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Content strategy for the social web

This document discusses content strategy for the social web. It emphasizes locating where attention flows online, focusing content activities in those areas, recruiting skills like community management and outreach, and measuring the right metrics. Key points are that attention online follows a power law distribution, with a few sites and content getting most engagement, and an editorial approach needs to understand this to compete effectively for attention on the social web.

Business◦Technology◦Design◦

Content strategy for the social web

1.
CONTENT STRATEGY FORTHE SOCIAL WEBCharlie Peverett@cpeviCrossing UKby theseanster93 on Flickr
2.
Or:Editorial people ROCK/ the future is bright / [but…]
3.
The story sofar
4.
The story sofarSEO
5.
The story sofarUX designersSEO
6.
The story sofarUX designersSEOEditors
7.
The story sofarUX designersSEOEditorsOrdinary decent citizens
8.
The story sofarUX designersSEOWeb2 point Tot0EditorsOrdinary decent citizens
9.
The story sofarUX designersSEOI just want to go homeWeb2 point Tot0EditorsOrdinary decent citizens
10.
An editorial approachbrings:Audience focus TrustQuality ControlHurray!
11.
An editorial approachbrings:Audience focus TrustQuality ControlHurray!
12.
An editorial approachbrings:Audience focus TrustQuality ControlHurray!
13.
An editorial approachbrings:Audience focus TrustQuality ControlHurray!
14.
An editorial approachbrings:Audience focus TrustQuality ControlHurray!
15.
An editorial approachbrings:Audience focus TrustQuality ControlHurray!
16.
An editorial approachbrings:Audience focus TrustQuality ControlHurray! Job done.
17.
An editorial approachbrings:Audience focus TrustQuality ControlHurray! Job done. Satsuma for everyone.
18.
An editorial approachbrings:Audience focus TrustQuality ControlHurray! Job done. Satsuma for everyone.
19.
An editorial approachbrings:Audience focus TrustQuality ControlHurray! Job done. Satsuma for everyone. Yes?
20.
No.Because these attributesare importantbut insufficientand it’s editorial people who need to get their heads around thatby understanding the true nature of attention on the web.
21.
No.Because these attributesare importantbut insufficientand it’s editorial people who need to get their heads around thatby understanding the true nature of attention on the web.
22.
No.Because these attributesare importantbut insufficientand it’s editorial people who need to get their heads around thatby understanding the true nature of attention on the web.
23.
No.Because these attributesare importantbut insufficientand it’s editorial people who need to get their heads around thatby understanding the true nature of attention on the web.
24.
No.Because these attributesare importantbut insufficientand it’s editorial people who need to get their heads around thatby understanding the true nature of attention on the web.
25.
“This ain’t noField of Dreams”- savvy iCrossing client, 2010Image by theseanster93 on Flickr
26.
Power Law DistributionOneof the ‘fundamental laws everyone ignores’ - Mark Higginson, iCrossing
27.
Power Law Distribution“…powerlaw distributions tend to arise in social systems where many people express their preferences among many options” - Clay Shirky
28.
“Though there aremore new bloggers and more new readers every day, most of the new readers are adding to the traffic of the top few blogs, while most new blogs are getting below average traffic, a gap that will grow as the weblog world does. “It's not impossible to launch a good new blog and become widely read, but it's harder than it was last year, and it will be harder still next year.” - Clay Shirkyhttp://www.shirky.com/writings/powerlaw_weblog.html
29.
“Though there aremore new bloggers and more new readers every day, most of the new readers are adding to the traffic of the top few blogs, while most new blogs are getting below average traffic, a gap that will grow as the weblog world does. “It's not impossible to launch a good new blog and become widely read, but it's harder than it was last year, and it will be harder still next year.” - Clay Shirky (2003!)http://www.shirky.com/writings/powerlaw_weblog.html
30.
What does thismean for content strategy?It means we have to locate where attention flows, use that knowledge to help us focus our activities – on our own spaces, in social media and on third-party sites – recruit the necessary skillsto deliver the content accordingly and measure the right things.
