Wed 8 Sep 2010

Beating the Drum for High-Quality Content

Posted by JenniferW under Business Writing, MarComm, content strategy
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I’m delighted to announce that I’ve begun contributing to the Content Marketing Institute in the role of Contributing Editor and blogger.

My very first post is HERE. I feel a little like a born-again evangelist for a religion that, until recently, I didn’t even know existed.  That is, I’ve been praying to the gods of content and proselytizing for converts throughout my career in marketing…and I didn’t know that there were a slew of other worshippers who believe in the same things I do.   Such as:

  • Content is the core not only of marketing, but of all business strategy. And it’s not just about corporate speak “key messages” or “unique value propositions.”  It’s not about selling, nor even about marketing or branding.  Content–certainly in the B2B environments in which I’ve always worked–is the core of what a business does, why it was founded and how it delivers on the promise it makes to its markets, prospects and customers.
  • Ergo, content needs to be meaningful, authentic, relevant.  It needs to be devoted to informing, educating and engaging its audiences. Whether it’s a conference presentation, a sales proposal, a brochure or a web site, you must first know who your audience is if you hope to have any chance to communicate meaningfully with them, or for them to come to trust you as a credible source of useful information and ultimately buy from you.  These notions — that people buy from those they trust, those they have a relationship with and those who offer useful, credible information — have changed the face of marketing in the last 10 years, as new technology has increased the speed, ease of access and volume of information exponentially.
  • I said, AUDIENCE.  Not prospects, not markets, and not even clients.  When it comes to content — the substantive matter that we communicate — we are dealing with readers. Consumers of information who have choices … a plethora of them.  And short attention spans (getting shorter, if Nicholas Carr, author of The  Shallows: What The Internet Is Doing To Our Brains and this excellent article in The Atlantic, is right).
  • Companies, especially B2B firms that are founded upon the intellectual capital of their employees and their ability to be thought leaders, must start thinking of themselves as publishers. Publishers of content.  Good content is what drives true customer engagement and dialogue.
  • The matter (content) and the mindset (publishers, not marketers) should never, never and I do mean never, be confused with the CHANNELS for distribution. Social media — and prior to that, the entire promise of Web 2.0 driven by highly flexible, interactive web sites — are simply ways to disseminate content. They are not the content in and of themselves.  In this regard, McLuhan got it slightly wrong:  the media, most definitely, is not the message.  Instead of saying, “We need to be on Facebook,” or more precisely hearing the CEO or VP IT say it, marketers need to go back to the basics and say:  we want to engage our customers in dialogue.  How do we do that most effectively? Then, decide what you need to say and commit to resourcing the development of content on an ongoing basis. Don’t let the channel lead and the content follow.  You will have a beautifully designed Facebook page or corporate blog, and it will be stale-dated in no time.  No one wants that.  But, align the message with why you want to send it instead of how, and you’re off to the races.
  • All of that blather ^^^^ in those bullets — in a nutshell, that’s content strategy: the umbrella term for putting content in the driver’s seat, or creating quality content that achieves corporate objectives while at the same time engaging your audiences in meaningful dialogue. Or to say it yet another way:  content strategy is the emerging discipline that puts rigour and best practices around the development, management, distribution and governance of content.

Saying something worth saying to people who want to hear about it.  Doing it with style and substance. Honouring the power of language, the power of thought and the subject matter expertise on which your firm was built. Putting an end to slick but empty marketing-speak and treating your audiences with respect by giving them information that actually adds value to their lives.  It’s revolutionary.

I hope you enjoy my posts on CMI — you’ll see them about every two weeks or so.  And, I’m also in the back room with my red pen, marking up copy and soaking it in so that I can share all these delicious nuggets of wisdom with my clients.

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Thu 19 Aug 2010

The Social Media Paradox

Posted by JenniferW under content strategy
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Benefits Canada today published an overview of the current state of employee pension/benefits communications with some of the findings of the Towers Watson 2009/10 Communication ROI Study Report.  It’s got a lot of juicy tidbits of info in it, but I really gravitated to the discussion about the use of social media by employers to communicate benefits/pension information.

