On Monday, Altimer Group Partner Jeremiah Owyang published an article titled:
Make Your Corporate Websites Relevant by Integrating Facebook, Google, MySpace, Linked In, or Twitter
The post provides a detailed list of "feature attribute benefits of social integration," as well as "who offers what" for "social networking integration features." It’s a beautifully constructed post, the kind of post thousands of marketers will likely print and refer to as a daily resource when planning their social media initiatives.
Now. I am a reasonable person. I fully recognize that Owyang is one of the leading, most well-respected social media analysts in the world. He blogs for the Forbes CMO Network, he speaks internationally about social media, and is an all-around highly influential guy. This reputation is likely well-deserved.
However. When one wields such powerful influence over powerful people, one must wield said influence responsibly. And, in my opinion, this is one irresponsible article.
Three years ago…
Monday’s post is presented in the context of an article Owyang wrote three years ago, titled "How To Evolve Your Irrelevant Corporate Website." Why did Owyang think our websites were irrelvant? Because most of the content on those websites was "an unbelievable collection of hyperbole, artificial branding, and pro-corporate content" that utterly failed to support any part of the customer sales lifecycle. Especially from the customers’ perspective.
Owyang’s position at the time was that the corporate website, as we knew it, was a lost cause. In fact, Owyang suggested that the only way we could ensure our websites remained relevant was to collaborate with our customers as equals in planning and producing content.
I remember this post well, because his "disruptive" ideas struck me as ridiculous. If we apparently still hadn’t figured out how to effectively plan for, create, deliver, and govern our own website content, how the hell were we going to incorporate user-generated content into the mix?
Obviously, I was in the skeptical minority. And skeptics are never sexy.
And then the world blew up.
Of course, conversations about social media exploded. Our customers were talking, and, if we were going to survive over the coming years, we needed to listen. So we rushed to find out where our customers were, what they were saying, and to engage them in conversation about our products and services. Simultaneously, CMOs demanded brand presence on YouTube, Facebook, MySpace, Twitter. Never mind why. Just get us there.
Now, look. It’s not my intention to downplay the importance and omnipresence of social media. Like anyone else who has a pulse, I believe in the power and potential of well-planned, well-executed, corporate social media initiatives. I believe it is our responsibility (and an unprecedented business opportunity) to meet our customers where they are, to listen, and to engage.
Social media, itself, is not the problem.
Here’s the problem, and it’s a doozy: to support our social media initiatives, we churned out content. Meanwhile, our marketing teams continued to publish content. Corporate communications, advertising partners, public relations, product and service managers… the flood of content continued.
And it continues today. Unchecked. Unmonitored. Unable to be measured. Inconsistent. Outdated. Out of control. More of the "hyperbole, artifical branding, and pro-corporate content" Owyang rightfully criticized as "irrelevant."
Content that no one cares about.
And now, this. As of Monday, Owyang appears to have forgotten about the content part of things altogether. Because now what he is proposing is that website "relevance" can be achieved by using "products that allow thriving communities of buyers and prospects to connect with static corporate sites."
The same static corporate websites that, for all intents and purposes, likely still suck.
Now we come to the irresponsible part.
CMOs and their counterparts looooove this kind of post. It’s well-researched, more or less comprehensive, concise, and well-constructed. I’m sure this has already been circulated (634 retweets to date!), printed, and discussed in meetings all over the country, if not the world. It’s an attractive post because it more or less sums up what we need to consider when choosing social media features for our websites. As Owyang puts it, the matrix is a resource to "fast forward research activies." It’s a matrix that, if referenced judiciously, Owyang promises will help us to make our corporate websites relevant.
He’s wrong.
By focusing solely on social media’s features, Owyang continues to perpetuate the pervasive illusion that, if we choose the right tools, our customers will converse with us, talk about us, and share our content.
You know. The "hyperbole, artifical branding, and pro-corporate content" most of our websites still feature.
The relevancy of our corporate websites is not dependent whatsoever on which social media widgets have been deployed throughout the site. Its relevancy is driven by our site content, no matter who is creating it. And that content requires as much, if not more, strategic planning and consistent oversight as do our social media initiatives.
Hey, CMOs: I’m talking to you.