31.
1. Locate relevantattention by Manitoba Historical Maps on Flickr
32.
5
33.
5Find the mostrelevant sites with the most engaged audiences
34.
5Find the mostrelevant sites with the most engaged audiences
35.
Content profiling 35
36.
Content profiling Aquantitative (binary!) way to quickly assess content types and sources on relevant sites36
37.
Content profiling Aquantitative (binary!) way to quickly assess content types and sources on relevant sitesHelps to identify ‘must-have’ content by topic - and possible gaps in provision37
38.
Maps and Routes38
39.
Maps and RoutesProvided by 3rd party (e.g. Google Maps)39
40.
Image galleries40
41.
Content destinations41
42.
Content destinations[widest offeringof content types] 42
43.
Few sites offercompetitions 43
44.
Few sites offercompetitions [opportunity?]44
45.
2. Focus activitywhere you can competeby See-mingLee 李思明 SML
46.
Socially Designed ContentServicesoutreachadaptationet. al.EXAMPLEniche‘feeder’ site‘social space’link benefitoptimised page for searchhighlyimportant sitemain websitepost to page / profiledirect fans to contentpost to channel /post on site pageembeds assetsotherrelevant sites‘media centre’data-collection and segmentationconversionfunnelsales / sign-ups, etc.
47.
Socially Designed ContentServicesoutreachadaptationet. al.EARNED / PAIDMEDIAniche‘feeder’ site‘social space’link benefitoptimised page for searchEARNED / PAIDMEDIAOWNEDMEDIAhighlyimportant sitemain client sitepost to page / profiledirect fans to contentpost to channel /post on site pageembeds assetsotherrelevant sitesclient ‘media centre’data-collection and segmentationconversionfunnelsales / sign-ups, etc.
48.
For example, getting attention for iCrossing’s views on contentstrategy:
49.
[shameless plug]
50.
[shameless plug][shameless plug]
51.
Guest blog postby iCrossingebook author outreachadaptationbloglink benefitoptimised page for searchmain websitepost to page / profileotherrelevant sitesiCrossing.co.ukQualified traffic referred to iCrossingebook landing pagesign-ups
52.
3. Recruit theright skillsby TheAlieness GiselaGiardino²³
53.
SKILLS FOCUS Socially Designed Content Servicesoutreachadaptationet. al.COMMUNITY MANAGEMENTniche‘feeder’ site‘social space’link benefitoptimised page for searchOUTREACH / ONLINE PRWEB EDITINGhighlyimportant sitemain client sitepost to page / profiledirect fans to contentpost to channel /post on site pageembeds assetsotherrelevant sitesclient ‘media centre’data-collection and segmentationconversionfunnelsales / sign-ups, etc.
54.
In essence, weneed:
56.
Pedants
57.
Pedants [editorial types,and creative content producers]
58.
[and]
59.
by Flickr userM31
60.
Partygoers by Flickruser M31
61.
Partygoers [this ismy idea of how PR people spend their time] by Flickr user M31
62.
[and finally weMUST]
63.
4. Measure theright stuffby Flickr user Laineys Repertoire
64.
In summary: 1.Locate the attention 2. Focus where wecan compete3. Recruit the right skills 4. Measure the right stuff
65.
Thanks!Charlie Peverett@cpevContent StrategistiCrossingUK
66.
Image creditsBaseball imageby Flickr user theseanster93, licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike2.0 Generic Licencehttp://www.flickr.com/photos/theseanster93/1152356149/Satsuma image licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 2.0 License by the Soil-Net Library at Cranfield University http://www.soil-net.com/album/Plants/Fruit_Veg/slides/FruitVeg%20Satsuma.htmlMap image by Flickr user Manitoba Historical Maps, licensed under Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 Generic Licence http://www.flickr.com/photos/manitobamaps/2089812938/Birdhouse image by Flickr user See-ming Lee 李思明 SML licensed under Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 2.0 Generic licence http://www.flickr.com/photos/seeminglee/2149309015/in/photostream/Arthus C Clarke quote image by Flickr user TheAlienessGiselaGiardino²³ licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 2.0 Generic licence http://www.flickr.com/photos/gi/518613153/in/photostream/Street party at night image by Flickr user M31 under Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 Generic licence http://www.flickr.com/photos/morphomir/2407451929/Ruler image by Flickr user Laineys Repertoire licensed under Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 Generic licence http://www.flickr.com/photos/76283671@N00/184612846/Cliché swear box and LoremIpsum t-shirt images by @cpevhttp://www.flickr.com/photos/cpev

