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Archive for January, 2010
I know this will likely come as a shock to many of you, but I have a Twitter alert set up for “content strategy.”
It’s really extraordinary how the tweets about content strategy have EXPLODED over the past few months. A year ago, maybe I’d see one or two a day. Now, hourly, it’s mentioned dozens of times.
The thing that fascinates me is that it’s being used in about a hundred different contexts to mean a hundred different things.
Now, I don’t really care that people are using the term inconsistently. I’m not altogether invested in figuring out The One and Only Definition. What bugs me is that we seem to be missing the point altogether.
Content strategy isn’t just what content you publish. It isn’t deciding to publish more content than before. It’s not where you distribute it. It’s not a blog, and it’s not Twitter. And it definitely isn’t all about getting SEO results.
Content strategy is a plan to get you from where you are now with your current content (assets, operations, distribution, maintenance, and so on), to where you want to be. But for some reason, we want to skip that part and rush ahead to the execution piece. Which is why we tend to mix up content strategy … with tactics.
Is it a blog?
Early in the week,
Valeria Maltoni (ConversationAgent.com) wrote a terrific post called How to Develop a Content Strategy Process. I really admire the hell out of Valeria and was thrilled to see her tackle this topic. However, a few paragraphs into the post, I realized that she was specifically talking about how to plan for blog content.
If you’re a small business or an independent consultant, your blog may very well be 99 percent of your content. In this case, Valeria’s post is on the money. But for a mid-sized or large organization, if social media content is conceived and created in a silo (or siloes) apart from the organization’s other content channels, it opens the door for inconsistent messaging, irrelevant content for current target audiences, and so on. So it’s important to understand that a blog, like all social media, is (among other things) a channel through which to distribute branded content.
[Note: Just discovered that Valeria has changed the title of the post to “How to Develop a Content Strategy Process (for your blog)”.]
Is it where you get content?
Interesting content strategy thought. Newspaper is best of, Internet is more of, mobile is instant.
What he’s talking about, here, is a little bit of a mishmash. The newspaper supposedly curates the “best of” content (editorial curation). The Internet gives us “more of” content (volume). Mobile gives us instant “access to” content (distribution channel).
These are all components of content strategy, but none of them really is, per se, a content strategy.
Is it whether you pay for content?
Then we have the big brouhaha over The New York Times paid content model that was announced last week. In follow-up discussions, lots of bloggers referred to it as their paid “content strategy.” Is it? Or is it just a new business model?
(Note that The New York Times press release did not refer to the plans as a “content strategy.”)
Or is it… something else?
A few other mentions of content strategy, all of which are totally different from one another:
Okay. What the hell is it?
The most important thing to understand is this: Content strategy isn’t a bunch of tactics. It’s a plan.
It’s a well-founded plan, fueled by your business objectives and user goals. An achievable plan, created with your current business reality, content assets, and limited resources in mind. A future plan, for what’s going to happen to your content once you send it off into the world. And, most importantly, a profitable plan, where your measures of success ultimately have impact on your organization’s bottom line.
So, folks, let’s try not to gloss over this process as the industry’s latest “shiny new object.” Instead, let’s talk about content strategy as a way of doing business, a way of looking at our content not as a commodity but as a valuable business asset, worthy of our strategic consideration.
Posted in Uncategorized
My suburban neighborhood is pretty typical, with the exception of the 200-acre wooded park in the middle of it. I live right on the edge of the park, which means deer, ducks, pheasants, and turkeys roam near my house. And I enjoy that.
But a certain turkey has really started getting in my way. Literally.
He often hangs out on the corner of a four-way stop. At first it was funny, like he was waiting for the bus.
Then, this weekend as I approached the stop, the turkey was in the middle of the intersection. I waited for him to cross the road (I see the joke here), but he had other ideas. He headed right for my car and proceeded to block me every time I tried to swerve around him. He was so close I couldn’t even see him until his blue head popped up over the hood and he "gobble-gobbled" at me.
It was ridiculous. And maddening. I had no idea what to do. I wasn’t about to get out of the car—turkeys are surprisingly large. And this one clearly had no fear.
