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After spending some quality time with our pal Jonathan Kahn at Web Content Chicago 2010 in June, we convinced the fellow content strategy evangelist to make a trip to sunny Minneapolis. Jonathan is founder of London-based web design agency Together London, author of the blog Lucid Plot, and an all-around smart cookie. We like him.
Amidst his whirlwind of tourist activities and an intense round of bar trivia (we won third place), Jonathan obligingly sat down with me to talk shop. I can’t wait to revisit the podcast myself: I was too entranced by his charming accent to pay much attention at the time. (Kidding!)
Listen in to hear this brilliant Brit wax poetic on:
- How he came to the practice of content strategy
- How to fix a broken web development process
- Content strategy: A job for one or many?
The best part, though, is where I make him say something Minnesotan. (You won’t be disappointed.)
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Posted in Around the Office, Brain Traffic, Content Strategy, Web Content
The Bear Center in Ely, Minn., has posted daily updates about Hope, an orphaned black bear, every day since she was abandoned by her mother Lily in May. Their audience has come to expect these updates, and the Bear Center delivers. Consistently.
I doubt the Bear Center has a name for what they are doing. But, what they actually have is … you guessed it, a content strategy. It’s simple: Give Hope fans what they want, then ask them to give money to help bears.
It’s working. Donations have increased exponentially. Even better, loyal readers are out there rustling up fundraising opportunities for the Bear Center. On their own. Without being asked. I’ve never seen such a captive and engaged online audience.
Why their content strategy works
For starters, they’ve got the cute, cuddly bear thing going for them. But there’s more to it than that. The Bear Center:
♦ Stands for something people can get excited about- Their mission is to protect bears in the wild through research and education.
♦ Takes a stand- They aren’t afraid to justify their decision to intervene in Hope’s life. Rather, they welcome conversation on the topic.
♦ Has a clear call to action- “Donate to the Bear Center” comes through loud and clear.
♦ Makes content a priority- Their researchers write daily updates. Even on weekends. After spending all day in the field studying bears.
♦ Inspires people to join a community- More than a million people “like” their Facebook page and hundreds visit it daily to talk to each other.
♦ Re-uses content- The same updates are posted to their website and their Facebook page, helping to increase their reach.
How content strategy can work for you
So what if you don’t have a cuddly orphaned bear to attract and retain an audience? That’s okay. You have stuff to say. And there are people who want to hear it.
Now for that content strategy thingamajig. Here are four things you can do now, on a limited budget, without an army of staff to find your very own orphaned baby bear:
♦ Start small- Pick one piece of your website. The section that gets the most visitors. Your blog. The home page. Whatever. Then, do the following three things:
♦ Identify your point of view- Content marketing guru Joe Pulizzi said at Web Content 2010, “It’s not what you sell. It’s what you stand for.” That one remark was tweeted about a bajillionty times. Cuz it’s true. Figure out what you stand for, make sure it’s different from what everyone else stands for, and then tell people who care.
♦ Define your core purpose- Before you go creating content, spend some time outlining the purpose of the content to make sure everything you publish is on-target. One way to do this is to answer a few questions, such as:
- Who is the content for?
- Does your audience care about your message?
- Does it make sense for you to talk about it?
- What are you trying to accomplish?
- What do you want people to do after they read or experience it?
♦ Be bossy- Okay, you’ve got your point of view and you’ve got your purpose. Now you need the content. Set a publishing schedule—something you can realistically adhere to—and assign roles and responsibilities for creators, reviewers, editors, and publishers.
Now, go forth and create content people care about.
Posted in Content Strategy, Editorial Strategy
I had an interesting twiscussion with my favorite grammar guru Grammar Girl the other day. Take a look:
(click to see full size image)
The error of our ways
Many people in the business of creating websites think of error messages (and other user interface copy) as back-end technology mumbo jumbo, and therefore somebody else’s job. Not true! Error messages are content, too.