Editor's Notes

#2 No one reads the notes, right? Oh, so *you* do. Ok. Let's get this straight. I'm not going to be talking today about how to do cool stuff in social media with content. I'm sorry. I've called this session Content Strategy for the Social Web to emphasise that the web is social and that this fundamental quality has an impact on how we publish and promote content that is yet to be widely appreciated.
#4 Arriving at an SEO agency in 2007
#5 Found out stuff about how Google + search marketing worked
#6 Shocking
#7 Shocking
#8 Shocking
#9 But social media (aka Web 2 point Toto) has pulled back the curtain on this and lots of other behind-the-scenes practices
#10 And we’re not in Kansas anymore.
#11 Bringing an editorial approach to content brings teh awesome stuff image licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 2.0 License by the Soil-Net Library at Cranfield University http://www.soil-net.com/album/Plants/Fruit_Veg/slides/FruitVeg%20Satsuma.html
#18 Eddie Izzard expression denoting spirit of generosity brought about my having multitude of wonderful things (satsuma segments / content successes) to share around.
#19 image licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 2.0 License by the Soil-Net Library at Cranfield University http://www.soil-net.com/album/Plants/Fruit_Veg/slides/FruitVeg%20Satsuma.html
#22 Worst. Clipart. Ever. The ‘banned satsuma’
#26 [insert CC link]Two inevitable truths / pressures:Attention is already extremely unevenly distributed on the web People increasingly consume content on their own terms (devices, browsers, social streams), meaning a loss of control for the content producerMy colleague Mark Higginson, who is director of social media for iCrossing UK, has been helping us in the content team - predominantly a bunch of editors and journalists - to understand what this means for the way that we approach content projects. He's drawn our attention, time and again, whether we thank him for it or not, to the analytics. They reveal, time and again, what he calls the 'fundamental laws everyone ignores'. One law in particular pervades.
#27 Shirky: “power law distributions tend to arise in social systems where many people express their preferences among many options”
#28 Shirky: “power law distributions tend to arise in social systems where many people express their preferences among many options”
#31 What does this mean for content strategy?It means that, when considering the role of editorial or conversational content, the strategist must take into account the relative opportunities afforded by on and off-site content. There are plenty of reasons you may want to have a blog on your own site. For internal communications; as a way of improving social media literacy within your organisation; for easily publishing announcements and updates; to support a specific project But if the primary goal is to win attention on any significant scale, think carefully before proposing a content destination on your own site - one which seeks to build significant levels of traffic and attract increasing numbers of repeat visitors.
#32 One of the most useful inputs for us as a content team has been the tiered lists of websites in relevant subject areas, collated and ranked by our colleagues in the social media team. They create longlists of sites that are relevant for particular topics and assess them for how authoritative they are and how engaged their users are. These are then filtered, so we can start to see which sites command the most attention. This gives us all kinds of useful information – from simple URLs and contacts details, to clues as to how attention has shaped up online around particular topic areas. [Flickr credit: http://www.flickr.com/photos/manitobamaps/2089812938/]
#33 The results can be visualised in a number of ways, that help us to prioritise the sites we will assess for content and possible opportunities to engage with them
#36 Assessing sites (whether direct commercial competitors or those that compete for relevant, topic-related attention) can be time consuming. Content profiling is quantitative. At its most basic, it’s binary! It gives us a quick idea of what content types are used by the places where most attention is focused, and also whether these sites use content from elsewhere (e.g. sponsored, syndicated, aggregated, curated).
#38 By using conditional formatting in Excel to highlight yes and no, we can easily see where in a list of sites content types and sources are often used, and where they are less frequent.
#39 In this example, we can see that maps are very important (the websites being profiled relate to walking and outdoors).
#40 By also checking whether these sites use 3rd parties to supply their on-site maps we can see that Google Maps is a very important content partner in this topic area.
#41 Here we can see that collections of images are also quite popularly published.
#42 Looking along the horizontal axis reveals sites that are set up as ‘content destinations’ providing a wide array of content types and sources. Big media sites, large established blogs and commercial portals often display this profile.
#44 Locating gaps can be interesting, and always begs the question – is the content not offered because users don’t want it, because it’s been missed as an opportunity, or because it’s too difficult / expensive for most sites to produce?
#46 Once we know what the competition for attention looks like, we can start to make smart decisions about whether we attempt to compete for that attention on our own properties or attempt to win attention where it already exists (it’s usually a mixture of both). http://www.flickr.com/photos/seeminglee/2149309015/in/photostream/
#47 Here’s an example of how we might breakdown the various platforms, activities and the relationships between them.
#49 And here’s a very simple example of how a couple of pieces of content, on on-site, one off, helped earn iCrossing some attention for Content Strategy earlier this year.
#50 ‘How to plan a content strategy’ebook cover
#51 Psst. You can get a PDF copy of the ebook by emailing results@icrossing.co.uk ...
#52 Mashable is one of those sites at the head of the power law. That’s where the attention for social media marketing is focused. And that’s where iCrossing needs to be to stand the greatest chance of winning attention in that network. And Mashable is ***hungry***So it makes sense for us, and them, to provide relevant, expert content that relates back to our ebook. You can see the blog post here: http://mashable.com/2011/04/01/branded-content/Look at all the tweets and LinkedIn shares – that’s more than iCrossing’s blog, sensational as it is, is liely to attract in months of publishing fresh content.Numbers referred back to iCrossing’sebook landing page were a fraction of the numbers reading the blog post on Mashable, but including significant leads for our marketing team to follow up, having captured users’ email addresses as part of the process of requesting the ebook.
#53 We’ve already established that editorial skillsare essential, but can’t do the job alone. http://www.flickr.com/photos/gi/518613153/in/photostream/
#54 To simplify, the suite of skills tend in these familiar roles tend to be located in these areas of the web ‘ecosystem’
#58 Pedants = shorthand for those obsessed with detail, accuracy and execution of content.
#60 http://www.flickr.com/photos/morphomir/2407451929/
#61 Partygoers = networkers, relationship-builders – the kind of people who can make a call and negotiate a content partnership for the editorial folks’ mighty efforts. http://www.flickr.com/photos/morphomir/2407451929/
#62 http://www.flickr.com/photos/morphomir/2407451929/
#64 Google Analytics may be a red herring. If the attention for your content is on 3rd party sites, that won’t show up in your dashboard. Qualified referal traffic to your owned spaces (quality rather than volume), signups (e.g. email addresses collected on or off-site) and other measures of reach may be the most important measurements. Ensure your content creators are not beholden to the wrong targets (e.g. building traffic to content published on your site, if you’re in no position to compete for the attention on those terms). You will only make your content creators miserable.
#66 This is my stupid T-shirt. http://www.flickr.com/photos/cpev/6123443244/in/photostream
#67 I want to marry Flickr and everyone on it.

