This final assignment will be completed in stages over three weeks. First, you need to read the resources linked to in this overview associated with the task ahead. Pace yourself, be systematic. Take notes on your method as you go. Everything you do will appear in your final Landscape Analysis Report
To be a content strategist is to be a technical and professional communication purveyor of relevant information. This person is not a web designer, per se, but often works in close proximity with designers to make sure content is useful. They will conduct research to adapt existing content to customer needs. Overall, they manage, shape, and deliver content and teach organizations, and people within organizations, how to do so as well.
Use apple and microsoft
Learning outcomes
● Understand the scope of the discipline of content strategy
● Understand some of the important aspects of conducting a content audit and creating a content recommendations report
● Conduct a content audit
● Create content recommendations report
Creating new, frequent, and insightful content is a healthy and necessary practice of professional and technical communication in any industry. Consider this: how often do you look at your social media page? How often do you create content when you log into your social media? We already discussed whose content page you think attracts a lot of traffic and why.
In the age of social technologies, content becomes incredibly important. To understand content, think about things like your discipline and the kinds of content it publishes; TV & Music shows; social media & web content and how people who create them have attracted a following by creating content that people like. In this environment, organizations / people that can deliver good content to people when they need it are going to have an enormous advantage.
To consider content strategy, consider how much information there is on the internet that is completely useless to you at any given time. Meanwhile, the information you do need may be hard to find, inaccessible, or you may not even know you need it. I, for example, have never known people's attraction to Reddit , 4chan, or Snapchat. And yet these sites might be of interest to you.
For this final research portion of the course, your task is to conduct an analysis and audit of two competing organizations' digital content. So take a look at your organization’s site first. Then, pick a competitor, challenger, or ally of that organization. How do they communicate with their audiences, partners, and participants? Assess, compare, and contrast the two content strategies, focusing on websites, mobile apps, etc. As you conduct your research and review the two sites, focus on just three concerns -- you get to pick which. From this content audit, you will then write a content recommendation report summarizing your findings and making recommendations for improvement. You also have plenty of resources to help you along including readings .
Please read the readings and example, make some notes on what you are learning. They will be part of your reflection.
Rationale
Emerging technologies such as content management systems and social media platforms provide new opportunities for creating, organizing, and delivering content. Professional and technical communicators are now sometimes responsible for managing and optimizing this content. This assignment gives you the opportunity to interrogate content strategy and to position you to do this work in your professional career. You can work in teams or as individuals as you please.
Method
A competitive analysis is conducted when an organization is looking to refocus its efforts. Typically, comparative analyses can be conducted before building out a specific part of a website, during a redesign, or during an exploratory phase (say, for a startup).
Some examples of organizations that might see each other as part of similar landscapes include AT&T and Verizon; LA Philharmonic and the Philadelphia Philharmonic; H&M and A&F, UW and WSU; Marvel and DC Comics; Sam’s Club and COSTCO; NYMag and The New Yorker etc. Possibilities are endless. I suggest you consider what interests you as you select these sites.
For this assignment, you will need to
● position yourself as content strategist for a company, which you will name and identify
● Imagine that your company is looking to update its site so it can better address the needs of its customers/clients/participants/users
● One of their first steps will be to complete a landscape analysis to learn what your competitors are doing and how you can improve your company’s site. To do that, it needs to look at what the competition or similar organizations are doing.
These resources will help you along to familiarize yourself with Content Discourse
Analyze your Content Audits
Actions
Content Strategists: What Do They Do?
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A List Apart
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How Content Strategy and Content Marketing Are Separate But Connected
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Why Interactive Content Marketing Is The Future
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Content Strategy Research
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The Qualitative Content Audit
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Consult Content-strategy-toolkit.pdf -- use it as a reference
After you have read the above sources widely and familiarized yourself with content strategy Please read them all. There is a reason why this assignment is spread out over THREE weeks! You will develop vocabulary and conceptual understanding of the process before you apply it to analysis.
- Do some brainstorming about what company's media content you want to audit.
- Find its competitor.
- Decide on the media. Do you want to focus on the company website, its social media (accounts) a combination? something else?
- Pose some questions you wish to address in your research, e.g., -- remember, your audit covers any THREE of these areas, one of which is content value. You choose the other two or more if you wish.
○ Content value: how appealing is the content for its target audience? -- you will have to identify the target audience and include in your report how you know that this is the target audience
○ Visual design: how well does the website adopt modern web aesthetics, including mobile responsiveness, layout, color scheme, use of white space, and use of images?
○ Usability: how appealing are the actions users can take on the website for a target audience? See usability.gov
○ (Links to an external site.)
○ for of concepts of user interface elements
○ Progressive Disclosure
○ Culturally Responsive Design
○ Content prioritization
○ Typography: how well does the website use fonts? Are they appropriate? Appealing? Readable?
Use this Content Audit Template
(Links to an external site.)
to help you. - Next, compare the company website you are auditing to that of its competitor.
To work with the content audit template, create a simple table with the following information in Excel or another spreadsheet program in which you enter the criteria you are using to assess the sites. For example:Remember you are selecting any THREE concerns. Write your report. - Column 1: Link
- Column 2: Visual design notes
- Column 3: Typography notes
- Column 4: Content notes
- Column 5: Interaction design notes
Sample Solution