The 3 Degrees of Content: Context, Terminology and Concept.

Content is content, right?


Have you ever gone to a web page for your industry and said, "Huh?".  Companies seemed to be so focused on getting content out there, they miss the notion of quality.  So what constitutes quality content?  I have always subscribed to what I call the 3 Degrees of Content, as outlined below:


Context.  In order for content to be relevant, the context needs to be correct.  Context issues usually occur when you have a non-industry individual or non-expert in the field write the content.  Many businesses utilize the saturation method, outsourcing their writing tasks to the lowest bidder.   What is the theme, and how are terminology and concept implemented?


Terminology.  Correct use of terminology is absolutely required, and the overuse of acronyms can kill a site quickly.  In the technical/software space, you should always shoot to provide content based on the audience.  You may even need to go so far as to create micro-sites or paths for different users to avoid "term saturation".  This is typically where you want both marketing and technical folks to work jointly on content to avoid a tech heavy feel.


Concept.  Last but not least, is concept.  What are you trying to get across?  Are you trying to sell?  Inform?  Explain?  Having an overall concept for a site, micro-site and page is critical and can go deep.  Stay on task, focus on concept, and incorporate it into your page flow, your graphics, and how you interact with users.

Taking Shots at Google and Gmail

The Social Whirlpool: How do I keep from drowning?

With so many social media platforms on the web, how in the heck do you pick your poison?  In a marketing meeting yesterday, we drew a ton of circles on a white board to map out our strategy, and plot where we are today, and where we want to go from a Social Media perspective.  I keep coming back to several core themes that will influence where we focus:

1. Marketing is a dynamic beast, and you need to go with the flow.  New feature out?  Create a YouTube video.  Trade Show on the horizon, twitter your heart out to drive traffic to your booth.  Just established a partnership, leverage LinkedIn to insure the industry and other partners are aware.  I 
2. Use Social Media Synergy to create a Social Web.  Sending out a press release on a new feature?  Coordinate the deployment of a video, landing page and postings to drive interest and generate leads.  
3. Don't drown in the Social Whirlpool.  Choose your poison.  Is it really necessary to use all platforms at all times for everything?   Choose pertinent platforms for your business and strategy, and focus on quality information on those apps.
4. Careful of the "Noise" factor.  I see it all the time on twitter where folks have automated technology to help them get their job done.  They do a BLOG post, and it auto-updates their twitter feed, with no has tags, and sometimes with replicated tweets.  Overdoing social media can lead to your company becoming ignored noise.  

So, who should write web content?

So, a concept we always struggle with internally is:  Who should write our web content?

I was checking out a contracting site the other day and noticed a ton of projects for writing web content.  Many of the companies listed were extremely technical, and i could not believe they would have a "lowest bidder" write their web info.  I scratched my head, and thought a bit.  Have you ever been to a web site within your industry, maybe a competitor, and said "Who the heck wrote this stuff?"  Improper use of terms, errors in context, and even issues with the overall concepts.  See the forest through the trees, and focus on the 3 degrees of content:  context, terminology and concept.  This is especially true within the software and technology industry.  Some key tips for making sure you hit the mark:

1. Know your audience.  If you are in a highly technical market, and your audience is technical, your content needs to be accurate in all degrees: context, terminology and concept.  It is always advisable to have multiple reviewers, to make sure there is no lapse in credibility.
2. Create paths within your site for different audiences.  Perhaps you create multiple subsites, or "site paths" that different users can follow depending on their depth of expertise.  For the standard users, marketing written content might be just fine, but for the technical subsite, an engineer/technologist is involved.
3. Writing teams work best.  We all know that engineers are not always the best writers (I am one so I can say that ;) ), and having tech and marketing work together to build content is always the best solution.  Marketing folks do well in rounding out technical verse, and tech folks/subject matter experts can check for validity.  And don't forget the SEO/keyword gurus!!
4. Third parties can be invaluable.  Having an objective third party as an overall reviewer, one with industry expertise, can help with the overall quality of the site and may help find any issues before production.

I guess it all comes down to not letting the new marketing intern write the new web site ;).  There is strength in numbers and differing experience levels.  Follow some basic rules and create great content.

I finally found it: Social Synergy

So I have been trying to come up with a term to define what we are trying to achieve within our overall strategy towards the web and Social Media.  I think the term Synergy truly defines the overall theme we are always working to achieve.  Synergy can be defined as combined cooperative action or functioning.  This synergy can provide a "multiplier" effect on your web-based efforts, driving traffic and really improving your overall standing within search engines and just in general.