Content strategy for the social web

1.
CONTENT STRATEGY FORTHE SOCIAL WEBCharlie Peverett@cpeviCrossing UKby theseanster93 on Flickr
2.
Or:Editorial people ROCK/ the future is bright / [but…]
3.
The story sofar
4.
The story sofarSEO
5.
The story sofarUX designersSEO
6.
The story sofarUX designersSEOEditors
7.
The story sofarUX designersSEOEditorsOrdinary decent citizens
8.
The story sofarUX designersSEOWeb2 point Tot0EditorsOrdinary decent citizens
9.
The story sofarUX designersSEOI just want to go homeWeb2 point Tot0EditorsOrdinary decent citizens
10.
An editorial approachbrings:Audience focus TrustQuality ControlHurray!
11.
An editorial approachbrings:Audience focus TrustQuality ControlHurray!
12.
An editorial approachbrings:Audience focus TrustQuality ControlHurray!
13.
An editorial approachbrings:Audience focus TrustQuality ControlHurray!
14.
An editorial approachbrings:Audience focus TrustQuality ControlHurray!
15.
An editorial approachbrings:Audience focus TrustQuality ControlHurray!
16.
An editorial approachbrings:Audience focus TrustQuality ControlHurray! Job done.
17.
An editorial approachbrings:Audience focus TrustQuality ControlHurray! Job done. Satsuma for everyone.
18.
An editorial approachbrings:Audience focus TrustQuality ControlHurray! Job done. Satsuma for everyone.
19.
An editorial approachbrings:Audience focus TrustQuality ControlHurray! Job done. Satsuma for everyone. Yes?
20.
No.Because these attributesare importantbut insufficientand it’s editorial people who need to get their heads around thatby understanding the true nature of attention on the web.
21.
No.Because these attributesare importantbut insufficientand it’s editorial people who need to get their heads around thatby understanding the true nature of attention on the web.
22.
No.Because these attributesare importantbut insufficientand it’s editorial people who need to get their heads around thatby understanding the true nature of attention on the web.
23.
No.Because these attributesare importantbut insufficientand it’s editorial people who need to get their heads around thatby understanding the true nature of attention on the web.
24.
No.Because these attributesare importantbut insufficientand it’s editorial people who need to get their heads around thatby understanding the true nature of attention on the web.
25.
“This ain’t noField of Dreams”- savvy iCrossing client, 2010Image by theseanster93 on Flickr
26.
Power Law DistributionOneof the ‘fundamental laws everyone ignores’ - Mark Higginson, iCrossing
27.
Power Law Distribution“…powerlaw distributions tend to arise in social systems where many people express their preferences among many options” - Clay Shirky
28.
“Though there aremore new bloggers and more new readers every day, most of the new readers are adding to the traffic of the top few blogs, while most new blogs are getting below average traffic, a gap that will grow as the weblog world does. “It's not impossible to launch a good new blog and become widely read, but it's harder than it was last year, and it will be harder still next year.” - Clay Shirkyhttp://www.shirky.com/writings/powerlaw_weblog.html
29.
“Though there aremore new bloggers and more new readers every day, most of the new readers are adding to the traffic of the top few blogs, while most new blogs are getting below average traffic, a gap that will grow as the weblog world does. “It's not impossible to launch a good new blog and become widely read, but it's harder than it was last year, and it will be harder still next year.” - Clay Shirky (2003!)http://www.shirky.com/writings/powerlaw_weblog.html
30.
What does thismean for content strategy?It means we have to locate where attention flows, use that knowledge to help us focus our activities – on our own spaces, in social media and on third-party sites – recruit the necessary skillsto deliver the content accordingly and measure the right things.
31.
1. Locate relevantattention by Manitoba Historical Maps on Flickr
32.
5
33.
5Find the mostrelevant sites with the most engaged audiences
34.
5Find the mostrelevant sites with the most engaged audiences
35.
Content profiling 35
36.