Social media is inherently a community-building technology that increases interactivity, engagement and dialogue:  so it’s a natural fit as a channel for employee communications, right?  Well, apparently not … or at least, not yet.  According to the Benefits Canada article and Towers Watson’s survey,

only 4% of Canadian survey respondents are using social media to communicate benefits. While the perception may be that employers are concerned with more traditional fears around social media—IT issues, losing control, decrease in productivity, legal issues, negative comments by employees—this is not what the study uncovered. “Employers aren’t [using social media] more now, they tell us, because they don’t understand it perfectly yet, and they just don’t have the resources to look into it and use it effectively,” says Ofelia Isabel, Canadian practice leader, rewards, talent and communication, with Towers Watson in Toronto.

Bold emphasis mine, purely for self-serving purposes of course.  This, in a nutshell, illustrates the need for and role of a content strategist.

There are some pretty big leaps still to be made on a technology, policy and practice level.  Traditional fears may be subsiding, but IT-driven risk minimization practices remain:  that is, many companies still block access to Facebook, YouTube, Twitter, even LinkedIn.   Also, most employers have well-entrenched and well-communicated policies regarding the use of their hardware and software for non-company purposes.  Employees know, unless they’ve been on secondment deep in a cave somewhere since 1998, that Big Brother–their employer–has the right to monitor everything they do online using company hardware/software.  Even if they’re not surfing for porn or placing a bet with their online bookie, that tends to make people just a little wary!

On top of that, Facebook’s privacy policies and susceptibility to hacker abuse (don’t even get me started on that rant) have been widely reported.  People don’t trust the privacy and confidentiality of these channels, and are only slowly if at all adopting them for business purposes.  Not surprisingly,

a recent survey from the National Business Group on Health—a non-profit group of almost 300 large U.S. employers—even employees aren’t overly interested [in obtaining information from their employer via social media]. Roughly 75% of respondents said they would have no interest in receiving health benefits information via Facebook, and approximately 80% said they had no interest in receiving this information via Twitter.

So, a bit of a conundrum, wouldn’t you say?

I think the solution lies in a bridging technology that creates a social network INSIDE the organization.  In other words, intranets. It’s an idea that’s been around since the dawn of the World Wide Web, but to this day is poorly entrenched and often ineffectively used.

There’s a ton of applications available for building a social network-y intranet (my fave is ning).  They are easily implemented, extremely low cost, and easily controlled by IT and whoever else might get their knickers in a knot about privacy, security and monitoring activity (seriously, people, could we please start to TRUST each other here?!?).  Even in organizations where most employees aren’t online as part of their daily activities, Web-enabled intranets are easily accessed anywhere employees have an Internet connection (for example, at home– where employees indicate they prefer to do their personal business away from prying eyes, and where most employers prefer they do, too!  A win-win!).

But, they still need a content strategy …… :-)

______________________

Click HERE for On The Mark: Consultants Report from the July/Aug 2010 issue of Benefits Canada.

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Thu 19 Aug 2010

What We Have Here is a Failure to Communicate…

Posted by JenniferW under content strategy
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Well, yes … my own (in that, this blog has lain dormant over the summer).  But I’m back!

Going forward, this blog is going to be dedicated to bringing its readers information and ideas related to communications best practices on a broader scale.   Over the summer, I’ve been researching and thinking about two things that are close to my heart:

1) employee engagement and the meaningful, authentic interaction between employees and their employers that adds value to their work, health and life … oh, and in the best-case scenario, to their employers’ bottom lines.  How do you, Mr. or Ms HR VP, make use of the newest technologies and communication best practices to nurture a trusting, connected and committed workforce and employees who are your best brand ambassadors?

2) content marketing and content strategy for B2B service leaders.  How do you,  Mr. or Ms Marketing VP,  harness the immense power of your intellectual capital — which is, after all, the foundation of your business and your unique differentiator?  How do you create a profile for yourself as a thought leader, adding value to your brand, building stronger customer relationships and advancing your sales/marketing objectives?

The answer to both of these questions lies in the fascinating and emerging discipline of content strategy. It has applications to both internal communications AND marketing communications, and it addresses the Achilles Heel of most communications plans and corporate websites right now:

  • Who’s managing the content?
  • Who’s creating the content?
  • Who knows where the content is, what state it’s in, whether it says what it needs to say?
  • Who has a strategy, a plan, and a methodology to make sure what you’re saying is relevant, understood, heard and acted on by the audiences who need to understand, hear and act on it?

The answer to all of this usually is … no one.  Or rather,  a bunch of people have a piece of it, but no one has overall responsibility for it, and everyone involved is looking at it from their own perspective.  And like the fabled six blind men’s elephant, you’re left with a website that looks a little like this:


More on building a better elephant in the weeks and months to come.

