Content Gone Wild!

Content Gone Wild! Rachel Lovinger MIMA Summit, October 5, 2009 Photo by wokka

About Me: Rachel Lovinger • Content Strategy Lead, Razorfish • Scatter / Gather, a CS blog http://scattergather.razorfish.com • Semantic Web affinity group • Long time content enthusiast

Two Things I Want You to Learn From This Talk 1. For successful web projects, pay as much attention to the content as to the design and technology. 2. Be proactive instead of reactive. Page 3 © 2009 Razorfish. All rights reserved.

Content Strategy in the Design Process Discover Design Build Deploy Research Source Plan Maintain Assess Organize Style Guide Monitor Concept Taxonomy Copy Deck Respond Voice Social Page 7 © 2009 Razorfish. All rights reserved.

What Happened? Discover Design Build Deploy Research Source Plan Maintain Assess Organize Style Guide Monitor Concept Taxonomy Copy Deck Respond Voice Social Assessment and Concept: Failed to recognize what content customers and prospects might want, aside from product details Page 16 © 2009 Razorfish. All rights reserved.

What Happened? Discover Design Build Deploy Research Source Plan Maintain Assess Organize Style Guide Monitor Concept Taxonomy Copy Deck Respond Voice Social Concept: Organize: Goals of the Topics aren’t blog aren’t clearly defined clearly defined Page 24 © 2009 Razorfish. All rights reserved.

Content Best Practice Have a messaging strategy Content should be: • On point (Business goals) • Relevant (User needs) • Authentic (Expert, passionate writers) • Published regularly (Committed resources) Page 25 © 2009 Razorfish. All rights reserved.

Chris Cornell: Releases Very little information • No release dates • No relationship between EPs / Singles and LPs • No genres • Not organized by bands Page 30 © 2009 Razorfish. All rights reserved.

What Happened? Discover Design Build Deploy Research Source Plan Maintain Assess Organize Style Guide Monitor Concept Taxonomy Copy Deck Respond Voice Social Taxonomy & Metadata: Content is not well organized; meaningful data and relationships are not being surfaced. Page 33 © 2009 Razorfish. All rights reserved.

Content Best Practice Dynamic & meaningful content organization based on metadata • Define relevant facets and taxonomy • Organize content by taxonomy • Metadata provides valuable information • Link to related content Page 34 © 2009 Razorfish. All rights reserved.

What Happened? Discover Design Build Deploy Research Source Plan Maintain Assess Organize Style Guide Monitor Concept Taxonomy Copy Deck Respond Voice Social Plan and Copy Deck: Without a detailed plan, content producers forgot to fill in the less prominent pages and sidebar items Page 39 © 2009 Razorfish. All rights reserved.

What Happened? Discover Design Build Deploy Research Source Plan Maintain Assess Organize Style Guide Monitor Concept Taxonomy Copy Deck Respond Voice Social Ongoing Editorial Plan: They had a launch plan, but no one was responsible for regular content updates once it was live Page 46 © 2009 Razorfish. All rights reserved.

Content Best Practice Plan for content maintenance • Governance • Editorial Strategy • Editorial Calendar • If community based, user generated content can keep the site content fresh Page 47 © 2009 Razorfish. All rights reserved.

What Happened? Discover Design Build Deploy Research Source Plan Maintain Assess Organize Style Guide Monitor Concept Taxonomy Copy Deck Respond Voice Social Concept & Research: Social: Did they ever look at Twitter, No strategy in 4chan, YouTube, Fark or any place to mediate other Internet community? the conversation Page 55 © 2009 Razorfish. All rights reserved.

What Happened? Discover Design Build Deploy Research Source Plan Maintain Assess Organize Style Guide Monitor Concept Taxonomy Copy Deck Respond Voice Social Social and Respond: Response was inappropriate and unethical (and not in line with corporate standards) Page 63 © 2009 Razorfish. All rights reserved.

Content Best Practice Be authentic When you do participate in the conversation: • Establish a social media policy for employees • Be honest about who you are • Communicate like a person Page 64 © 2009 Razorfish. All rights reserved.

It's not easy to do snarky well when you're talking about parenting. Popular blogs like Motherhood Uncensored, Finslippy, Baby on Bored, White Trash Mom, Laid off Dad, and Metrodad to name a few, are not popular simply because they illuminate the ups and downs of parenting with brutal, hilarious honesty, but because they do it through the eyes of parents who truly, deeply love their children. It's the rare writer who can capture the negatives without bitterness, who can elaborate on the hell without sounding, well, like a 34 year- old male copywriter who's never had a kid. Whether or not that's actually the case. Page 70 © 2009 Razorfish. All rights reserved.