Content profiling Aquantitative (binary!) way to quickly assess content types and sources on relevant sites36
37.
Content profiling Aquantitative (binary!) way to quickly assess content types and sources on relevant sitesHelps to identify ‘must-have’ content by topic - and possible gaps in provision37
38.
Maps and Routes38
39.
Maps and RoutesProvided by 3rd party (e.g. Google Maps)39
40.
Image galleries40
41.
Content destinations41
42.
Content destinations[widest offeringof content types] 42
43.
Few sites offercompetitions 43
44.
Few sites offercompetitions [opportunity?]44
45.
2. Focus activitywhere you can competeby See-mingLee 李思明 SML
46.
Socially Designed ContentServicesoutreachadaptationet. al.EXAMPLEniche‘feeder’ site‘social space’link benefitoptimised page for searchhighlyimportant sitemain websitepost to page / profiledirect fans to contentpost to channel /post on site pageembeds assetsotherrelevant sites‘media centre’data-collection and segmentationconversionfunnelsales / sign-ups, etc.
47.
Socially Designed ContentServicesoutreachadaptationet. al.EARNED / PAIDMEDIAniche‘feeder’ site‘social space’link benefitoptimised page for searchEARNED / PAIDMEDIAOWNEDMEDIAhighlyimportant sitemain client sitepost to page / profiledirect fans to contentpost to channel /post on site pageembeds assetsotherrelevant sitesclient ‘media centre’data-collection and segmentationconversionfunnelsales / sign-ups, etc.
48.
For example, getting attention for iCrossing’s views on contentstrategy:
49.
[shameless plug]
50.
[shameless plug][shameless plug]
51.
Guest blog postby iCrossingebook author outreachadaptationbloglink benefitoptimised page for searchmain websitepost to page / profileotherrelevant sitesiCrossing.co.ukQualified traffic referred to iCrossingebook landing pagesign-ups
52.
3. Recruit theright skillsby TheAlieness GiselaGiardino²³
53.
SKILLS FOCUS Socially Designed Content Servicesoutreachadaptationet. al.COMMUNITY MANAGEMENTniche‘feeder’ site‘social space’link benefitoptimised page for searchOUTREACH / ONLINE PRWEB EDITINGhighlyimportant sitemain client sitepost to page / profiledirect fans to contentpost to channel /post on site pageembeds assetsotherrelevant sitesclient ‘media centre’data-collection and segmentationconversionfunnelsales / sign-ups, etc.
54.
In essence, weneed:
56.
Pedants
57.
Pedants [editorial types,and creative content producers]
58.
[and]
59.
by Flickr userM31
60.
Partygoers by Flickruser M31
61.
Partygoers [this ismy idea of how PR people spend their time] by Flickr user M31
62.
[and finally weMUST]
63.
4. Measure theright stuffby Flickr user Laineys Repertoire
64.
In summary: 1.Locate the attention 2. Focus where wecan compete3. Recruit the right skills 4. Measure the right stuff
65.
Thanks!Charlie Peverett@cpevContent StrategistiCrossingUK
66.
Image creditsBaseball imageby Flickr user theseanster93, licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike2.0 Generic Licencehttp://www.flickr.com/photos/theseanster93/1152356149/Satsuma image licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 2.0 License by the Soil-Net Library at Cranfield University http://www.soil-net.com/album/Plants/Fruit_Veg/slides/FruitVeg%20Satsuma.htmlMap image by Flickr user Manitoba Historical Maps, licensed under Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 Generic Licence http://www.flickr.com/photos/manitobamaps/2089812938/Birdhouse image by Flickr user See-ming Lee 李思明 SML licensed under Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 2.0 Generic licence http://www.flickr.com/photos/seeminglee/2149309015/in/photostream/Arthus C Clarke quote image by Flickr user TheAlienessGiselaGiardino²³ licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 2.0 Generic licence http://www.flickr.com/photos/gi/518613153/in/photostream/Street party at night image by Flickr user M31 under Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 Generic licence http://www.flickr.com/photos/morphomir/2407451929/Ruler image by Flickr user Laineys Repertoire licensed under Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 Generic licence http://www.flickr.com/photos/76283671@N00/184612846/Cliché swear box and LoremIpsum t-shirt images by @cpevhttp://www.flickr.com/photos/cpev