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Mon 14 Jun 2010

The Pros and Cons of Consistency: Part II

Posted by JenniferW under Business Writing
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Following on last week’s post, today I make a contrarian argument for inconsistency in communications—particularly with respect to editorial schedules—based not only on Oscar Wilde’s pithy words,  but also on some basic cognitive processing principles.

There are some places where a little inconsistency can serve your communications purposes better than a rigorously followed pattern.

I have a slew of RSS feeds from blogs I like on my browser homepage.  I’ve noticed that not a single one of them publishes on a regular schedule.  Some publish several times a day; others every day; one a couple times a month at different times of the month.  Some publish a few days in a row, then don’t come back with anything for a week or two.

The ones I pay most attention to are those whose schedule does not seem to be consistent.  Why is this?  There are some pretty good reasons to do with human beings’ cognitive processing tendencies which, as a writer, you can (and should) use strategically:

We notice change more than stability

Our brains are built to pay attention to what’s novel, not what’s constant.  Once something is predictable, we start to ignore it.  You get the same email in your inbox at the same time every week?  After a while, you start to skip even opening it up.  But make even a minor change—to a subject line, ideally—and you’ll grab people’s attention back.

A lot of communications pieces make the company’s brand or the name of the newsletter (which some poor marketing assistant has spent weeks thinking up) the most noticeable item on the page.  While consistency in branding is absolutely imperative, it’s not about the name of the newsletter…it’s about what’s inside it.  Make the headline of the lead story the most visible item:  that’s the main point of writing to people, and that’s the piece of information that varies from week to week.  And, if it doesn’t, you’ve got a bigger problem with content than you might think.

Primacy and recency

If you want people to remember key points, put them either first or last.  Don’t put them in the wishy-washy middle, where they are least likely to be processed and remembered.  This is true in bulleted lists as well as longer prose pieces and it’s true in publication schedules too.

Publish at the very beginning or the very end of the (work) day.  Some days you’ll catch people when they come in to an empty inbox; other times, you’ll catch them as they are cleaning up before leaving for the day.  I used to get a newsletter that was delivered to my inbox every Friday at 6 p.m.  Who would think that would be a good time to publish?  But you know what, I always saw it, and most often read it, because nothing else was coming in at that time.  Where your communication allows for it, vary beginning and end of day publishing schedules, and you’ll have even more luck.

While it’s true that content “above the fold”–i.e., first or at the top of the front page–is most likely to be seen and read, it’s also true that not all readers read the same way (especially online).  In fact, you can count on most people reading only three things on the  page consistently:  1) the first paragraph; 2) the headlines; and 3) anything that is put in the form of a bulleted list.  Following in a distant fourth is anything in a call-out box (unless it’s a heading or bulleted list).  So, if you have material within your publication that you absolutely want people to read and pay attention to, put it one of these three places.

Habituation

Repetition is a memory aid; but too much repetition leads to habituation, a fancy word for becoming desensitized to previously-noticed stimuli.  If you have a regular column or repeating feature in your publication, try varying the placement, the style of headline and definitely any graphic that accompanies it.  Repetition is great for editorial management, but can backfire unless you can find a way to make that which repeats new and exciting each week, month or quarter.

Another tip:  newsletters, standardized marketing pieces and blog posts will often have a “call to action” buried in a footer or call-out box–somewhere in exactly the same place, with exactly the same wording, every issue.  This may be a “call us for more information…” or “to submit content to this publication, email …”.  Ok, same place, same formatting, buried in a spot that is not the intro paragraph, a headline or a bulleted section of text.  What are you going to do differently…?

Variable reinforcement schedules

Want your content to be noticed and remembered?  Create anticipation by establishing and then varying, within reasonable parameters, your publication schedule.  You will have created what’s known as a variable (or partial) reinforcement schedule, in which the “reward” (your content) is offered at unanticipated times.  This is what is happening in my RSS feeds on my homepage:  after ‘hooking’ me with their content, I now wait in anticipation for new content and click as soon as I see it.

An added bonus to a variable publication schedule is that—based on another psychological principle—your loyal readers will be more likely to rate the quality and value of your content more favourably if they’ve made an investment of time in waiting for it.  I call this the Heinz principle, after the “Anticipation” commercials of the late 70s.  Heinz would make you wait, but boy … was the wait worth it (it implied).  Of course, just be mindful that your product has to live up to its hype.

