We’ve been in business here for nearly 3 years and we’ve gone by Creekmore Consulting that whole time — but we’ve been content strategists for even longer than that. And the more we thought about it, the more we thought 2 things:

• Content is central to what we do, and we want that to be clear.
• creekmoreconsulting.com is a damn long URL.

So we toyed with a lot of new ideas, and we discovered that many, many people out there are sitting on some really fantastic URLs for content strategy consultancies and doing nothing with them. [Get busy with those URLs or let them go, folks!]

And then last year at South by Southwest, we realized we wanted to set up a Twitter account for the business, and without thinking too hard about it, we named it @creekcontent. And we’ve used it a bit from time to time, and each time we did, we thought, Huh, Creek Content. That’s nice, and it’s pretty short. So we bought the URL, just in case.

The more we thought about it, the more sense that made. We have played with a lot of different names in the past few months, but none seemed to fit like Creek Content, and the longer we talked about it, the more it felt like home.

So from here on out, Creek Content is what we’ll be calling ourselves, and hope you will too.

In a related matter, we’re starting a monthly newsletter. Content strategy isn’t rocket science — we couldn’t teach you that in a monthly newsletter — but there are some specific tools and strategies to our discipline, and we’ve found that people like to learn more. So, we’re going to start sharing more.

Be sure to share your email with us so we can share our content strategy goodies with you.

We hope you’ll sign up to get a little slice of content strategy goodness delivered from us right to your inbox each month.

You’ll sometimes hear navigation, taxonomy and even metadata used interchangeably, but to the information architect, these three different concepts work together to make your content work for you.

The navigation is what we all see on your website — the tabs across the top or down the side that direct users to sections of the site. We’ll quickly point out that we’ve never seen an org chart that made a useful navigation, no matter how many times we’ve seen it tried. Your customers don’t call your stuff the same thing you call it, and if you want to be successful, you’ll use the terms they prefer on your website. Need help figuring out what they think? We can help with that.

The taxonomy is often a hierarchy, as well, but it’s the hierarchy where you store your information. It’s not always the same as what you show your customers in the navigation. Usually, it’s more complex and multi-faceted. For a starting point, think of your taxonomy as a directory of every single kind of information on your website. Rarely is your navigation so complex, but you need a way to categorize everything so you can find it and render it correctly to your customer. Your taxonomy is the framework on the back end. Your taxonomy may be a place where you use your own terms, instead of your customer’s terms.

Metadata is a catalog of the information about each content item. Metadata is information about information, right? So it’s the information about each piece of content. For an image, the metadata might include width, height, orientation and file type. For an event, it might include start and end times and dates. For a news article, it might include the city and state, or the topic, or the section of the site. Perhaps you’d mark an age range or location that indicates the intended audience.

Metadata is also a place where we get into data interoperability. There are a number of standard metadata schemes, and if you want your content to be re-used and syndicated, you need to ensure you’re using universal standards for your metadata, at a minimum.

Because so much of this is on the back end, it’s frequently neglected. If your content isn’t working hard enough for you, this may be a place to evaluate carefully. Learn how Creek Content can help improve your information architecture for better business strategy.

A few weeks ago, I stumbled across this post by Olivier Blanchard at Brandbuilder.com, and I haven’t been able to get it out of my mind ever since. Yes, it is a bit dated (posted in October 2010), but that doesn’t change the fact that I took offense to this particular paragraph:

2010′s Social Media experts, especially those who came to their impressive expertise by way of writing blogs about writing blogs, will magically transform themselves into “Content Strategists” (a term stolen from either the SEO world or that of content fulfillment firms keen on the fact that “content strategy” sounds a lot sexier than “content fulfillment”). Though for some, the transformation will take place sometime between the hours of 4am and 9am (GMT) on 1 January 2011, the vast majority of the metamorphoses will take place based on Social Media conferences’ need for Content Strategy speakers. Expect a deeper ‘content strategy’ track at SxSW, and a rapid addition of ‘content strategy’ to most failing digital agencies’ service offerings.

Ever since I laid eyes on that portion of the article, I have been mentally arguing with Blanchard. Here are a few points I’d like to make about content strategy as I see it — not a buzzword or the latest fad, but a real mindset and toolkit:

1. Content strategy is actually a communications strategy. Perhaps if we think of the way we deal with content in terms of the way we communicate to our friends/readers/visitors, it’s easier to understand how it works. Most people don’t think about the usability of content on their website until it’s too late. Implementing a concrete strategy will make your content do what you want it to do. I’m going to steal a phrase of Ann Handley‘s that Laura quotes frequently, and point out that everyone is a publisher. If you have a blog, Facebook page, Twitter account or even an email address, you create content every day. Content strategy can make that content work to help you reach your business goals.
2. Content strategy is a system. Though content strategy can’t be explained or visualized in terms of a tangible item (for example, it’s not a pretty website that you can see and interact with), it is a system of its own. The term “content strategy” describes a system that nurtures and maximizes the capability of your content from the time it’s created until it becomes outdated or you remove it from your website.
3. Content strategy is measurable. Maybe this is too easy, but in my opinion, if you can measure results of a service, it is real. Measuring the ROI on a content strategy starts by identifying your goal. Do you want more readers? Focus on page views and the average time spent on your website. Are you trying to generate more leads? A good content strategy will increase the quality of your leads and shorten your sales cycle. Of course, this isn’t going to happen overnight. But if you give us some time to use content to reach your goals, we can make it happen.
4. Content strategy effects change. If you don’t believe me, just read how strategically placed content inspired me to quit smoking for good.

There is lots of content on the web. Lots. If you wanted to build a website about, say, the health benefits of running, there would be no shortage of content already out there that you could license and curate to fill your pages. But don’t underestimate the power of custom content — your own words, videos and pictures produced from your own point of view — and what it can do for your site.

