Engineering Makes Content Work

There used to be a time when if something went wrong with your car, you could pop the hood, turn a spanner, change the bits that needed to be changed and be on your way again. And you had to do it frequently. Today’s cars are more complex, more reliable — and they deliver a completely different experience. They’re no longer about reaching a destination in good time and without breaking down on the way. We now take that for granted. They’re about the experience of the journey, how the driver feels as he or she turns the wheel, waits for the next satnav instruction, or takes a phone call. The engineers who plan cars are no longer mechanics; they’re designers of the driver’s experience.

The same is true of the work of content engineers. We give the people who navigate content the best possible experience so that a click on a call to action becomes as satisfying and comforting as the smooth “click” of the driver’s door that an engineer has spent so long perfecting.

The engineering behind that content may be no more obvious than the engineering of the latch on the car door — but’s it’s also no less complex.

Content Strategy Requires An Infrastructure

Narrative Science, for example, inputs basic facts such as stock results and sports events, and combines them with formulaic text to create content that’s entirely automated. Those reports now run on outlets as big as Forbes, where users keen to know how a stock has performed can get the prose without a human writer’s poetry… then use that knowledge to make their financial decisions . They’re getting relevant content in an entirely new format. It’s content engineering at its most nerdy.

A more simple form of content engineering is the way that content itself is laid out. The decision to use sub-headings and bold type to highlight key points in an article — and to continue with that format on all subsequent articles — may be basic and simple to implement but it’s that attention to the customer’s needs and habits that helps to create a sense of orientation and community. Drivers know when they’re in a Mazda or a BMW even before they’ve turned the key. Content engineering should give users the same sense of identity — and identification.

But the most important form of content engineering is the planning that goes into the content strategy: the drawing of a content map, the building of a digital communication infrastructure, the crafting for a company of a customized box of tools that enables them to create sustainable and engaging content to reach their goals.

Content engineering  isn’t just about the words a writer puts on a Web page or the shot the video maker plans as she writes her script. It’s about innovative ideas, the novel use of products and solutions, the formation of new connections and methodologies to create an engaging user experience and support the corporate business marketing plan. It’s about crafting an experience with which users identify.

Today’s cars might be much more complex than they used to be but they’re also a lot more comfortable. Designed with the user experience in mind, they have seats that warm legs, adjustable steering wheels and even automated parking. Like well-planned content, they work — and they make their users want to come in, feel comfortable and engaged, and stay.

To discover how our C3 Customer Engagement Ring can create a process for your content, talk to us at contact@astelo.com.

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