Also be careful because a variable schedule, if there is too long a time between reinforcements (i.e., publication), can lead to another principle called “extinction,” in which people stop responding at all.  This is especially hazardous if you are just establishing yourself with your reader base or if you published like clockwork for a significant period of time, and then dropped off the face of the earth for an extended period.

You need to gradually introduce variability into a publishing schedule and then become “constant in your inconstancy” within a window that is reasonable based on the media you are using.  For example, if you are a monthly, publishing within a few days on either side of month end would be reasonable.  If you are a quarterly, you might have 10 days on either side.

Here are a few more things to keep in mind when it comes to establishing an editorial schedule:

  • Your publication schedule should conform with the expectations and parameters of the media.  A monthly twitter feed won’t do ya’ any good, toots—that medium’s speed is daily, at minimum.  A quarterly or even monthly blog post, where it’s your main channel for communicating with your audience, won’t build much traffic either.  Especially if you’re driving content from blogs out through other social media, such as Facebook or LinkedIn updates, you probably need to be weekly, at minimum.
  • At least at first, you need to be consistent.  Start by setting a schedule, and announcing what it will be. Then, meet that schedule faithfully (this is what I refer to in my Six Cs of Communications as “opening a channel, and keeping it open”).  Once you’ve got the channel open and fairly well-established, then you can start to play with the schedule a bit.
  • Don’t let intentional variability be a result of laziness, lack of discipline or lack of content.  If you’re going to make a change, announce it well in advance so that it is seen clearly as an intentional strategy or–like Polldaddy’s specific direct at the outside–state upfront that your schedule will be variable within certain parameters.
  • If you find yourself struggling to meet a publication deadline, don’t even think of varying the publication deadline before you take a long, hard, cold look at the content.  Maybe you simply don’t have anything to say as frequently as you feel you need to say it?  Maybe you are not driving your contributors to be as punctual as they should be (when you are the editor AND the sole contributor, this can be a tough conversation you’ll be having with yourself!)  If either of these are true, your problem is not scheduling, it’s something a little deeper.

Content drives publication schedules.  As I’ve been writing about ad nauseum, content–its quality and its purpose–drives everything.

Here’s the summary lesson in all of this:  consistency is important in some aspects of communication, and where it is, you should be ruthless in your constancy.  In other areas, like anything that is more art than science, you should feel free to break the rules–but first know what they are, and then break them deliberately and strategically.

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Mon 7 Jun 2010

The Pros and Cons of Consistency: Part I

Posted by JenniferW under Business Writing
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In the last Friday Fun With Words, I referenced one of my favourite Wildeans:  “consistency is the last refuge of the unimaginative.”  One part of my brain–the left side, I believe–knows that I love this quotation merely for its usefulness as a rationalization.

As Jeff Goldblum’s character said in The Big Chill: “Don’t knock rationalization. Where would we be without it? I don’t know anyone who’d get through the day without two or three juicy rationalizations. They’re more important than sex.”

I’ll leave you to quibble about that in the comments section.  :-)

In the meantime, I’m following through on my promise to write about consistency as a principle of good communication.  Of course, I’m doing so after setting and then deviating from an established blog schedule.  The irony of that delights me a little, I confess.  I only wish I had deliberately broken my own pattern, instead of simply being too busy to post.

Coincidentally, the very day I started this blog post (which was now 10 days ago), I received notification from a web subscription service, which started:

“Welcome to the Polldaddy semi-occasional newsletter. Every month or so we’ll send you Polldaddy news and special offers, exclusively for newsletter subscribers.” (emphasis mine)

I’m not sure how deliberate Polldaddy is in setting an “occasional” newsletter editorial schedule, but I think it was quite clever of them to do so.  I wonder, if you establish a variable schedule and then stick to it, are you actually being consistent?  (Rationalization:  I tell ya’, it gets even better with practice)

Consistency: The Pros

I’m going to make a case for variable editorial schedules in next week’s blog post.  That will be Monday, June 14th, for anyone playing the home game.  First, though, let’s focus on the places where consistency is vital. These are:

1.  Consistency in language and terminology:

I recently did a job involving SEO writing, that is, writing web copy to achieve search engine optimization.  Among other things, this involves the repetition of certain words and phrases.  It can be incredibly boring to read.  A similarly wooden format is demanded in scientific writing.  Aside from SEO and academic papers, however, variation in language and the creative use of synonyms, avoiding repetition of language whenever possible, makes for more interesting copy.  But there are some things that should never vary, and these include:

  • Reference to individuals and groups of people: calling your customer service folks “agents” in some places and “representatives” in others, for example, can lead people not to know who to call about what.  Consistency in what you term your employees–e.g., associates, members, colleagues or something else entirely–can strengthen your employment brand and build team affiliation.