It’s time for executive leadership to stop being distracted by social media features, "disruptive technologies," and the like. These are bright, shiny objects that pull focus from what makes or breaks every corporate website: whether or not your customers can find, use, and act upon content they care about. The stuff they came for. The stuff they want. The stuff they need.
Make your corporate website relevant by having a well-founded, sustainable content strategy. Let that content strategy inform the kind of content you create and share, how you share it, how you engage, and how you react. Define process. Allocate resources to content creation and maintenance. Align on content governance policies and guidelines.
So, go ahead. Print up that article. But take a big Sharpie and cross out the title. In its place, write this:
Social Media Features To Consider… Once We Have a Content Strategy
In January of 2009, I started telling people that content strategy would be the next big focus for organizations worldwide. I even went so far as to say, “Content strategy will soon be getting more attention than social media.”
Lots of folks smiled encouragingly, patted my shoulder, and told me to get back to my style guides. Some people just laughed at me. And that’s when I hit them over the head with my content inventory. Bam!
Well. Guess what.
Numbers don’t lie.
Here’s a look at Google search returns for “social media” over the past few years:
2005: 9,150,000
2006: 41,600,000
2007: 165,000,000
2008: 359,000,000
2009: 1,230,000,000
And now, here’s a look at Google search returns for “content strategy":
2006: 5,930,000
2007: 8,340,000
2008: 137,000,000
2009: 337,000,000
I’ll refrain from saying "I told you so." I’m classy like that.
Content strategy is more or less on the same trajectory as social media was three years ago. Why?
I think it’s because the reality of social media initiatives—that they’re internal commitments, not advertising campaigns—has derailed more than a few organizations from really implementing effective, measurable programs. Most companies can’t sustain social media engagement because they lack the internal editorial infrastructure to support it.
They don’t have a content strategy.
It’s not that this hasn’t been a problem for years. It’s simply that social media has made the problem more obvious (and more public) than ever before.
“Everything starts with a mission, and is fortified by the content we create.”
Social media rockstar Brian Solis recently published a landmark article that finally begins to identify social media for what it is: a component of content strategy.
One of the greatest challenges I encounter today is not the willingness of a brand to engage, but its ability to create. When blueprinting a social media strategy, enthusiasm and support typically derails when examining the resources and commitment required to produce regular content.
He goes on to say:
In the near future, brands and organizations will create new or augment existing roles for editors and publishers to create timely, relevant, and captivating content on all social media channels. This work is in addition to the other reactive and proactive social media campaigns that are already in progress.
Solis discusses the need for publishing calendars, editorial oversight, content performance analysis, and cross-discipline collaboration:
New media necessitates a collaboration between all teams involved in creating and distributing content, including advertising, interactive, communications, brand, and marketing — with an editorial role connecting the dots.
Is this sounding at all familiar?
This is enterprise content strategy in action. And it’s not just going to help us get social media right. It’s going to fix our content.
I’m not just talkin’ style guides, here.
Last year, I wrote a book called Content Strategy for the Web. It offers a pretty straightforward approach to planning for content in your web initiatives. The good news: I’m starting to get daily emails from people telling me how radically it’s changing their project processes and outcomes (in a good way, thank you very much).
And so, obviously, I’m a big fan of content strategy at the web-project level. It brings happiness and joy to all who practice it. (It makes us so happy here at Brain Traffic, it’s all we do.)
But content strategy isn’t only about projects, and it’s certainly not just for websites.
That said, web projects are a terrific place to see content strategy in action. At the project level, we see almost immediately how content strategy’s tools and methods can literally transform how we consider and care for our content, how they can streamline processes and conserve resources. We can quickly measure our customers’ reactions to finally getting useful, usable, engaging, actionable content.
But once we’ve witnessed content strategy’s effectiveness at the project level, it’s time to take several steps back and examine our organizations. Because content strategy can’t be truly effective over the long term without an internal editorial infrastructure to support it. And that means widespread organizational change.
The proof is in the practice.
At its core, content strategy isn’t really about content inventories, or messaging, or publishing calendars, or governance policies. It’s a way of thinking that has direct impact on the way we do business. And the way we do business must include a clear focus on how we create, deliver, and govern our content. Because more than ever before in the history of commerce, content has become one of our most valuable business assets.
