Essay Sample on Content Strategies and Technical Communication

Technical Communication and Content Strategy

Marketing is a field that is continuously growing, and organizations must adjust accordingly to match the changes that occur in the market. As marketers find a way of reaching out to new clients and retaining existing customers, it is imperative that they develop the right strategies that can help their companies achieve their goals. Amidst these growing needs, marketers can leverage these demands using powerful tools of communication. Technical communication and content strategy are two areas of communication that are useful in the field of marketing. Initially, technical communication was used as a tool for marketing for organizations as it was designed to suit the needs of different departs and industries. However, technical communication proved to be inadequate creating the need for developing a content strategy as a means of complimenting the efforts of technical communication. At the moment the two are used interchangeably to enhance marketing strategies and realize organizational goals. Different authors have written articles, journals and research papers on the topic but there are still avenues for new research on how technical communication can contribute to content strategies in an organization.Technical communication has existed as a necessity particularly for manufacturing industries who manufacture products for different markets. It is through technical communication that the organization can be able to prepare appropriate communication that suits different markets. Consumers are always interested in learning how the products work, how the revenue generated is used and any future development on the product. As such, it becomes the role of technical communicators to offer direction on the best path that should be followed by the organization. According to Mehler, Romary & Gibbon (2012), technical communication is an integral part of organizational communication as it links different people within the organization. It is through technical communication that the organization can be able to get information on how the products perform in the market and what needs to be adjusted to suit the needs of a given market segment. Technical communication, therefore, supports the organization as it ensures that its products appeal to the customer base.

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Technical communication is an important aspect of product development. In product development, several units are involved with others engaging in research, product design, reviews, and actual production. As such, communication becomes necessary in this situation to ensure that things are in order and that none deviates from the norm. Morelli, Eppinger & Gulati (1995) in their research found out that forestalling the technical communication linkages in advance does not facilitate the execution of a project but also allows the smooth running of processes during product development. In the article, the authors note with great concern the need to identify the technical specifications of undertaking any project and putting in place technical communication to aid the ease of developing a product. As long as an organization engages in the production, technical communication comes in handy to aid the communication process in the organization and also offer direction on what suits the market.

The rapid changes in technology mean that the internet is taking over the role of information. As such, clients and other interested parties visit the web to such information about a product or the company marketing the product in question. The issue has brought the need to align technical communication to the web. As such, technical communicators need some training to be able to provide effective content and information that suits the needs of tech-savvy clients. Since the internet is free and open, there is a higher chance for people to post misinformed information that can likely mislead the users. Lipson & Day (2005) propose the development of a curriculum that can help technical communicators obtain relevant knowledge in this information age. The same knowledge can be applied to ensure that the organization has enough capacity to align its strategies to online expectations.

Technical communication is not static since technologies used in this kind of communication change. Besides, the strategies and goals of the organization do change creating the need to predict future changes in technical communication. According to Kherbachi & Qing Yang (2016), there is a need to make necessary adjustments to technical communication by predicting potential future changes in the field. Communication dynamics are changing so as the growing need for communication. Technical communicators need to continually make predictions and provide a clear roadmap on how to effectively respond to these changes. There is a need to develop different models that can aid future prediction of changes in technical communication to allow experts to come up with appropriate measures of responding to these changes.

In as far as technical communication is necessary for an organization, content strategies are required to ensure that the right information is delivered to the right markets. Content refers to the information being delivered in terms of appropriateness. Content strategies are required to aid technical communication since the former is the product of the later. According to Garrison (2018), there is a need to move technical communication off the grid. The assertions of the author show that the overreliance of technical communication in major aspects of the organization needs to be addressed. By moving from technical communication to content strategy, it would be easier to combine the two to transform marketing efforts within the organization. Batova & Andersen, (2016) recognizes content strategy has a unified effort that allows for the management of content in different sections of the organization. The interdisciplinary approach which forms the major focus of content strategies shows its recognition of the contribution of content from different stakeholders. The organization is in need of diverse content, and this can only be achieved by unifying the sources of different contents in the organization.

Content strategies require knowledge for one to be able to execute. The content strategy might appear to be an easy aspect, but it is a field where diverse knowledge is required for one to flourish. According to Andersen's (2014), research, rhetoric work is required in content management due to the varied needs of communication in the market. A content strategist should be able to identify the different needs of communication of consumers and develop unique content that would be appropriate for a given context. As such, such content cannot be developed without expert and varied knowledge in the field. There is a need to acquire the right skills and knowledge in content management for one to be able to work towards producing the right content that can be considered as a quality content strategy. Abel (2013) notes the need to have a vision in content strategy. The vision refers to the ability to plan future content as it is attractive to technical communicators. Since the future of marketing lies on content creation, technical communicator would seek to leverage on the strengths of quality content to achieve the communication needs of the organization. The same vision would allow content creators to seek new skills and knowledge through training to remain relevant in the dynamic business environment.

As the mandate of technical communicators shifts to developing content or aiding in the process of content management, there is a need to develop a sustainable content strategy for technical communication. Baehr (2013) argues that content strategy is the new source of knowledge to technical communication and as such, the two bodies need to work together for mutual benefit. Since technical communication relies on knowledge and this knowledge is made available through content management, a strategy that can unite the two needs to be developed. It is through such strategies that the right body of knowledge can be developed that can ease the process of developing new content strategies as well as realizing the objectives of technical communication. There have been several efforts to link the functions of content strategy and technical communication by different authors have concluded that the two can work interdependently. Clark (2016) argues that content strategy provides an opportunity for technical communicators to make their work more central to organizations. It is evident that technical communication is so critical to any organization but can only be effective through the input of content strategy. As such, organizations should find a way in which the two can be made to work together with the aim of transforming the communication abilities of different departments of the organization. It is through this relationship that technical communicators and contentment strategists can be able to reflect on some of the challenges they face and find a reliable solution.

The current marketing environment is being taken over by the digital space. Most consumers are now shifting to digital solutions, and marketers should also move to tap on the opportunities offered by digital consumers. As such, technical communication and content strategies should also be shifted to accommodate the growing needs of digital consumers. There are growing avenues of reaching these consumers such as social media and websites. As such, content strategies should be developed to meet the information needs of this group of consumers. The strategy should ensure that consumers can access accurate content of products and timely response to all the queries. Gavilanes, Flatten & Brettel (2018) argue that there is a need to optimize the use of social media so that we can engage customers. The shift to online purchases as seen most consumers communicating with the companies through online platforms. As such, it is important to shift content strategies to develop appropriate and relevant content to this group of emerging consumers. The strategies should be aligned with technical communication to facilitate easier better development of interfaces that ease the consumers' process of making a purchasing decision.

There are different opportunities in the field of marketing in which technical communicators can be able to exploit. Molisani (2013) through her article provides information on how one can be able to be a content strategist. In the article, the author argues that technical communicators are better placed to content strategist as they only need to acquire the relevant skills and focus more on developing content. Since there is a thin line between the two, then technical communicators can easily shift to focus on content creation. Besides the skills of content audit, content matrix, and comparative audit required in content strategy can be easily learned or transferred to technical communicators. The contribution of Boedy (2017) in this debate raises an important topic of ethics and how it is relevant in this field. In the field of marketing, there is a great use of communication, and in other cases, marketers might find themselves engaging in communication that can be considered unethical. The process of creating content and implementing technical communication strategies should be done in a manner that observes ethical standards. As such, content strategists and technical communicators need to familiarize themselves with the ethical standards required in this area of marketing.

Conclusion

In conclusion, different authors have contributed their ideas to this topic and have provided extensive literature that can be used for research. However, existing...