Empowering higher education to create and sustain web content that works
The following guest post was written by Katy Zimmerman, Content Strategist at Colorado Technical University. What if I told you that you have a team of expert writers at your disposal? It’s true. Content professionals in higher education are sitting on a potential gold mine of untapped authors. University faculty are subject-matter experts in their field, and many also have excellent writing chops. But how can you best use these [...]
Any digital initiative — be it a website redesign, a social media campaign, or an enewsletter — should follow a content-first approach. But, as content strategist Corey Vilhauer reminds us, “There is no universal content strategy methodology.” Thanks to the insights shared from our peers across higher education and the broader world of content strategy, we have a lot of models to learn from and adapt for our needs. Yet, [...]
Web content workflow and governance include many moving parts. In order to keep the wheels turning, roles and responsibilities must be defined to make sure that all work gets done and that content contributors have clear expectations about their own and others’ responsibilities. As described in Content Strategy for the Web, 2nd Edition by Kristina Halvorson and Melissa Rach: "It’s critical for each person to know what their role is [...]
Whether we’re planning content for a homepage, a blog, a news site, a Twitter account or some other destination, an editorial calendar is an essential tool for making sense of the who, what, when, where, why and how of our content: Who is responsible for creating this? What content type are we publishing? When will we publish this content? Where will we publish it? Why are we publishing this? How [...]
For web professionals in higher ed, keeping content up to date is an uphill battle. Regardless of the size of your institution, as a content professional you still have to deal with numerous subject matter experts, content contributors, editors, approvers, and publishers. Content has a shelf life, and without processes for maintaining it, it can quickly become ROT. Editorial workflow for the web is a challenge for day-to-day work, not [...]