It’s here. It’s real. Content strategy is the next big thing. But, people, let’s not do what we’ve been doing for so many years with the trends the pundits sell us. Let’s not gloss over content strategy by focusing solely on what we should be doing; let’s also focus on the why and how. Let’s work together to dive into the mechanics of it, the driving philosophies, the real-world resource requirements. Let’s share success stories from brands both big and small. Let’s not confuse tactics for an achievable, measurable plan.
Let’s start considering content at the strategic level so we can start to deliver the right stuff: content that matters, both to our audiences and to our bottom line.
Every time I give a content strategy workshop, there are two things I hear from participants.
The first is this:
We’re still doing content wrong in our company, and I’m really embarrassed about it.
Even if these aren’t the exact words attendees use, it’s the message they’re sending loud and clear every time they raise their hand to ask a question. “Sorry my company is so behind the curve, but…” or “I realize everyone else knows what they’re doing, but…”
Let me tell you something: There are very, very few organizations that actually have their acts together when it comes to content. Furthermore, no one knows where to start fixing their content. Tools? People? Time? Nonexistent.
You’re not late to the party. The conversation has only begun.
Here’s the second thing I hear:
This is hard.
Well, HELL YES, it’s hard. You’re not going to leave a workshop or a one-hour talk and go back to your company and suddenly find yourself with funding and staff and group hugs. (If that were the case, I would charge a lot more. Booyah.)
There’s a reason content strategy is The Next Big Thing, and it’s not because it’s easy or cheap. It’s because content is a huge, pain-in-the-ass, expensive, out-of-control problem. And, as with any big messy problem, getting to a solution is going to take time. Creating a smart plan for the creation, delivery, and governance of your web content means research and reflection. Trial and error. And selling your plan to The Powers that Be—winning attention, approval, and resources—is going to take even longer.
Be. Patient.
Ask smart questions. Be brave about sharing your insights. Don’t hesitate to point out what’s broken, or how your competition is doing it better. Use SEO results (or lack thereof) and content inventories and workflow analyses and anything else you can think of to frame your content problem.
Remember: While content strategy isn’t new, the conversation is. And it’s early. Don’t be in a huge rush, and don’t lose hope.
Patience. Persistence. A sense of humor. You’ll need them all if you want content strategy. Now, get to it.
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)”.]
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:
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.
(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.
Brain Traffic is taking some time off to celebrate the holidays with family and friends. Our office closes December 24 and will reopen on Monday, January 4. We’ll see you in the new year!
I just finished reading Michael Arrington’s "The End of Hand-Crafted Content" (also published elsewhere as "AOL’s New Fast-Food-Content Strategy Means the End of Journalism You Actually Enjoy").
Here’s a summary of how mass-produced content works:
Pieces [(content to be created)] aren’t dreamed up by trained editors nor commissioned based on submitted questions. Instead they are assigned by an algorithm, which mines nearly a terabyte of search data, Internet traffic patterns, and keyword rates to determine what users want to know and how much advertisers will pay to appear next to the answers.
Then, the assignment is posted to a ginormous database; it’s accepted by a freelancer somewhere, who then throws something together as quickly as possible because he’s only getting paid, like, four dollars to create it. (Want to know what the best vodka in the world is? A random bartender from a random bar in Florida KNOWS THE ANSWER!) (Uh, you’ll have to sit through the ad first.)
So, in one fell swoop, Demand Media—and now AOL—are both flooding the search engines with awful, terrible content and gleefully commodifying the work of writers, videographers, editors, and other media professionals around the world.
Does McDonald’s make more money than La Belle Vie? Of course they do. They’re freakin’ McDonalds. But La Belle Vie is running a very fine, profitable business, thank you very much, turning out exquisite French food that makes me want to weep with joy. (Even their cocktail menu is extraordinary.) (No, I do NOT say that about every cocktail menu.)
You don’t have to eat at La Belle Vie to appreciate the metaphor. Not everybody wants McDonald’s, and nobody wants McDonald’s all the time. People go out of their way to find what will satisfy, even delight, their appetites.