 I believe this concept is one that is typically missing in most Social Media and Web Strategies, so below I have outlined critical strategic steps towards reaching this state:

1. How do you want to be seen and found?  An absolutely required step is to outline your overall strategy.  At its simplest, just answer the question.  Obviously you want to be found based on your company name, but to truly build synergy, you need to define a cross-platform strategy.  What are your key words and phrases?  Does everyone working within your social media accounts know them?  Are they published?  When this was established within our organization, we had remarkable lead numbers and overall quality of traffic to our site.
2. How are you linked?  SEO basics demand using proper keywords/phrases within links back to home base.  Are proper linking techniques being used across all social media platforms?  Are all marketing folks on board?  This is simple to verify, just do a broad based search across twitter, Facebook or any other platform and see how you are linked.  Note:  With true synergy, users will use links to traverse your web presence and gain information about you.
3. Can users leap frog to other Social Media platforms from any established web presence? Creating a synergistic presence on the web requires cross linking from all Social Media platforms.  Ensure that your BLOG, website, twitter landing page, Facebook page, etc. all link to each other.  This creates an "engagement ring" that interlocks all your web-based platforms, with a mesh of paths anyone can take.
4. Time, patience and content.  The path to true synergy requires time and patience, but most importantly content.  If you truly build a Synergy Strategy, you will engage users, and provide them paths through the web to find more and more information about you.

The Twitter Egg and the Twittfully Challenged: A letter

How Not to Use Twitter

With so much information on how to use Twitter on the Internet, I still scratch my head every day and say “Really?”.  I wish TweetDeck had an “Ignore the Twittfully Challenged”, or just block the damn eggheads.  Look at this one…what is the goal here?

So, I decided to compose a letter:

Dear Egg Head,

I have noticed that you have decided to use Twitter, and I applaud your decision to get involved and utilize Social Media to attempt to expand your business and drive market awareness.  I am by no means a Twitter Expert, Twexpert as I call it, but I have done some research, and actually used several of the 1.83 million Google results on “How to use twitter” to form my tweets, and it has actually led to increased web traffic, improved market awareness and a new found interest from our current customer base.  If I may, can I make some suggestions:

1.       Lose the Egg.  I am not sure if you are aware that you have not added any profile information, or if you even look at your Tweets and how they are viewed, but I wanted to let you know that right now you are being represented by an intermediate result of the chicken reproductive process.  A faceless, deformed orb with a random colored background.  I do find the baby blue Egg Head the most calming and assuring, much better than the aggressive purple or distracting yellowish orange, but I am sure this is not how you would like to be represented.  So log into your Twitter account and edit your profile.  Maybe add a logo, or perhaps the picture of a scanner to let us know who you are.

2.       Thank you.  After looking at your Tweet, I clicked on your link and went to your landing page which was totally unimpressive and confusing.  I did need a scanner though, so I went to your competition’s site, which was engaging and informative, and purchased a scanner.  Note: Tweeting links to totally boring and useless content will not give you the results you want.

3.       Maybe use Hashtags? Obviously, you do not know what a hashtag is, or how it can help you.  According to the Twitter Wiki, "Hashtags are a community-driven convention for adding additional context and metadata to your tweets.”  So in a nutshell, you can get more exposure through their use, and they help to categorize your Tweets for ease of search. Seeing that your marketing method borders on the “canned block of meat” method, be sure never to use more than 3 hashtags.  Some great info from twitter’s help here: What are Hashtags?

4.       Rethink Your Message.  Maybe try and peak my interest.  Being that my desk is an absolute paper nightmare, how about “You can get rid of the paper on your desk”, or perhaps some catchy saying or statistic about the #paperlessoffice.  I am glad that I now know the product ID number of the Fujitsu ScanSnap 1300, did you really waste your twit characters on that?

Hopefully this letter will catch your attention, and you will no longer be a faceless twitter entity.  More information below to help:

wikiHow – How to Use Twitter

Twitter Help Center – Twitter Basics

Sincerely,

A Concerned Twitizen

Is SEO Really Necessary?

I just read a popular discussion within an executive group on LinkedIn focused on Sales and Marketing.  The entire discussion was about SEO, initiatives and strategy.  Some of the comments were quite interesting:

“I don’t believe SEO will drive 'leads and profits' for any and every industry.” 

“SEO is not for all industries”

There was entire section of the discussion where folks went back and forth on the pertinence of SEO, and how certain industries just do not benefit.  The primary example was Berkshire Hathaway, who was used as an example over and over. 

My initial argument and post was below:

Obviously as sales people, we want our SEO efforts to drive leads, and ultimately revenue. But so many SEO initiatives run right out of the gate with that as the immediate goal, day one (damn sales people are impatient ;) ). I see so many companies hire “I can get you to the top in 5 days” guys we are so familiar with. SEO should be a broad reaching program based on content, that if done correctly, can help you:

1. Shape your market and industry attitudes
2. Establish your organization as a thought leader
3. Ultimately drive people to your site and produce high quality leads

It took our company quite a while to get to the top 10, but we took a slow and calculated approach designed to shape certain niches of our industry with defined and specific content for our target markets, and the results have been fantastic.

I disagree that it is not pertinent in all industries. All organizations can benefit from the above, regardless of industry.

I woke up this morning, and began to think about my post topic, and decided to rethink my post.  I started with a look at the Berkshire Hathaway site:

http://www.berkshirehathaway.com/

I started laughing…it looks like my first site I built back in the Day.  But it got me thinking.  Does a company that is a massive owner of all different types of businesses really need an SEO optimized site, or content for that matter.

So, being the informed investor I am, I logged into my ETrade account and did some research.  I found that the analyst community is just hammering the company. The company is rated at Hold, Poor, Neutral,   Negative, etc.  Could Berkshire Hathaway benefit from a massive PR overhaul, starting with their site? What would be the direction and strategy?

Thoughts?