UKTI is undergoing transformation and part of that process is making sure the organisation knows how content is commissioned, created, distributed and managed once it’s live.
A content strategy is the piece of work that pulls this information together, and we’ve just created UKTI’s first content strategy.
Overview of UKTI’s content strategy
- to understand our users’ needs and share those insights with the rest of UKTI
- to know what information and content UKTI has and where it lives
- to set out the UKTI content proposition (encompassing: what should be produced, the creation processes, publishing channels and content lifecycle)
- to improve the quality of content produced by UKTI
- to use user insights to create effective content for campaigns
- to grow capability by developing a global digital engagement plan
Why we have a content strategy
The content strategy works out much more than just what we do with the content once it’s been created. UKTI has a range of audiences - both inside and outside the organisation - so it’s important we recognise all of their needs in the strategy.
We are making it easier for people across the organisation to understand content. By making our content plans open we will be more consistent with what we publish. It will be easier to make publishing decisions because we will know who owns the content and will be able to see the user research and feedback.
Using the content strategy to focus our efforts on helping users will help us achieve our volume and value targets.
Using best practice from the industry
In a white paper, How International Brands Manage Customer Engagement, global translation company Lionbridge looked at the practices of leading and non-leading brands around the world. The UKTI content strategy shares many of the same ideals and approaches as the leading brands:
- understanding customer preferences (we call them user needs) is the priority
- having a creation and publishing model with central governance yet local control over execution (“locally produced content gets rigorously reviewed, but the key is a process that works quickly”)
- having a need for approval to publish (survey results in the UK, France and Germany show 56% of leaders require approval, as compared to only 29% of non-leaders)
- recognising that “moving from campaign to programme is a vital part of international customer engagement”
- using partners to support the organisation’s publishing efforts (the research showed leaders use specialists but maintain internal expertise in producing and distributing the content)
The content strategy in action
We’re at the first stage of introducing something new. Undoubtedly there will be plenty of learning opportunities along the way as we try different things to meet our objectives. What is certain is that we will be changing the way we work as we try to make UKTI’s content more open, accessible and useful to users around the world.
1 comment
Comment by David James posted on
Thanks for sharing Christine and Anne. I'd like to align the UKEportAdvice.co.uk video and podcasts content as closely as possible to UKTI strategy. Will you be sharing the strategy itself? David