As such, they deserve the same attention as any of the other user-facing words on your site. Grammar Girl’s puzzlement over her readers thinking she writes the error messages raises an interesting point. Especially because she goes on to say that “marketing” writes "a lot of the user-interface text."
Why interface copy but not error messages?
I put those two things in the same category: Content that’s often written with the back-end systems in mind, rather than the end users, and content that gets ignored until the last minute. In other words, content that leaves programmers scrambling to whip something up quickly before a site goes live. Left to scramble, programmers don’t have time to think about what would really help the user do whatever it is they came to your website to do.
I would like to amend my comment to Grammar Girl that suggests programmers shouldn’t be the ones writing error messages. I actually don’t think it matters who writes them as long as they are focused on users needs.
And I’ll be the first to admit planning for and writing error messages is not the sexiest of web writing tasks. But it can be one of the most important. A frustrating experience on your website just gives users an excuse to hit the black button or click on that red x.
Blast from the past
This brief exchange with Grammar Girl reminded me of this gem of a
blog post that Brain Traffic’s Erin Anderson wrote last year showing the differences between bad and pretty awesome error messages. You’ll find tips like these to help ensure your error messages are carefully crafted with the user in mind:
- Tell users what the problem is.
- Follow up with what they can do to fix it (if anything).
- Avoid alarmist phrases like “failure” and “fatal.”
Check it out!
Posted in Content Strategy, Uncategorized, Web Writing
A while ago, our fearless leader blogged about how technology can’t fix your content problems. Of course, I agree.
Sure, the CMS is important – the right one makes content publishing easier and the published pages more consistent. But it can’t ensure that your content is useful and usable. Only a person or team of people can do that.
Consider this smaller-scale example:
I just read a blog post by Ben Parr on mashable about an online resume builder tool – JobSpice – that he describes as shockingly simple to use.
It does look pretty darn easy to use, making it a great way to create a dapper dandy resume. It’s as easy as filling in the blanks. Cool. It’s sorta like a CMS. Just enter your content, check some boxes, add some parameters, and ta da: Content. Published.
But, the person building the resume still needs to think about what content goes in the blanks. Right? The shockingly simple tool can’t do that. Neither can a CMS. A person has to determine:
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Who is the resume for?
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What kind of job am I looking for?
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What will the employer care about?
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What do I want them to do after reading my resume?
Real, live people are the key to content that meets users’ needs and drives results. And that’s where content strategy comes in. It answers the questions that help ensure your content – however it gets published – hits the mark.
Posted in Content Strategy, User Experience, Web Writing
What We Did on Our Summer Vacation, Part I
It’s not a party until something gets broken.
True story: We ate walking tacos, we drank margaritas and Mexican beer with lime. We swung at piñatas.
And, oh, we broke a window.
Kristina took it well:
What We Did on Our Summer Vacation, Part II
It was the day after a tornado tore up part of our fair city. The sky was dark. The rain was falling. We would not be deterred. We would not.
For to see our name in lights at Midway Stadium, to get down with Mudonna and Super Fan, to leave the Nerd speechless was our mission. Watch out, St. Paul Saints. Here comes Brain Traffic.
The highlights:
Before the rain. And beer.
Bear says "What? What?"
Eye Love Baseball. And beer.
Slumhog Millionaire. That’s her real name.
The Nerd with Angie 2.0 before Elizabeth stole his funny.
Posted in Around the Office, Brain Traffic
When I found out that my dog Sam might have a brain tumor, I went straight to my computer to learn everything I could. A Google search led me to a pet website with articles ranging from light-hearted topics, such as pet costumes, to serious subjects, such as health conditions.
The article on canine brain tumors was very informative and left me feeling a little sad, but hopeful. And then, I reached the last line. It read: "I hope you found this article enjoyable."
My mouth dropped and I said out loud to no one, "What? Are you serious? No, I did not enjoy this article, you oompa loompa. My dog might be dying."
I knew, because I understand some things about content management systems and re-usable page templates, that this line appears at the end of every article on the site.
