The content that makes content leaders tick

Once upon a time, content took a backseat to product design, development, and marketing. Now, more organizations are taking a collaborative approach to experience design, where content creators collaborate with designers and researchers at the earliest stages of a product so that the words they write inform the design (as opposed to just filling up the space).

This is not to say that design, user experience, research, and engineering should become the new afterthoughts. Far from it — all of the above must work hand in hand to make sure that people get the content they need, when they need it.

The field of content strategy has come a long way in the last decade, and it’ll continue to evolve. Content leaders’ areas of expertise range from content design and design systems to content marketing and storytelling, and so much more. 

As the content industry grows, so too has the amount of educational content for the content strategy community. Here are some of the favorite sources of info from content leaders at Twitter, Intuit, and UiPath, all of whom are Writer customers.

Lisa Young

Content Strategy Manager, Twitter

Lisa’s recommended content strategy newsletters, blogs, podcasts, and more

• @TwitterDesign and @TwitterResearch
• Brain Traffic blog
• The Content Wrangler blog 
• Medium
• Peachpit Press content strategy books: “They carry all the good books!”
• Appcues blog
• Gather Content blog
• Coschedule blog
• Content Strategy Insights and Content Matters podcasts

Topics that make Lisa Young tick

• Structured content and content reuse
• Content AI
• Strings management
• Localization
• Accessibility
• Voice and tone
• Nudging
• Process design
• Terminology management
• Measuring content success
• Microcopy insights/best practices
• Content design
  

Michael Haggerty-Villa

Design Systems Lead, QuickBooks (Intuit)

Michael’s favorite design systems and content thought leaders

• Design Systems News newsletter by Stu Robson

“There’s a lot of discussion about design systems, tech, processes, people, etc.”

• UX Collective on Medium
• Information Architecture Conference
• Nathan Curtis
• Jina Anne, design systems consultant and co-author of Design Systems Handbook
• Kerry McGrane, Ethan Marcotte, and Jeff Eaton, partners at Autogram
• Jennifer Schmich, Sr. Manager of Content Systems at Intuit, who writes about strategy, structure, and AI on UX Collective
• Michael Andrews of Story Needle

Topics that make Michael Haggerty-Villa tick

All the systems working together: design systems, content systems, visual systems, and interaction systems. 

Kate McDaniel

Blogs Editor, Global Content, UiPath

Favorite content marketing newsletters, blogs, and more

• Content Marketing Institute newsletter
• Jimmy Daly’s Swipe File weekly newsletter: “I also love his company’s (Superpath) recent interview series “The 100k Club.”
• Brafton’s blogs and reports
• Peter Shankman’s emails: “His emails often go into my swipe file — not because they are content specific, but because they’re examples of great email copy.”
• InVision’s Inside Design newsletter and blog: “I’ve long been a fan — they have such a fresh, relatable voice.”

Favorite thought leaders and speakers

• Seth Godin, author of This Is Marketing, Tribes, and other marketing books
• Katie Martell, on-demand marketer and author of Trust Me, B2B
• Joanna Wiebe, conversion copywriter and creator of Copyhackers
• Sallie Krawcheck, founder of Ellevest and Ellevate: “I first heard her speak at SaaStrAnnual and was blown away. Her presentation was so empowering and inspiring.”

Topics that make Kate McDaniel tick

• Content marketing 
• Brand voice and tone
• Copywriting
• Content marketing analytics/ROI metrics
• Tying marketing to customer journey/experience
• Diversity and inclusion