Editor's Notes

#2 No one reads the notes, right? Oh, so *you* do. Ok. Let's get this straight. I'm not going to be talking today about how to do cool stuff in social media with content. I'm sorry. I've called this session Content Strategy for the Social Web to emphasise that the web is social and that this fundamental quality has an impact on how we publish and promote content that is yet to be widely appreciated.
#4 Arriving at an SEO agency in 2007
#5 Found out stuff about how Google + search marketing worked
#6 Shocking
#7 Shocking
#8 Shocking
#9 But social media (aka Web 2 point Toto) has pulled back the curtain on this and lots of other behind-the-scenes practices
#10 And we’re not in Kansas anymore.
#11 Bringing an editorial approach to content brings teh awesome stuff image licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 2.0 License by the Soil-Net Library at Cranfield University http://www.soil-net.com/album/Plants/Fruit_Veg/slides/FruitVeg%20Satsuma.html
#18 Eddie Izzard expression denoting spirit of generosity brought about my having multitude of wonderful things (satsuma segments / content successes) to share around.
#19 image licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 2.0 License by the Soil-Net Library at Cranfield University http://www.soil-net.com/album/Plants/Fruit_Veg/slides/FruitVeg%20Satsuma.html
#22 Worst. Clipart. Ever. The ‘banned satsuma’
#26 [insert CC link]Two inevitable truths / pressures:Attention is already extremely unevenly distributed on the web People increasingly consume content on their own terms (devices, browsers, social streams), meaning a loss of control for the content producerMy colleague Mark Higginson, who is director of social media for iCrossing UK, has been helping us in the content team - predominantly a bunch of editors and journalists - to understand what this means for the way that we approach content projects. He's drawn our attention, time and again, whether we thank him for it or not, to the analytics. They reveal, time and again, what he calls the 'fundamental laws everyone ignores'. One law in particular pervades.
#27 Shirky: “power law distributions tend to arise in social systems where many people express their preferences among many options”
#28 Shirky: “power law distributions tend to arise in social systems where many people express their preferences among many options”
#31 What does this mean for content strategy?It means that, when considering the role of editorial or conversational content, the strategist must take into account the relative opportunities afforded by on and off-site content. There are plenty of reasons you may want to have a blog on your own site. For internal communications; as a way of improving social media literacy within your organisation; for easily publishing announcements and updates; to support a specific project But if the primary goal is to win attention on any significant scale, think carefully before proposing a content destination on your own site - one which seeks to build significant levels of traffic and attract increasing numbers of repeat visitors.
#32 One of the most useful inputs for us as a content team has been the tiered lists of websites in relevant subject areas, collated and ranked by our colleagues in the social media team. They create longlists of sites that are relevant for particular topics and assess them for how authoritative they are and how engaged their users are. These are then filtered, so we can start to see which sites command the most attention. This gives us all kinds of useful information – from simple URLs and contacts details, to clues as to how attention has shaped up online around particular topic areas. [Flickr credit: http://www.flickr.com/photos/manitobamaps/2089812938/]
#33 The results can be visualised in a number of ways, that help us to prioritise the sites we will assess for content and possible opportunities to engage with them
#36 Assessing sites (whether direct commercial competitors or those that compete for relevant, topic-related attention) can be time consuming. Content profiling is quantitative. At its most basic, it’s binary! It gives us a quick idea of what content types are used by the places where most attention is focused, and also whether these sites use content from elsewhere (e.g. sponsored, syndicated, aggregated, curated).
