Sr. Content Strategist
Perficient
April 2024 - Present
Helping Fortune 500 companies tackle their biggest content challenges through taxonomy, information architecture, and content design. Working collaboratively on large interdisciplinary teams to deliver complex content strategies to our clients.
Sr. UX Content Strategist
Productive Edge, Chicago
August 2021 - April 2024
Promoted to senior level based on overall performance and meeting goals. In this role I have more responsibility, including leading my own projects, supporting business development, and influencing the company's digital strategy offerings.
UX Content Strategist
Productive Edge, Chicago
March 2019 - August 2021
Providing valuable content strategy and CX services to our clients in the healthcare, travel, retail, and finance industries. My main projects have included modern headless CMS implementations, digital content strategy, website and mobile app launches, intranet design, enterprise digital asset management, email marketing platform implementations with complex customer segmentation and personalization, workflow and change management, accessibility improvements, and organic SEO. Tasks often include tackling complex audits, user experience research, customer journey mapping, taxonomy, UI design, and content modeling to ensure efficient omnichannel distribution of content. Working with developers, UX designers, product owners, and stakeholders, we strategize and design scalable digital business solutions.
Content Strategy & Digital Marketing Consultant
Zoe B Jacobs Content Strategy Consulting
2012 - Present
On nights and weekends, I enjoy doing freelance and contract projects for local small businesses. Through my own consulting services business and through those of my close colleagues and friends, I provide tightly-scoped, a la carte content strategy and digital marketing services. Most of this work has been in Social Media Strategy, Community Management, Organic SEO, Email Marketing, Copywriting, and Content Marketing. I bring my breadth and depth of digital strategy knowledge to each project I take on, helping my clients reach their goals in impactful and cost-effective ways. I've mainly worked with clients in the education, craft beer, CBD, and packaged goods industries.
Web Content Administrator
DePaul University, Chicago
April 2013 - March, 2019
When I began in this role my main duties included migrating university websites to our Responsive SharePoint platform, implementing structure and information architecture changes, and auditing content. I also consulted on content strategy and information architecture for departments across the university. Using a customized CMS, we implemented new features and UI improvements, and managed training and documentation. I functioned as a liaison between the Digital Experience & Analytics department, the University Marketing department, and our various university clients. I regularly collaborated with developers and UX designers to implement strategic enhancements to meet the functional needs and business goals of clients and end users.
I led content strategy for the development of new sites, IA overhauls, redesigns and other projects. I also consulted on SEO and wrote editorial content, marketing copy, and microcopy. Our team measured site performance and provided data-driven solutions to stakeholders and site owners. I served as a subject matter expert for web content, structure, usability, and the ins and outs of the platform for users from copywriters to directors. I was the main user advocate and client advocate for the editing side of our CMS. Managing the needs of external and internal audiences, we created meaningful and useful sites that helped further the mission of the university and supported the digital experience of students, faculty, and staff.
Panelist
Chicago Content Strategy Meetup: Conference Roundup Panel, June 2018
I was one of three panelists at a Chicago Content Strategy Meetup event in June 27, 2018 about content strategy conferences. We talked about the various conferences we've been to, their merits and drawbacks, and how to get the most out of conferences. See photo above.
Podcast Guest, Helix Education: Enrollment Growth University, 2018
"Episode 38: Web Governance at DePaul University w/ Zoe Jacobs"
I was a guest expert on Helix Education's Enrollment Growth University podcast for an episode about Web Governance. I talked about different governance strategies, tips and tricks for establishing a new governance model at a higher ed institution, and how we do web content governance at DePaul.
2016 Higher Ed Experts Content Conference (HECO16)
"Bringing Academic Program Pages Home: Merging academic and departmental content"
At this online conference, I spoke about decentralized academic program content and how we tackled figuring out a solution to merge program pages and department sites within our colleges.
"In the fight between decentralization and centralization, issues of duplication and IA standardization are front and center. In this case study, Zoe Barker will explain how DePaul University took a live college site’s biggest content problem head-on. She will share lessons learned about content auditing, mitigating issues when making large-scale changes, and how this project helped spread the word on governance at her institution."
Confab Higher Ed 2016 (ConfabEDU)
Philadelphia, PA
"From bad to worse to nearly perfect: Making large-scale IA changes to a live site"
Similar to the Higher Ed Experts presentation, my colleague Kelsey and I took a deep dive into the planning process and execution of making IA changes to a live site (outside of a site-wide launch) to restructure content and improve SEO and usability. We went over our pitfalls and successes and gave advice for related project planning. And we used The Wizard of Oz as a theme for it all.
Want to have me speak at your event or on your podcast? Email me: zoebarkerjacobs@gmail.com