If you’ve been thinking about custom content but aren’t sure you’re ready to take that plunge, here are four benefits that might help persuade you:

1. It fills a void. What are readers searching for when they visit your site? More importantly, are they finding it? If not, fill those gaps with content that you create in the form of how-to articles, videos and illustrative photographs. If readers aren’t finding what they’re looking for when they search your site, you can be sure they’re searching for it — and finding it — elsewhere.
   Do you have content you wish you could get your hands on? If you’ve been spending your energy searching for just the right content vendor for that dream content, why not just write it yourself? You’ll save time, energy and money, and that custom content will lead right to the next three benefits.
2. It increases traffic. Google and other search engines really like fresh, relevant and timely content. It other words, if you wrote an article on cold weather running gear back in 2004 that only your employees read, Google doesn’t really care at this point. A new article on the subject will allow you to share that content with readers on your site and through social media tools. If people like it, share it and link to it, and if it contains strong keywords, more search engines will point to your piece of content when potential readers search for “cold weather running gear”.
3. It makes you the authority. If you’re licensing content from Kyle, The Running Expert, readers of your website will soon realize they only need to read and subscribe to Kyle’s site to get the information they want. Instead of serving as the middleman, sharing Kyle’s content, providing your own content will make you the expert and allow readers to trust your expertise enough to visit again, subscribe and share.
4. It creates an opportunity to make money. Yep, money! If you start creating enough quality content on a regular basis, maybe someone will knock on your door — or at least drop you an email — and ask about licensing your articles, videos or photographs.

   Let’s say you start a monthly video series on how to get started with a running program. it might include the right gear, proper nutrition for before and after a run, mistakes beginners make and so on. That new content is not only updating your website, but it’s also producing good “Google juice,” as it’s sometimes called. It’s making you an authority on the subject and it might even be good enough that someone else wants to pay you for using it. How cool would that be?!

Online communities must go through some initial setup phases, but once communities are up and running, several things should happen simultaneously.

As we create new communities or nurture existing ones, we must ensure we are always balancing needs in these three areas:

• Content
• User Recruitment and Acclimation
• Community Measurement and Evaluation

Last week I worked on a spreadsheet that included more 1,300 lines of information. I took one category of content and inventoried every piece connected to each keyword within that category for a client. I loved every minute of it! Call me organized; call me a taxonomy nerd. I’m okay with both.

Aside from being fun for me, it was incredibly eye-opening and provided a great map for moving forward with my work for this client. If you’ve recently completed a content inventory and are asking yourself “now what?” — or are wondering why to do one in the first place — here are three things you can do with the information:

1. Make an argument for custom content. This particular client has content vendor relationships with some well-respected and well-known experts in their industry. But by using some of that content after it’s produced instead of producing content to meet specific needs or goals, this client could be missing some opportunities associated with custom content. (A full post on the benefits of custom content is coming shortly!)
2. Decide what’s working, what’s not. During my inventory, I found keywords that had yet to be used, keywords that were used more than all others combined, and keywords that now — months after they were first created — no longer carry any meaning for the client or align with their business goals. Instead of starting a conversation with “I think we should…”, this content inventory will give me just the information I need to start a discussion with the client about what’s working, what’s not working and how to move forward from here.
3. Delete the old; refresh the evergreen. During your inventory, you’re likely to notice content that was posted years ago — or maybe it was just a few months ago. Is it still relevant? Is it still true? Is it still helpful or beneficial to your audience? Does it help you tell a story? If not, rewrite it, delete it or replace it with content that answers “yes” to those questions. And every once in a while, dust off the evergreen content — content that never goes out of style — by updating it a bit with the latest research on the subject, a new quote from an expert or an updated headline.

I just came today from the orientation for my master’s in information sciences program at the University of Tennessee. It’s a top-20 program in a field that for decades has trained our nation’s librarians. Today, graduates also go into information management fields.

Since our work often involves information architecture, I’ve been thinking about getting an IS degree for a while now. It nicely meets the intersection of content and technology where we work.

I’m not changing my work schedule, and fortunately, the program is designed for working professionals, so my classes take place at night and on the weekends.

I’m pretty excited because one of my first two classes deals with metadata — one of my favorite topics! More on this as my program continues –

[And for those who are wondering, yes, it was hard for a Vanderbilt graduate to apply to UT, one of our big athletic rivals. However, the quality of the program -- and the fact that it's entirely available via distance education -- really made my choice easy. Now if I can just convince my Vandy-grad dad that good things can come from UT....]

Our work in content strategy often involves working with online communities. The principles we use to manage online communities are simple, but not always obvious.

Our three guiding principles:

Treat members like people.If you think of and treat your members like anonymous computers on the other end, they won’t demonstrate any loyalty to you, either. If you remember that they’re real people, with kids to pick up and dentist appointments and careers, you’ll build a long-term relationship with them.

Get the technology out of the way. If it’s too hard, no one will share. Well-managed communities anticipate and remove technical barriers.

The members own the community. Even mighty Facebook has dealt with user satisfaction problems related to their frequent privacy and design changes. Facebook likely won’t suffer much for its lack of user respect because it’s an 800-lb. gorilla, but smaller communities can’t count on members to stick around when they abuse the trust of their members. Likewise, corporate communities must demonstrate either value or C-suite buy-in, or ideally both, for employees to take them seriously.

We’ve decided to change things around a bit here. Starting today, we’re going to blog here as a company. I’ll still be blogging at LauraCreekmore.com on a regular basis, so please continue to visit me there, as well.

But we’re going to all share our thoughts here on content strategy, as well. Hope you’ll stick around and join the conversation.