/cont/ - Content Strategy

ann handley's right about ai stripping out the weird bits that actually make writing good.
>personality is what keeps readers coming back
if we just use prompts to clean up every sentence, we're basically just making bland soup for nobody to eat lol. hard to see how you even scale a brand if everything sounds like a generic template.

more here: https://annhandley.com/what-ai-would-delete-from-great-writing/

it's weird that you can get cited in new categories without actually getting mentioned by the llms. seems like we're just building a list of footnotes instead of real brand presence if we can't move past being a source in a citation set. anyone else seeing this happen with their bigger clients?

article: https://www.growth-memo.com/p/does-topical-focus-make-your-brand

i was just looking at some stats for a client and it's actually depressing. over 80% of marketing teams are using ai for stuff already. we're all just drowning in drafts that look exactly the same. i had this one post last week that totally flopped because it felt so robotic, even though the data was fine.
>The result is that teams have more drafts than they can review.
it's not even about speed volume anymore. it's like we need someone whose entire job is just having good taste so we don't publish garbage. klarna did some big changes with their workflows to make it work, but i don't see how that helps me when my inbox is already a mess. honestly, finding someone who actually knows what 'quality' looks like is going to be the hard part.

article: https://contently.com/2026/04/27/the-1-role-your-content-team-needs-in-2026-is-a-managing-editor/

just saw this list of blog examples and it's basically just a giant checklist of things everyone already knows. telling people to use screenshots like matthew woodward does or being generous with expertise is not exactly ground breaking advice. the part about mimicking news publishers like dell feels pretty impossible for anyone without a massive budget and a huge staff. i don't see how most small teams are supposed to just hire professional content staff out of nowhere. it's mostly just common sense stuff about being helpful or using case studies. even the bit about asking sales teams for stories at microsoft story labs is something any decent strategist should be doing already. there isn't much here that actually solves a real workflow problem. it's all just high level fluff that sounds good in a presentation but doesn't help when you're staring at a blank doc. does anyone actually find value in these generic "best practice" lists anymore?

article: https://coschedule.com/blog/blog-examples

been seeing so many clients trying to use passive phrasing to hide bugs.
>the update was implemented to address stability issues
it's such a transparent way to avoid saying they broke the database again. anyone else seeing this much cowardice in technical copy lately?

I've been rushing through my drafts lately and it really shows in the lack of engagement.
>It's almost like we're on a production line at times
The idea is to actually treat it like crafting something instead of just punching out words for the sake of hitting publish. I tried using this new markdown editor for my notes earlier, but I'm not sure if taking more time to define the topic actually helps with getting past that initial hook.

link: https://problogger.com/how-to-craft-a-blog-post-10-crucial-points-to-pause/

it's pretty much common sense that you can just rewrite stuff, but it's annoying how people act like they've run out of things to say after 6 or 12 months.
>I particularly look for posts that I either disagree with
i usually just delete my old garbage instead of trying to update it. does anyone actually find value in reading through years of old archives?

article: https://problogger.com/what-to-do-when-youve-said-everything-there-is-to-say/

adding a manual reading time label is great for user experience , but you can automate it w/ a tiny script. this snippet calculates the total word count and divides it by an average reading speed.

const wordsPerMinute = 200;const text = document.querySelector('#content').innerText;const wordCount = text.split(/\s+/).length;const readingTime = Math.ceil(wordCount / wordsPerMinute);console.log([code]~ ${readingTime} min read

);[/code]
it makes your long-form guides feel much less intimidating approachable. just make sure to target the right container so you dont count navigation links by accident ⚡ **always use a regular expression to handle extra whitespace lmao

just saw some stuff about enterprise email marketing being stuck in the basics. everyone's still obsessed with cleaning lists and subject line testing like it's 2012 lol. we need to move past that boilerplate stuff if we actually want to hit the upmarket segment.
>Authenticate your domain. Clean your list. Write a compelling subject line-test before you send.
it's all so basic surface level. there's actual value in those advanced features but most teams are just stuck on the low hanging fruit. i don't know if my current stack even handles the more complex stuff needed for bigger clients though. feels like we're just spinning wheels with the same old tactics.

article: https://blog.hubspot.com/marketing/advanced-email-marketing-challenges

Saw something about Amazon grabbing old books to feed their models and it's honestly pretty unsettling.
>the value of human-written words
I don't know if I can trust any original content if the source material is just being scraped and recycled like this.

found this here: https://annhandley.com/dont-outsource-this-part-of-writing/