I finally escaped, and then I called Animal Control, who said, and I quote, "We’re aware of the turkey."
Apparently, even the local news had heard about this traffic-stopping bird. Police hadn’t been able to catch him. They even hired a professional trapper. And guess what? His trap was stolen.
Why? Because the neighbors like the turkey. They’ve been feeding him. They think of him as their mascot. They’ve even called city hall to protest his capture. They love this turkey so much that they are willing to put up with the hazards and annoyance this turkey imposes on, well, me.
So. Do you have any turkeys on your website? Let’s discuss.
A navigation "concept"
Website navigation helps users find the information they’re looking for. Sometimes.
The Flash-powered navigation on thomasedison.org includes an impressively long list of Edison’s inventions. But it literally spirals and moves as you use it, and the font is so small it’s illegible. I want to know more about Edison, but the design is getting in my way.
Here’s another example: The tiny gray boxes at the top of the site for fashion designer Alexandre Herchcovitch may look sleek, but as unlabeled navigation they tell you absolutely nothing about the content—unless you click each one. (P.S. Incredibly loud intro music and no off button? Isn’t that against the law?)
Give me what I’m looking for
If you give me a text link, make sure that when I click I get whatever the text tells me I will.
If a "Read more" link on a "Project Management Courses" page goes to a video, that video should give information on course content. It shouldn’t just show course participants saying "hi." This is only interesting to the people in the video.
And the video ending, showing a participant in his underwear and covered with Post-It notes, helped me decide to never sign up for these classes.
Show, don’t tell
Don’t fall victim to the "blah blah blah." Just give me the goods.
Ladder Golf site visitors are likely interested in ordering this new game or learning how it’s played. So the homepage doesn’t need all kinds of content telling them why the product is so great. Instead, move that animated banner demonstrating the game from way at the bottom of the page to the top, and give visitors what they want.
Too much fun
If you’re looking for product information on the Beggin’ Strips dog snacks site, you’re in for some unexpected fun. Play games! Put a picture of yourself and your dog in a music video! Lots of fun—and no actual product info anywhere. Hmm. Bacon-flavored turkey?
Why did the turkey cross the road?
I don’t care. Because it’s not funny.
Do you have turkeys on your website? No matter how fun, cute, or beautifully designed a turkey is, if it keeps users from getting to the information they want, then it’s causing an annoying, even aggravating, experience.
Think of it this way: Does anyone want a turkey getting in their way? No, they don’t. Trust me.
Posted in Content Strategy, User Experience
Recently, Brain Traffic Twitter friend Taj Moore (@tajmo) asked us for some advice about copy for authenticated websites, or websites that require registration in order to log in for firewalled content and/or functions.
Taj wanted to know our thoughts on what to call members vs. non-members, and logged in members vs. non-logged in members.
Taj’s question inspired quite the philosophical discussion around here. And by “philosophical discussion,” I mean: “really long email chain.”
We like Amazon’s approach to labeling members.
In short, we side with Amazon’s way of doing things. But, as it is with anything of value, it was the ride that mattered. Here’s how we came to our conclusion.
Are there terms to diff. bw member logged in and member not logged in? "Guest" not useful bc conflates w/ non-member.
…Or another tack: how about a word for guest/visitor who is not a member?
…b.c. I am leaning toward "logged-in," "logged-out," & "non-member" but thought you might have better insight.
Kristina: Let’s discuss. Who wants to go first?
Katie D.: Just call everyone Earthlings. We’re all just people, after all.
Christine A.: Is he asking about a user-facing label? I’d question whether there is any value in showing those terms to users.
I like Amazon’s approach. They use a cookie to identify users who have accounts, and ask them to log in only when they do something significant like go to their shopping cart.
Amazon doesn’t tell people they’re logged in, logged out, non-member, etc. They just put the person’s name up there if the cookie is in place, or show a generic login link if it isn’t. They don’t need users to keep track of their own status.
If he’s asking about what the developers/UX people/etc should call it, it doesn’t much matter as long as they’re consistent and the labels identify clearly defined roles.
