What Content Strategist Don’t Like About their Role

By Noreen Compton

Update 05/02/20: Enjoy reading our results from our 2014 Content Strategy Survey. Then help us find what has changed in the last few years by taking our 2020 Content Strategy survey.

In the 2014 Content Strategy Survey, we asked, naively:

If you could change one aspect of your current role, what would it be?

We got 579 answers. They are summarized below.

How would you answer the question? Are you surprised by these answers?

GET NO RESPECT

  • Executive leaderships investment & appreciation
  • Support and recognition of all stakeholders.
  • To get more support for the many different roles I am required to play.
  • We need professional associations who can offer further education.
  • Make it a proper job
  • Organizational acceptance and larger budget allocations.
  • To not have my role be a second thought, i.e., to be thought of as integral as a developer or project manager (who are usually the ones who insist on bringing me into a job).
  • Hire real content strategists to do this work
  • Get CS more involved up front; don’t wait until the site has been designed and then ask us to come in and “deal with the content stuff”
  • Having clients actually do what we recommend
  • For those at the highest levels to understand that we are problem solvers – that there is more to content than copy and paste!
  • I wish we could have more of a long-term impact on our clients’ content strategy and implementation of our work.
  • Have the power to fully implement policies related to content (in the very broad sense) creation and management
  • More outside support for technical questions aimed at librarians (subject specialties

CLARIFICATION, PLEASE

  • Better recognition of this as a discipline. Although that is likely our (my) fault.
  • More definition around the content strategy discipline and where it fits into the overall digital process.
  • Having best practices to use for my job
  • Change in title to more accurately portray what I do.
  • More clearly defined roles within the project team.
  • I need my job description and title to reflect content strategy – right now I’m severely underpaid and valued as simply a “writer.” I do so much more than that, and want to as well!
  • I would like my seniors / bosses to have a better understanding of my role than they currently do. They need training as well!
  • Make the IT department and corporation understand that a website is a communication tool, not a file repository
  • More understanding of the role of a content strategist throughout my organization
  • More transparency between myself and the client, in regards to my role and responsibilities.
  • Having an in-house mentor. No one else here does what I do, and so I’m generally in the dark about what I need to be doing. It’s hard to know what I don’t know.
  • Making people more aware that good upstream content strategy means better product downstream

STRATEGY VERSUS EXECUTION

  • More strategy, less execution.
  • More time from my team to work on moving forward our Content Strategy Roadmap, rather than tactical, release work.
  • Spend more time for big-picture analysis/strategy, less time down in the weeds
  • Strategic impact

MARKETING AND SALES

  • Focus less on content for our product and focus more on marketing and sales collateral creation.
  • More autonomy.
  • More power in overall marketing and business strateg
  • Over-emphasis on marketing to the detriment of a beneficial user experience and strong brand consistency.
  • Spend more time doing content marketing

DIGITAL VERSUS NON-DIGITAL

  • Currently my position influences multichannel development, but it is primarily Digital — would like to evolve role to have greater influence on development of non-digital as well as core digital channels
  • More digital
  • More multi-channel

HELP!

  • More time to get the work completed properly
  • Better pay
  • To focus more on some specific aspects rather than being spread so thin across many roles.
  • Hire more people to help.
  • More time and money for the creative process.
  • Bigger budgets!
  • Spend more time producing content relevant to the users, and less time producing/maintaining useless content just because it is contractually obligated.
  • I manage our Content Strategist. She is pulled in many directions so I’d love to get all other responsibilities off of her plate.
  • More time for planning
  • More organization around me!
  • A way to keep myself better organized

EMPLOYEE VERSUS CONTRACTOR

  • I would work as an regular employee for the company, rather than as a contractor employed to fix a long standing problem – content management is an ongoing role, not a one and done task.
  • Have the ability to work directly with clients rather than through an agency.
  • More gigs
  • More consulting clients. I enjoy strategizing and guiding clients with their content

WHY CAN’T WE ALL JUST GET ALONG

  • If I could lessen the territorial nature of content-related disputes, that would be great.
  • Greater recognition for content strategists who focus on editorial content. The “Digital” group thinks they own and invented everything.
  • Not having to fight to get others to let me do my job effectively.
  • Integration with wider agency & other teams
  • Have a content manager who worked for me and policed/implemented the governance
  • Work closer with design & UX
  • Project teams aren’t very welcoming. They don’t understand the role and feel that it infringes on their responsibilities

AND MORE…

  • More cheddar.
  • More stable platforms to work on 😉
  • Less stress
  • Variety of work – more than one project
  • I’m currently straddling the line between my old career – UX – and my new one – CS. My firm has me working alternately in each, but it might be nice to have more CS work.
  • To simplify it!
  • More focus on content security
  • Less focus on content as an output, more as a design input.
  • Lessen the influence of developers in the content modeling and work process. It’s not a product for dev teams; CS has a much broader focus.
  • Better integration with technical areas where content is generated
  • More experience / time spend in the production of content.
  • Dislike that content strategy is getting separated from UX and pushed over to CMS
  • To improve the ease of clients finding the information they need
  • Increased influence over platforms and global process
  • Streamline process for content approval
  • Greater value and appreciation for original content creation
  • The poor (not fit for purpose) CMS
  • Better selling of content by sales
  • More input on the UX and design fronts.
  • I would spend less time writing social media messages and more time

measuring and doing strategy/analytics.

  • Greater influence on product development
  • Customer’s perception about my work worthiness
  • Restrictions on software by corporation
  • Like to have control over the CMS and not have to accept so often that “The CMS can’t do that,” when I suspect it can.
  • Find more repeatable business
  • Continue to push for a voice in the Creative process. I have just joined a new agency to build out their CS practice and our Creatives are very new to the idea.

AND…

(Some people are living the dream…)

  • None
  • Nothing.
  • Nothing. I love my job and team.
  • Nothing! I work for myself and love it. Worked hard to make it happen.
  • Not a thing. I’m new in this role (about 5 months) and I’m absolutely loving it. It’s my first true pure content strategy role – very little writing, pretty much all CS.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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