AOL and Demand Media (and dozens more competitors, I’m sure) are anathema to pretty much anyone who wants an even slightly obscure question answered online. But in the long run, I’m betting on people, not algorithms. Just because I clicked on your stupid video doesn’t mean I can’t use my back button.
How DARE he hide his content behind the iron curtain of non-indexing?
Murdoch isn’t stupid. (Old and confused, yes. Stupid? Not so much.) He’s talking about making a seriously bold move, here, in the interest of keeping his empire from crumbling. So why are people freaking out?
It’s JUST WRONG. Right?
When the religion of the Web is that you can find anything you want, from anywhere, at any time, Murdoch’s plan is straight-up blasphemous.
With this in mind, our faithful interviewer asked, "One of the key, underlying principles of the Internet is that anyone from anywhere in the world can access information freely. Wouldn’t this change mean people have to afford it?"
Murdoch replied, "They’re already paying for newspapers. And anyone can afford a newspaper, they’re the cheapest things in the world. Electronically, it will be even cheaper."
(This cracks me up, because, of course, the majority of the world’s population either can’t afford newspapers or simply don’t have access to them … at least, newspapers that offer unbiased, quality reporting.)
Here’s what Rupert thinks you should do.
Generally, Murdoch wants you to know that his content is actually Quality Content because he employs real reporters, real writers, and real editors who offer experienced, insightful points of view. Which, of course, is true. However, this argument also implies that people shouldn’t go looking for "quality content" on search engines. No, no. You should go straight to an established publisher’s website.
Unfortunately, the internets don’t care so much about the "should"s. There’s a reason Google gets about a bajillion times more traffic than every publication website in the world … combined.
More than anything else, Murdoch is counting on his current readership’s loyalty to his brands. He admits, though, that he’s not sure what that’s going to look like in five, ten, twenty years… which means that this ends up looking more like a Hail Mary pass than anything else.
Rupert, dear, you can’t kill search.
Online readers typically know what they’re looking for, and they want the fastest way to get it. They want to be educated or entertained. They want their questions answered, their lives made easier. They have the Google or Yahoo! or MSN toolbar built into their browsers. They’re going to use it.
Murdoch doesn’t seem to get this, or care. The rest of the world, of course, does. Including you. You’ve been obsessed with SEO and page rankings for years. You don’t have the option of breaking up with Google.
However, you also shouldn’t be so obsessed with Google that you neglect to remember this all-important fact: getting your content indexed by the search engines isn’t enough to win eyeballs that matter. Just because your users can find your content doesn’t mean you’ve won your battle.
Content first. Google second.
Here’s where you can take a page from our friend Rupert and start placing significant value on content people will care about. Editorial oversight. Quality research. Quality writing. These things actually do matter. They inspire trust and motivate action.
Getting to quality content is worth your organization’s investment: time, budget, people. Because once your readers arrive from Google, they’ll either like what they see and stick around for a bit, or lunge for the back button.
Remember, people: If you have a website, you’re a publisher. If you participate in social media, you’re a publisher. If you create emails, help text, product descriptions … you’re a publisher.
You may not be selling content, but your content is selling you. Google won’t solve your problems. Of course, ignoring Google won’t, either … sorry, Rupert.
P.S.
I just have to add this little gem: In the interview, Murdoch says that public broadcasting should be of the highest quality, which commercial broadcasting can’t afford to be. Then he tells us that " most of the stuff [public broadcasting does] is stolen from the newspapers now. And we’ll be suing them for copyright. They’ll have to spend a lot more money paying a lot more reporters when they can’t steal from newspapers."
A few weeks ago, there was a rather heated debate (some might call it a "smackdown") between a few industry luminaries and their supporting communities. On one side, the web development/user experience community. On the other, the SEO community.
This battle has been fought more than once before. Is it possible for well-built, awesome websites and products to be findable simply by being built "right"? Are web developers behind the curve when it comes to the latest, most effective SEO techniques? Is either practice absolutely necessary for online success? Are they both?
There were some great discussion points that arose in this most recent debate. Let’s review.
"Good SEO techniques are just good web development techniques."
