"Time, Place, and Manner" Works for 1st Amendment Law – and Content Strategy
Nothing is absolute. Even when it comes to our sacred American free speech. The Supreme Court has issued plenty of decisions about just when, where, and how we get to exercise our constitutional First Amendment rights, using a “reasonable time, place, and manner” standard.
If only the same rigor were applied to Content Strategy. You might recognize these scenarios where the appropriate time, place, and manner considerations are tossed aside:
1. “Don’t worry creating a bunch of custom news updates – our PR agency puts out plenty of carefully-edited press releases we can use for the website.”
2. “The videos from our weekend conference look great just as they are, and cost us a pantload too. Get those up on our home page ASAP! We might as well get as much mileage as possible from them.”
3. “Our social media followers obviously want to hear more about us, so EVERY news story we’re mentioned in should immediately go on Facebook and Twitter and Pinterest and TumbleIt or whatever. Oh, and make sure we always ask for newsletter signups when we do – front and center so it won’t be missed.”
4. “We already have a fine team of in-house print magazine writers plus piles of pre-written articles. Why go out and blow more cash on hiring some ‘content’ person for our social media channels when we have a bunch of writers and a ton of material right here? Seriously, isn’t 'optimization' basically a buzz word?”
Just a few scenarios that can cause a content strategist to break out in hives.
