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August 27, 2020
|
5 mins to read

How to map out your learning content strategy

How to map out your learning content strategy, identify your most valuable content, and answer any potential questions your end users might have.
Helen Marshall
Chief Learning Officer

How can you best map out your learning content strategy?

Think of your learning platform like a wardrobe. You might have the best walk-in wardrobe in the world, but a wardrobe isn’t valuable without the clothes to fill it. Even more, when you step into your wardrobe, you want to be able to find the clothes you need, when you need them.

That’s why a content strategy is essential. It means you can continuously identify what you have, and plug the gaps with content to curate or create. Essentially, you’ll end up with your own internal Google which can answer any potential question your end users might have.

Map it out

Your aim is to get to a place where all the knowledge in your organisation is captured and accessible. Firstly, you need to create a content map to identify what you’re working with.

Set up a spreadsheet (or several) to understand what content you currently have and where the gaps are.

What you have

Probably a lot, but how much of it is valuable? Gather all your FAQs, systems training, ‘how tos,’ F2F handouts etc and put everything onto your content map, ready for a check up. The goal of this stage is to list out what you have and increase its value by organising and formatting it better.

When running each piece of content through your health check, ask yourself: is it too long? Is it specific enough? Is it out of date? Is it user friendly? Is it bite sized? Is it suitable for learning in the flow of work? Is it tagged and optimised for search?

What to find

There’s so much good content out there, and often a lot of it is free too! So, after your health check, see what the gaps are and use TED talks, YouTube, content libraries and whatever’s appropriate on the internet to plug those gaps.

If you have a Learning Platform like Thrive, you might be lucky enough to have auto curated tools such as getAbstract, Anders Pink and LinkedIn Learning that automatically pull content in for you, without needing to go and find it.

What you need to create

Once you understand what you have and what you can find, it’s time to create any new stuff to complete your content map.

User generated content (UGC)

Your goal here is to create the exact pieces of content that users are interested in finding. Their interest isn’t determined by lighting, or how expensive the camera is. It’s determined by speaking directly to the thing they’re keen to learn, in their own language and voice.

The people in your organisation have a huge percentage of the information you need, and UGC is the best and most effective way to harness it. It’s a huge strength in your content strategy, so get the experts involved in co-creating your content.

Tying it all together

You don’t need a learning platform to review and deliver your learning content strategy, just like you don’t need a wardrobe to organise your clothes, but it sure does help.

For example, a learning platform with machine learning and personalisation will automatically resurface and recommend relevant content based on behaviour, interests and skills. Additionally, any new Learning Platform (like Thrive!) will have a powerful elastic search engine, meaning smart search results are based on more than just keywords.

Lastly, once you’ve populated your internal Google with everything you’ve identified you need, you can then start creating pathways through your content. Not only is your new bite-sized and refreshed content consumable in the flow of work, but you can actually lead your users through the learning bit-by-bit in a coherent journey that’s effective and engaging.

That’s it. Interested to find out more about reviewing your learning content strategy? Watch the full recording now and explore how you can harness just-in-time-learning in your organisation.

More Stories

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See Thrive in action

Explore what impact Thrive could make for your team and your learners today.

August 27, 2020
|
5 mins to read

How to map out your learning content strategy

How to map out your learning content strategy, identify your most valuable content, and answer any potential questions your end users might have.
Helen Marshall
Chief Learning Officer

How can you best map out your learning content strategy?

Think of your learning platform like a wardrobe. You might have the best walk-in wardrobe in the world, but a wardrobe isn’t valuable without the clothes to fill it. Even more, when you step into your wardrobe, you want to be able to find the clothes you need, when you need them.

That’s why a content strategy is essential. It means you can continuously identify what you have, and plug the gaps with content to curate or create. Essentially, you’ll end up with your own internal Google which can answer any potential question your end users might have.

Map it out

Your aim is to get to a place where all the knowledge in your organisation is captured and accessible. Firstly, you need to create a content map to identify what you’re working with.

Set up a spreadsheet (or several) to understand what content you currently have and where the gaps are.

What you have

Probably a lot, but how much of it is valuable? Gather all your FAQs, systems training, ‘how tos,’ F2F handouts etc and put everything onto your content map, ready for a check up. The goal of this stage is to list out what you have and increase its value by organising and formatting it better.

When running each piece of content through your health check, ask yourself: is it too long? Is it specific enough? Is it out of date? Is it user friendly? Is it bite sized? Is it suitable for learning in the flow of work? Is it tagged and optimised for search?

What to find

There’s so much good content out there, and often a lot of it is free too! So, after your health check, see what the gaps are and use TED talks, YouTube, content libraries and whatever’s appropriate on the internet to plug those gaps.

If you have a Learning Platform like Thrive, you might be lucky enough to have auto curated tools such as getAbstract, Anders Pink and LinkedIn Learning that automatically pull content in for you, without needing to go and find it.

What you need to create

Once you understand what you have and what you can find, it’s time to create any new stuff to complete your content map.

User generated content (UGC)

Your goal here is to create the exact pieces of content that users are interested in finding. Their interest isn’t determined by lighting, or how expensive the camera is. It’s determined by speaking directly to the thing they’re keen to learn, in their own language and voice.

The people in your organisation have a huge percentage of the information you need, and UGC is the best and most effective way to harness it. It’s a huge strength in your content strategy, so get the experts involved in co-creating your content.

Tying it all together

You don’t need a learning platform to review and deliver your learning content strategy, just like you don’t need a wardrobe to organise your clothes, but it sure does help.

For example, a learning platform with machine learning and personalisation will automatically resurface and recommend relevant content based on behaviour, interests and skills. Additionally, any new Learning Platform (like Thrive!) will have a powerful elastic search engine, meaning smart search results are based on more than just keywords.

Lastly, once you’ve populated your internal Google with everything you’ve identified you need, you can then start creating pathways through your content. Not only is your new bite-sized and refreshed content consumable in the flow of work, but you can actually lead your users through the learning bit-by-bit in a coherent journey that’s effective and engaging.

That’s it. Interested to find out more about reviewing your learning content strategy? Watch the full recording now and explore how you can harness just-in-time-learning in your organisation.

More Stories

See all

See Thrive in action

Explore what impact Thrive could make for your team and your learners today.