Aside from it being completely inappropriate for the topic at hand – especially when the reader is likely a pet parent on an emotional roller coaster – it’s just not good practice. What’s the benefit to the user in this little pat-yourself-on-the-back, lazy approach to ending the article? Give me something I can use – what’s my next step, where can I get more information?
If you absolutely must use static content on a page template that will be re-used, make absolutely sure it fits for every possible content type or topic, or risk losing your credibility and your users. Better yet, think carefully about whether it serves the users’ needs in the first place.
Posted in Content Strategy, Editorial Strategy, Web Writing
Back when I spent much of my day contacting media folks with the latest and greatest from my PR clients, the best compliment I ever got from a reporter was:
"I always open your emails because I know they'll contain something I can actually use."
Why should you care about my prized compliment?
Because reporters have a lot in common with website visitors. Really.
- Both suffer from information overload
- Both need information or content to help them complete tasks
- Both want to feel like content providers understand them
- Both get annoyed by content that wastes their time or gets in their way
That's why we recommend you learn three very important things before creating a lick of web content:
- Who the content is for
- What information they want
- How they want to receive information
The case of the compliment
Here's what I learned about the reporter before I ever pitched her:
- Who the content is for. This reporter wrote a personal finance column.
- What information they want. From reading the column regularly, I determined that the information my client had to offer – personal finance tips focused on the emotional aspects of money – was precisely what this columnist was looking for.
- How they want to receive information. I also knew – because I asked her – that her voicemail box was perpetually full and ignored and that she preferred to get PR pitches by email.
The web content connection
Successful websites find the sweet spot between business goals and user needs. Searching for the sweet spot can be a lot of work. But it's absolutely necessary.
Finding the sweet spot
At Brain Traffic, we develop a Strategic Foundation Brief (sometimes they aren't that brief) at the beginning of every project. It includes an analysis of business goals, audience characteristics, and user needs.
First, we learn all we can about the audience – web usage, gender, family situation, etc. Then we cross- reference business goals with audience wants and needs. It's sorta like magic when it becomes apparent that the business and the users want some of the same things.
Voilà. Your starting point. And your path to site feedback that garners the compliment: "I always find the information I need when I visit your website."
Posted in Content Strategy, Information Architecture, User Experience, Web Writing
Ever struggle with creating web content that gives your audience exactly what they want? We all do.
At the risk of over-simplifying, I speculate that most of the people you and I write for want the same two things my dogs want:
• Simplicity
• Immediate gratification
Don’t get smart
When I notice I’m spewing industry jargon or trying to be too clever, I consider how my dogs might respond if at dinner time, I replaced the daily phrase “Time to eat” with something like: “The time has come for you to digest some processed rice and lamb rations.”
They might get the point if I said it in a sing-songy voice as we dog people are known to do. But it won’t elicit the stomping in front of the food bowl with a big doggie tongue hanging out response that I’m after.
Website users aren’t impressed with big words that mean the same thing as small ones, nor are they looking for soliloquy. Sure, they’ll understand the flowery copy. But they probably won’t be motivated to take action, even if there is something in it for them.
Don’t tease
I have to admit that I sometimes get a kick out of saying to my dogs, “Want to go for a ride in the car?” when I have no intention of taking them any where. It’s amusing. For me. Not them. At all.
Visitors to our websites don’t think it’s amusing either. Misleading navigational cues and links that promise something they don’t deliver drive people batty.
That’s why the content and information architecture people really need to come together for the good of the pack. Combining our talents, we can create navigation labels, links and other user experience content that clearly tell the audience what they’ll see or do next.
In dog terms, don’t tell them you’re going for a walk when you’re really just taking them outside to pee.
All of this sounds easy, right? Common sense? It is. Even so, I sometimes find myself straying from these basics. That’s why a desk-side picture of my dogs is a good reminder to keep it simple and keep my word.
Woof.
Posted in Web Writing