  • Titles and proper nouns: Is it the Director, Marketing or Marketing Director?  Information Technology or Information Systems or Information Services?  The Board of Governors or the Governance Board?  The Bank of Kalamazoo or Bank of Kalamazoo?  Pick one and stick with it, or risk confusing and even offending people.

  • Capitalization: Less frequent use of capitalization is a more current style and easier on the eyes.  Plus, grammar rules are relaxing, and no longer does Every Proper Noun need to be capitalized.  If you do capitalize a proper noun in one place, make sure you carry that style throughout.  And if you choose Title Case Capitalization for Headings, remember:  a) that means you don’t capitalize common words, usually prepositions or articles, like “a”, “in”, “the”, “for”, “with”; and b) do it the same way everywhere.

2.  Consistency in design:

Inconsistency in design is jarring to the eye, hampers readability and, on the web, undermines usability.  People are used to seeing things in certain places:  menus along the top or left, for example; links underlined and usually in blue text (which sadly this blog style template doesn’t allow).  There is a never-ending fight between designers and web developers.  Designers want everything pretty, sacrificing web conventions.  Web developers sacrifice aesthetics for usability rules.  The compromise is invariably found when you make content and meaning the goal, and the writer often needs to be the mediator.

Online or in more traditional media, make sure leading–i.e., the space between lines–is consistent (another thing this blog template doesn’t allow).  Where there are graphics, text boxes, charts or diagrams on the page, all borders and internal lines should line up.  Too many different lines on a page–either horizontal or vertical, implied or real–looks a jumble. Readers don’t know where to focus.  The important points are given equal emphasis as the less important, and as a result your key points are not seen or heard.  Consistency in design serves meaning and understanding.  Period.

3.  Consistency in format:

This is different than design, and becomes extremely important in longer or more technical texts.  The formatting consistencies that you’ll want to be diligent about are headings (content and style), numbering/bulleting and indentation.  Have you ever read a report or white paper where you got lost in a six-level heading system of mixed alpha-numeric styles? Responses to RFPs, policy manuals, contracts and technical specs are notorious for this.  A bid team I led once won the business solely because our formatting made sense out of a truly atrocious RFP issued by a government purchasing department.  So poor formatting can have a direct cost (and doing it right, a benefit).  You can take that to the bank.

Another note about headings:  If you set out a list of five points you’re going to cover in the introduction or agenda slide, be sure to cover them using the same words and in the same order as you presented them.  At the core, consistency here as elsewhere has to do with setting an expectation and then meeting it.

4.  Consistency in “voice” and point of view:

These are both subtle, but when there is inconsistency in voice (such as when there is more than one contributor to a piece) or in point of view (switching between first, second and third person as the writer or when referring to your intended audience), your reader will be left with a vague sense of unease and an overall lack of clarity.  The piece will feel “fuzzy”; the messages will lack punch and sharpness.  It’s not an automatic fail, but it will never be more than a B+.

* ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ *

Consistency in all of these things matters, not (just) because I’m an anal retentive copy editor, but because anything less forces your reader to work too hard.  As soon as a reader gets tired, confused or frustrated, you’ve lost them to the next website, the next email or the next activity.

As Oscar Wilde knew, however, consistency might not be all that it’s cracked up to be.  Used skillfully and strategically, inconsistency can actually grab your reader’s attention, maintain it and make him or her anticipate more.  But like Picasso’s cubist nudes with two eyes on the side of their heads, you need to first establish your credibility by being consistent before you can get away with breaking the rules.

Next Monday:  the downside of consistency, and learning which editorial rules are made to be broken.

C’mon back now, y’hear?

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Fri 21 May 2010

Friday Fun With Words

Posted by JenniferW under Friday Fun With Words
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I’m going to give you a break this week, since the last two quizzes were pretty tough.  In fact, I gave you a break last Friday since I didn’t manage to get a quiz done in time to post.   As my hero Oscar Wilde liked to say, “consistency is the last refuge of the unimaginative.”  Actually, consistency is critical for a communicator (it’s one of the 6 Cs I mention here).  I’ll take some time to write about it in more detail sometime soon.

