the latter, but we should not be expected to pretend that the latter does not exist. (All these statements apply to many other professions, but marketing’s the one I’m focusing on in recent and upcoming posts.)
Onward.
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Excellent series that I didn’t get to until today because I neglected modding my blog’s Comments. You called my post 90% wrong. Well, it was based on the misuse of “curate” by someone else to begin with — and then lemmings of others. I know the first eejit who lobbed the “curate” grenade into the e-publishing discussion — and he was misusing it to begin with. So there! — or something. What he really meant was filtering of a snooty kind, where he and selected self-appointed Tastemakers (who lucked into their positions, or slept into them, or conned their way into them) would avoid the long-term unemployment they deserve by collating co-dependent people around them to trill at their recommendations and TL;DR smartz.
Anyway, you’ve cleared it all up for me and the next time I reach for my gun, I’ll just link to this series. Thanks much for clearing it all up with great style and laughs.