#38 By using conditional formatting in Excel to highlight yes and no, we can easily see where in a list of sites content types and sources are often used, and where they are less frequent.
#39 In this example, we can see that maps are very important (the websites being profiled relate to walking and outdoors).
#40 By also checking whether these sites use 3rd parties to supply their on-site maps we can see that Google Maps is a very important content partner in this topic area.
#41 Here we can see that collections of images are also quite popularly published.
#42 Looking along the horizontal axis reveals sites that are set up as ‘content destinations’ providing a wide array of content types and sources. Big media sites, large established blogs and commercial portals often display this profile.
#44 Locating gaps can be interesting, and always begs the question – is the content not offered because users don’t want it, because it’s been missed as an opportunity, or because it’s too difficult / expensive for most sites to produce?
#46 Once we know what the competition for attention looks like, we can start to make smart decisions about whether we attempt to compete for that attention on our own properties or attempt to win attention where it already exists (it’s usually a mixture of both). http://www.flickr.com/photos/seeminglee/2149309015/in/photostream/
#47 Here’s an example of how we might breakdown the various platforms, activities and the relationships between them.
#49 And here’s a very simple example of how a couple of pieces of content, on on-site, one off, helped earn iCrossing some attention for Content Strategy earlier this year.
#50 ‘How to plan a content strategy’ebook cover
#51 Psst. You can get a PDF copy of the ebook by emailing results@icrossing.co.uk ...
#52 Mashable is one of those sites at the head of the power law. That’s where the attention for social media marketing is focused. And that’s where iCrossing needs to be to stand the greatest chance of winning attention in that network. And Mashable is ***hungry***So it makes sense for us, and them, to provide relevant, expert content that relates back to our ebook. You can see the blog post here: http://mashable.com/2011/04/01/branded-content/Look at all the tweets and LinkedIn shares – that’s more than iCrossing’s blog, sensational as it is, is liely to attract in months of publishing fresh content.Numbers referred back to iCrossing’sebook landing page were a fraction of the numbers reading the blog post on Mashable, but including significant leads for our marketing team to follow up, having captured users’ email addresses as part of the process of requesting the ebook.
#53 We’ve already established that editorial skillsare essential, but can’t do the job alone. http://www.flickr.com/photos/gi/518613153/in/photostream/
#54 To simplify, the suite of skills tend in these familiar roles tend to be located in these areas of the web ‘ecosystem’
#58 Pedants = shorthand for those obsessed with detail, accuracy and execution of content.
#60 http://www.flickr.com/photos/morphomir/2407451929/
#61 Partygoers = networkers, relationship-builders – the kind of people who can make a call and negotiate a content partnership for the editorial folks’ mighty efforts. http://www.flickr.com/photos/morphomir/2407451929/
#62 http://www.flickr.com/photos/morphomir/2407451929/
#64 Google Analytics may be a red herring. If the attention for your content is on 3rd party sites, that won’t show up in your dashboard. Qualified referal traffic to your owned spaces (quality rather than volume), signups (e.g. email addresses collected on or off-site) and other measures of reach may be the most important measurements. Ensure your content creators are not beholden to the wrong targets (e.g. building traffic to content published on your site, if you’re in no position to compete for the attention on those terms). You will only make your content creators miserable.
#66 This is my stupid T-shirt. http://www.flickr.com/photos/cpev/6123443244/in/photostream
#67 I want to marry Flickr and everyone on it.

Content strategy for the social web

Content strategy for the social web

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