Elizabeth (her email passing Christine’s on the information superhighway from NYC):
I’d say, the first question is, how are these terms going to be used? Are they internal or user facing?
If they’re meant to be user-facing, they don’t really seem necessary. If the user is logged in to the site, you’d address them by name. If they’re not logged in, you’d probably call them a guest. If they’re a member who isn’t logged in, you can’t really know that. Not sure why it’d be necessary to label each separately, unless he’s talking about terms to be used internally …
Angie K.: Whoa. It’s like Elizabeth and Christine A. had a cross-country mind meld.
Elizabeth: We’re Vulcans!
Twitter says…
Address logged in members by name. Everyone else, guest. Internally, use whatever labels you like. Just be consistent, please!
Yeah, we heart Amazon. But nobody’s perfect.
When not logged in, Amazon covers all of the bases—member, non-member, logged in, or not logged in. Check it out:
- Hello—greets the user, whether a member or not.
- Sign in—invites members to log on.
- Start here—gives non-members the opportunity to create an account.
When you’re logged in, Amazon greets you by name and gives you the option to log off. Nice.
However, when I used our company’s login to do some office supply shopping the other day, “Not Brain?” had me giggling for hours.
Posted in Around the Office, Content Strategy, User Experience, Web Writing
Happy New Year!
(My New Year’s resolution was not to resolve anything this year. So far, I’m doing great.)
Say, I’ve gotten several requests for the "hive" diagram I use in presentations. It’s a simple, visual example of how web project team roles interact with one another.
This is it:
(click to see full-sized image)
I found the diagram on
Skillset.org back in ‘08, but apparently they’ve pulled it down since then. So, as my gift to you, here it is. Wield it within your organizations at will.
Posted in Content Strategy, Editorial Strategy, Uncategorized, User Experience, Web Content, Web Writing
As a writer or a content strategist, it’s your job to advocate for useful, useable, and on-brand web content. Like it or not, that responsibility includes unsexy stuff like error messages, functional copy, and automatic feedback copy.
Like most users, I never thought twice about automatic feedback copy until I ran into some bad examples of it. But since my experience on StratosphereHotel.com, I’ve done a lot of thinking about it.
What is automatic feedback copy?
Automatic feedback copy—also known as “automatic validation copy” or “real-time inline help”—is content that displays immediately after a user interacts with online content. It’s meant to guide the user’s actions to help them complete a task.
For example, it’s the “invalid email” message you get when you forget the “@domainname.com” part of your email address.
When automatic feedback copy goes awry
I recently signed up for email alerts from the Stratosphere hotel in Las Vegas, where I planned to stay. Filling out the contact form should have been a quick, easy task. Instead, I spent minutes struggling to understand their automatic feedback copy:
(click to see full-sized image)
What makes it bad automatic feedback copy?
They may seem harmless, but “Good Email” and “33 is perfect!” interrupt instead of support the user experience.
Here’s why. The copy:
- Doesn’t fit tone of the site
- Doesn’t move the user toward a goal
- May alarm the user
Using the wrong tone
Automatic feedback copy can be sassy—as long as it matches the site’s overall tone. A departure in tone makes for an inconsistent—and therefore unprofessional—website.
Missing the user goal
“Good email” is probably the Stratosphere’s way of saying “valid email address.” But what’s the point of patting your user on the back for their data entry skills?
“33 is perfect!” is equally problematic. I’m not sure the message is the appropriate response for age verification. A “thank you” or simply removing the default message—“You must be 21 to sign up”—would suffice.
Alarming the user
For many users, red font screams: Caution! Danger! Error! But instead of a warning, the red text gave me a compliment. “Good Email” just didn’t make sense to me in that context.
Why automatic feedback copy matters
Like every piece of content on your website, automatic feedback copy is an extension of your brand. Be mindful of how your online brand reflects—or detracts—from the brick-and-mortar customer experience.
If our rooms hadn’t already been booked, I may have reconsidered staying at the Stratosphere. But in contrast to a frustrating online encounter, my in-person experience at the hotel was more satisfying than busting a blackjack dealer. I’m glad I took the gamble.
Posted in Content Strategy, Editorial Strategy, Web Writing