But before I do and for this week’s Friday Fun With Words quiz, let’s identify some grammatical snafus and sentence snarlers that usually bring a copy editor to her knees (often, while giggling).  Some of these rules are made to be broken, but it’s my belief that you can’t break ‘em until you know ‘em.  We’ll discuss the rules of breaking the rules in next week’s quiz.

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Tue 18 May 2010

You Talkin’ To Me?

Posted by JenniferW under Business Writing
[3] Comments

I set up an online banking account yesterday and during the process, I was asked to provide answers to two questions should I ever forget my password and need to retrieve it.  You know the ones they ask:  your mother’s maiden name, the street you lived on as a child, etc. This set of questions contained some interesting ones:  what was the first concert you ever saw?  What was your first car?

It occurred to me that, depending on the questions asked, the aggregated answers could be used to target content to the site visitor. Leaving aside the potential privacy and security issues, I wondered what content I would see if the bank knew my first car or my first concert.

If your online experience is at all like mine, the user-targeted content you get from sites like amazon.com is marginally relevant to you at the best of times. A random, meandering journey kicked off by a Google search is usually a better strategy for finding interesting things you might like to know about.

But even leaving aside the need for fancy-schmancy algorithms to target content to users, too many sites get even the basics wrong when preparing and delivering web content to suit their audiences.  Here’s how:

1.  They confuse or don’t know their audiences, and don’t write for them.  They don’t take them on any kind of user journey.

2.  They have out-of-date, inaccurate content in prominent areas of their site, not to mention two or three clicks in.

3.  Their content has no discernible purpose: it’s an unstructured, unedited, poorly written glob of words, most of which don’t mean anything to anyone.  A corollary to this is that the content may once have had a purpose–in another format or a different iteration–but it has now been reproduced or re-purposed for their web site without being rewritten to meet the current content objective, the requirements of the medium, the audience’s needs or any concern for content maintenance and governance.

Notice, I haven’t even once complained about content that is a mishmash in terms of voice, style, tone (usually just the inevitable result of content that doesn’t know its audience or have a purpose) nor that which is filled with grammar or spelling errors.  Nor about poor design.  Oh, oops … I guess I just did.

Content strategy is an intriguing new framework (some would call it a discipline) to understand how organizations can and ought to align, deliver and manage everything they create and say to their customers, their public, even their employees.  Basically, content needs to be better across the web.  It needs to be cleaner, more relevant, richer, more meaningful.  We’re drowning in oceans of content, but thirsting for content of quality.  Organizations should be applying resources to improve the quality of their content by recognizing that content is a business asset and, as such, needs to be managed appropriately.

I’m reading a pretty good book about content strategy by Kristina Halvorson who is the CEO of a consultancy called Brain Traffic.  Her book, called Content Strategy for the Web, is founded on the premise that organizations fail to deliver accurate, compelling, meaningful and useful content to their audiences because:  a) there isn’t a central, senior source of accountability for the quality of the content; and b) organizations do not think of themselves as “publishers.”  While this is obviously a self-promotional strategy for her field and her services, her points remain valid.

Ownership of content is dispersed across the organization–usually falling into the enormous chasms that exist between IT, marketing and the organization’s content creators or subject matter experts.  Each of these groups has a different approach to content strategy, if they have any approach at all.  None of them need to answer to any senior source of accountability for the accuracy, relevance or usefulness of the content.  They are free to produce and upload content onto a website in the absence of any quality standards or oversight.  The majority of content creators in any given organization are not writers and do not know how to write effective copy for a given audience or medium.  They certainly don’t think about the longer-term strategy of managing that content aside from their own immediate interest in it.

Halvorsen’s strong belief, shared by other content strategists, is that organizations need to think of themselves as publishers of information.  Not to do so is to risk leading people astray with inaccurate information, which ultimately harms your brand.  Worse still than misinforming people is to actually drive people away with such a poor web presence that your brand is publicly disparaged.  The very fact that there are companies dedicated to helping you monitor your brand’s reputation via what people are tweeting, updating, and blogging about you across every imaginable social media platform is testament to the risk to your brand if your web content is poor.  What’s not measured here is the lost opportunity when even a relatively small group of people–your loyal customers or followers–don’t get what they need from your site, and visit once never to return.