First, there appeared an inspired rant by the inimitable Derek Powazek on the evils of the search engine optimization (SEO) consulting industry. Derek’s ire was fueled largely by his recent experiences working with publishing organizations that are sinking millions of dollars into SEO initiatives while laying off writers left and right. His argument:
Good SEO techniques are just good web development techniques. They should be obvious to anyone who makes websites for a living. If they’re not obvious to you, and you make websites, you need to get informed. If you’re a client, make sure you hire an informed web developer.
Derek received a lot of feedback on his post and responded with a post called SEO FAQ, which is also an interesting read.
"SEO is a legitimate form of marketing."
The post was pretty heated, and it spread (accordingly) like wildfire. It wasn’t long before the post reached Danny Sullivan, Editor-in-Chief of SearchEngineLand.com and one of the SEO community’s most revered leaders. Danny posted a response to Derek’s first post, and then again to Derek’s "SEO FAQ" post. In Danny’s second post, he said:
Web development is not SEO. Good web developers will understand the fundamentals of SEO, in terms of good site architecture, crawlability and so on. But… few of them are dialed into how to handle giving Google and others a shopping feed. Or a feed of real estate listings. Or the completely separate ranking aspects that impact YouTube (the world’s second most popular search engine). Are they putting out a full-feed that Google Blog Search prefers? Are they checking that the URL shortener you use on Twitter spits back a 301 rather than a 302 redirect, or worse, frames stuff up via a 200 code?
Who has the secret sauce?
So. Whose advice is key for businesses truly succeeding online?
Fundamentally, Derek believes that the best way to drive traffic to your website or product is this: "Make something great. Tell people about it. Do it again." His position is difficult to argue with. But, it’s also based on several faulty assumptions, not the least of which is that everyone who "makes something great" has the right people’s attention, online and off. And, frankly, most of us who want to promote our products or services really don’t.
From Danny’s point of view, helping individuals and organizations raise the visibility of their websites is instrumental to online success. Important, yes. Instrumental? Not so sure. What’s prioritized by SEO professionals is getting as many eyeballs as possible on the page. And yet, if what you’ve made isn’t great, you’re going to lose attention and possible conversions, fast.
Alignment: A girl can dare to dream
I’m a content strategist, which means I care deeply about the expertise and insights on both sides of the table. I want websites to be awesome. And I want the right audiences to find out about them, so those users can accomplish what they need to, and be happy.
Really, that’s what I want. For people to have happy online experiences.
You know, here’s how I see it. For the web development community to tell us that "if you build it and it’s awesome, they will come" is simply naïve, bordering on irresponsible. However, for SEO professionals to promote SEO as one of the primary tactics for online success is equally misleading.
There’s some fairly obvious common ground, here, that’s getting overlooked. And that’s creating and maintaining awesome content that’s optimized for the right people to find it at the right time in the right places.
In my experience, both the web development and SEO communities have largely marginalized the importance of delivering relevant, quality content that’s focused on meeting clear business objectives and user needs. Or, they’ll pay passionate lip service to it, then go back to preaching and promoting their areas of expertise.
And so the content, as it often is, becomes someone else’s problem. Which ultimately becomes the end user’s problem. Which then results in a really crappy ROI for all those web design/development/SEO dollars you just spent.
One of the key components of any business’s online success is to start by deeply considering the content itself. Before you worry about building the damn thing, let alone promoting it, figure out why you’re publishing content, who it’s for, what it’s going to say, how it’s going to sound, and what happens to it once it’s "out there."
In other words … figure out your content strategy. Or, if you’re a web developer/designer or SEO wonk, ask for it. Because it should be informing what you are (or aren’t) doing.
Postscript: Get yourself edumacated
There were a lot of hopped-up, dueling posts and tweets that came out of both communities during the few days of battle. But there were a few added to the conversation in really valuable ways, and I encourage you to read them:
A few weeks ago, I had the pleasure of visiting the lovely city of Atlanta to moderate a panel discussion on content strategy.
Panel participants were selected from a variety of disciplines in order to facilitate discussion about how content strategy has impact on (and benefits for) a number of roles and functions across an organization. (OK, we were also hoping for a little fighting.)
Participants were:
Karen McGrane, Bond Art + Science (User Experience)
John Muehlbauer, InterContinental Hotels Group (Marketing)
Brian Ikeda, Philips Design (Visual Design)
Ryan Esparza, Content Management Consultant (CMS/IT)