What Happened? Discover Design Build Deploy Research Source Plan Maintain Assess Organize Style Guide Monitor Concept Taxonomy Copy Deck Respond Voice Social Voice: Monitor and Respond: Communication strategy Campaign was launched right conflicted with the values of before the weekend, when no the target audience one was around to monitor it Page 71 © 2009 Razorfish. All rights reserved.

Content Best Practice Know how your audience likes to be spoken to • Tone & Voice Guide • Brand Attributes & Values • User Testing • Be prepared to react Page 72 © 2009 Razorfish. All rights reserved.

What Happened? Discover Design Build Deploy Research Source Plan Maintain Assess Organize Style Guide Monitor Concept Taxonomy Copy Deck Respond Voice Social Every stage: The concept for the MTA campaign wasn’t reevaluated for Spanish language; the content for the regional Dell site wasn’t sourced, created, and QA’d like the English content Page 83 © 2009 Razorfish. All rights reserved.

Content Best Practice Globalization involves more than just translation • Content scoping • Planning • Creation • Maintenance • Experts in the language & cultural associations Page 84 © 2009 Razorfish. All rights reserved.

Discovery Phase Research: Discover Design Build Deploy • For most users, the experience centers Research around the charts Source Plan Maintain Assess Active Style Guide Monitor • Organizesite visitors were also passionate Concept Taxonomy Copy Deck Respond Voice about the editorial content Social Page 88 © 2009 Razorfish. All rights reserved.

Discovery Phase Content Assessment: Discover • Content not integrated with chart data Research • Some charts & content types were not Assess well defined Concept Voice • Non-core content was not maintained • Sections of the site linked off to the business property • Search results messy, content hard to find Page 89 © 2009 Razorfish. All rights reserved.

Discovery Phase Concept: Discover • The site should enable people to discover Research and engage with popular music Assess Concept Voice Voice: • The voice of the site should continue to be authoritative and unbiased, but more oriented towards consumer users Page 90 © 2009 Razorfish. All rights reserved.

Design Phase Content Sourcing: Design Discover Design Build Deploy • Reduce number of charts to simplify Source Research Show Plan Maintain • Source more of Billboard’s historical data Organize Assess Organize Style Guide Monitor Taxonomy Concept • Taxonomy core content types Focus on Copy Deck Respond Voice Social • Remove B2B links and content • Partner for streaming music • Partner for additional artist, album & song info Page 91 © 2009 Razorfish. All rights reserved.

Design Phase Content Organization: Design • Charts must be prominent Source • Organize content around Artists, Albums, Songs Organize Taxonomy • Related links from charts to content and from content to charts to keep users engaged Artist Chart Song Album Page 92 © 2009 Razorfish. All rights reserved.

Design Phase Taxonomy & Metadata: Design • Charts tagged as: Source • Mixed Genre: Billboard 200, Hot 100 Organize Taxonomy • Genre: Rock Albums, Pop Songs • International: UK Songs, Japan Albums • Each chart position on each chart includes Artist, Album/Song, Date and other metadata • Editorial content tagged with: Artists, Albums, Songs, Events and Charts Page 93 © 2009 Razorfish. All rights reserved.

Build Phase Plan, Style Guide, Copy Deck, Social: Build Discover Design Build Deploy • Editorial calendars, style guides, etc. all Plan Research managed in house by their dedicated and Source Plan Maintain Style Guide Assess experienced editorialGuide Organize Style staff Monitor Copy Deck Concept Taxonomy Copy Deck Respond Social Voice • Streamlined content types allowed them to Social focus on core content • Partnering for basic info allowed them to focus on developing the .com voice • Social strategy includes specific ways that consumers interact with music and content that don’t require editorial intervention Page 100 © 2009 Razorfish. All rights reserved.

Deploy Phase Maintain, Monitor, Respond: Deploy Discover Design Build Deploy • The editorial team is responsible for Maintain Research maintaining andPlan Source monitoring the content Maintain Monitor Monitor Assess • Organize Streamlined contentGuide and 3rd partner Style types Respond Concept Taxonomy Copy Deck Respond Voice content make these tasks easier Social • The low maintenance social strategy minimizes the need for editorial intervention Page 102 © 2009 Razorfish. All rights reserved.

Summary: Content Best Practices • Create content that engages • Have a messaging strategy • Dynamic & meaningful content organization based on metadata • Carefully plan for content needs • Plan for content maintenance • Be part of the conversation • Be authentic • Know how your audience likes to be spoken to • Globalization involves more than just translation Page 103 © 2009 Razorfish. All rights reserved.

Thank You! Kristina Halvorson Michael Spinella Elena Melendy Paul (wokka on flickr) Web Curmudgeon, wherever you are My colleagues at Razorfish Karen McGrane The Content Strategy community Diana Turner Moms who blog Robert Stribley Twitter, the Internet, and the people Kat Jurick who use them Hugh MacLeod Page 105 © 2009 Razorfish. All rights reserved.