Re-conceiving content strategy as something that needs to be centrally controlled and managed by a publisher/editor, I think, solves a bunch of problems and their consequences.  It doesn’t solve the problem of who does this, nor does it make the case for doing it.  I will be putting some thought into that and writing about it later.

But first, here are the three questions that you should ask about your web content–and you should be asking these well before you even think about how to bring people to you by creating even more content and tweeting or blogging it:

1.  Is your current web content accurate and up-to-date?

2.  Does it speak with a consistent, compelling “voice” and is that voice representative of your brand?

3.  Does it meet the needs of your audience?  (i.e., do they get what they need and do what you want them to do with it?)

If you answer “no” or “don’t know” to any of these, you don’t need a Facebook page or a Twitter account, you need a content strategist.  Or, a writer/editor with a marketing bent who drove a 1976 Ford Maverick to a Queen concert.

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Mon 10 May 2010

Communications 101

Posted by JenniferW under Business Writing, Writing Clinic
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I was recently asked to put together a primer for leaders on communications basics.  I searched around for something usable online but didn’t find anything exactly right.  So I made something up.  I share it here (and have included it at the bottom of this post as a PDF–feel free to print and share).  Even those who are old hands at communicating might find it a useful reminder.

6 Cs of Communications

1.  Clear

  • Have a purpose.
  • Stick to key messages.
  • Check for understanding:  verbally through active listening (ask open-ended questions; clarify; paraphrase) or in large groups or written materials, through follow-up.
  • Avoid acronyms and industry jargon.

2.  Concise

  • Be brief.
  • Communicate one idea per sentence.
  • Remove redundant or complex language.
  • Wherever possible, use bullet points and headings to lead audience through material.
  • Be graphically concise, too.  Eliminate visual clutter.  Leave as much white space as possible.  Avoid complicated graphics, backgrounds, fonts or text treatments.

3.  Compelling

  • Be specific.
  • Provide relevant detail and metrics.
  • Be sure to include your ‘ask’ or ‘call-to-action’.
  • Where appropriate, use examples, case studies, stories, metaphors to enliven your text.

4.  Coherent

  • Follow a logical flow.
  • In written material:  Introduce purpose, elaborate by providing evidence/detail, summarize/close.
  • In presentations:  “Tell them what you’re going to tell them.  Tell them.  Tell them what you told them.”
  • Align your channel to your purpose.
  • Choose the appropriate channel.  Channel = medium (e.g., in person, phone, electronic, written) and vehicle (e.g., seminar, large group presentation, one-on-one meeting, web chat, newsletter, announcement, training manual, email message, advertisement, special event, etc.)

5.  Correct

  • Facts, spelling, grammar, format.
  • Whenever possible, have someone else proofread.
  • Leave as much time as you can between drafts.

6.  Consistent

  • Repeat message frequently.
  • Use multiple channels, over time, to reach different audiences or the same audiences in different ways.
  • Once you open a channel, keep it open:  create regularity in schedules, formats.

A few more things to remember:

Communication is two-way. If you’ve communicated, but you haven’t been understood, you’ve not communicated.  See Mind Tools’ (TM) Communications Skills-Start Here!

There are many ways to communicate. Use a variety of methods, because different people have different learning styles and communication preferences.  Pay attention to what works best for your individual staff members. Whenever possible, deliver messages in the way people like to receive them.

Everything a leader does communicates something. Watch your tone, body language, mood.  How you say it is just as important as what you say.  Be as careful about what you don’t communicate as what you do.  See Harvard Business Review’s Seven Communication Mistakes Managers Make.

To download this document, please click here.

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Fri 7 May 2010

Friday Fun With Words

Posted by JenniferW under Friday Fun With Words
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From last week:  as you perused last Friday’s Fun With Words, it seems many of you were nonplussed.  And many of you were nonplussed about being nonplussed.   Regardless, the trick question did not leave you feeling bemused, nor did you seem to be enervated by the plethora of possibilities.

And as for pristine, when a real estate ad boasts of a 19th century farmhouse in pristine condition, run for the hills–unless you like drawing your own water, using an outhouse and living without electricity.   (So what the heck does it mean to restore to original condition?)

Finally, while the first definition provided by dictionary.com (from Random House) states that ironic means “coincidental,” scroll down to the second definition from the American Heritage dictionary, which makes it clear that it does not.  Now that’s ironic!  Or, is it?

Assuming you are not living in a pristine 19th century farmhouse, please enjoy this week’s Fun With Words quiz!

