Part 4: 12 things I’ve learned about content (in 12 years of running a content agency)
This lovely content agency Crocstar is celebrating its 12th birthday. To mark the milestone I’m sharing 12 things I’ve learned about content during that time. Some of these lessons are hard-won so please enjoy the far easier act of simply reading them.
Want the other lessons? Don’t care about the order? You wild thing: here’s part three, part one and part two.
10. The value of good content needs to be articulated.
Because pretty much everybody can write, goes the theory, why would you hire a company to do the words for you?
Plenty of reasons:
you don’t have the time
you’re too close to the information and are overwhelmed
you’re not confident in doing it
you don’t know how to get the results you want using content (i.e. behaviour change).
Content creation is a process. It takes time to create, refine, test and amend. It’s expensive to create and difficult to measure results. Which is exactly why you want to make sure it’s being created with care by people who have experience.
Over the years I’ve learned to explain the value of hiring a content agency to clients in a way that makes sense for their needs. They need to know what they’re buying (and that content creation is a collaborative process, not a full outsource job).
11. You can’t please everybody.
What is writing, really? It’s a way to transfer information from one person to another. It’s not the only way to do it, of course, but it can be an effective and fairly cost-effective way. What needs to happen for the information to be transferred?
The information needs to be understood.
It needs to be structured.
It needs to be articulated.
All these things need to happen while taking account of the fact that you (the writer) don’t know how much the readers know. Humans have a tendency to not be able to imagine that others don’t know what we do (the cognitive bias known as ‘the curse of knowledge’).
It’s pretty complicated stuff and it’s no wonder the writing is contentious. When you end up in discussions around whether it should be this word or that, part of what you’re fighting for is that your mental model is valid. That what you think and the way you think it is right.
If you don’t understand what you’re writing about, you won’t be able to make your writing understood. And how could you? Writing is not only about choosing the words, it’s about the level of comprehension you have about the subject so you can choose the right words. (And the right order.) (And what to leave out.)
There’s also a difference between writing for fun and writing to be understood or to help other people understand something.
Writing can be an act that brings people together by giving them the same information but, depending on what people already know, it’s not necessarily an equal act.
12. The more I know about content, the less I know.
I’m almost 20 years into my content career so I’ll just leave this here.
That concludes my 12 thoughts about content - one for each year of Crocstar’s existence. Thanks for spending this time with me and if you’d like to read the other posts you’ll find them here: part one, part two and part three. Want to talk about content with me? Get in touch right here, I’d be delighted.