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This week’s challenge:

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Mon 3 May 2010

Goldilocks, The Communicator, On PowerPoint

Posted by JenniferW under Business Writing, MarComm
[3] Comments

A couple of themes are dovetailing for me this week.  The first one is about the importance of focus and concision in the organization’s value statements.   I read a provocative Harvard Business Review blog post by Umair Haque.  He contends that elevator pitches are passé; that organizations need to strip their value proposition—their entire purpose—down to one word.  That is the only way to cut through the gobbledygook that emerges from the inevitable groupthink of most corporate branding and marketing programs.

You can read his post for details  (e.g., Coke:  they say “happiness”; he says, “sugar-water”).  I note that the ones he feels have got it right are the new technologies:  a mobile phone company, a gaming company, Twitter.

As I said on my Linked In update last week, I’m not sure how feasible this is for many organizations, especially those in B2B services that are attempting to redefine themselves and de-commoditize through diversification.

Haque goes on to say:  “In simplicity lie the seeds of explosively powerful propositions. In complexity, only confusion, incoherence, and uncompetitiveness.”

Aside from the poor grammar (you know me well enough to know that that, in itself, is enough to make me question the validity of the ideas), I still can’t decide if I agree or disagree with him.  This is because the second theme that has emerged in my reading and thinking this past week is about the dangers of over-simplification.

I’m currently working with a client to prepare a PowerPoint presentation of their corporate strategy.  In doing so, I’m encountering what I always do with this application when I use it to create presentations for others to deliver:

  1. The process of distilling the key messages and the overall story into bullet points clarifies and deepens my understanding of them.  The more I synthesize, the more I understand and the more concise the language becomes.
  2. As a preparer of a presentation for someone else, the presenter does not have this same experience or opportunity.
  3. Following item 2, the invariable end result and greatest pet peeve of all users and receivers of PPT:  slides with wayyyyy too much information on them.  And, slides that are read to the audience, not discussed with them.

There is a book making the rounds among my goodreads friends called The Cognitive Style of PowerPoint by Edward R. Tufte.  The premise of this 32-page pamphlet is that PPT “reduces the analytical quality of presentations. In particular, the popular PowerPoint templates … usually weaken verbal and spatial reasoning, and almost always corrupt statistical analysis.”

Lies, damned lies and statistics, said Disraeli et al. At least people are on guard for that.  The zeal for concision is something a little more insidious, I believe.  The speed and volume of information on the Web is another driver of superficiality—we become concise simply so we can get a word in edgewise.  In so doing, we are sacrificing the quality and depth of our understanding and analysis. There is so much information out there, and it comes at us so quickly from so many directions, that we haven’t got the time to process it, think about it, analyze it and make decisions based on a thorough understanding of it.

Dialogue about important ideas is reduced to one-way delivery of slides, which—rarely that helpful in the first place—are almost never referred to again.  Decision-making suffers.  Tufte provides evidence in the NASA Columbia disaster, which was traced back to a critical presentation to decision-makers during which legitimate safety concerns expressed by the engineers did not survive to the final cut of the PowerPoint.

This blog post outlines the problem from a military decision-making perspective, but I think the ideas expressed can be applied broadly.  The point here (no pun or irony intended) is that briefing papers that used to be delivered as two- or three-page summaries, requiring the preparer to consolidate and distill large quantities of information into concise paragraphs of coherent sentences, is now done in PowerPoint.  The process of creating a summary, which actually strengthens analysis and argument, is entirely compromised by the program’s formatting requirements, which gloss over logical fallacies, errors in thinking and the appropriate use of fact-based evidence to bolster the recommendation.

So back to marketing and coming up with the one-word value proposition.  Anyone who’s ever worked with a professional branding company to develop a company or product name knows that it takes hours, days, even weeks of what I’ll call ’structured creativity’ to blend the myriad factors—values, differentiators, features, benefits, purpose, competitive information, market circumstances, legal and linguistic requirements, design considerations, modality suitability, et cetera and so on ad nauseum—to come up with the one single word or wordmark that is going to be right.

There are very few people who have the skills, attention to detail, experience and talent to do this well.  Lots of others can come up with a name—or a ‘dumbwaiter pitch’, as Haque would have us do—and slap it into a bullet point on a PowerPoint slide.

That’s when concision becomes over-simplification.  I’m all for cutting through the crap, believe me, but when I can’t see or don’t trust the analysis that led to the recommendation, frankly I’m not buying it.

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