Deane Barker presented his thoughts on the viability of company news feeds to the Sioux Falls Content Strategy group.

1. The Emperor Has No News
The Future of the Corporate News
Feed

3. “We’re gonna update it,
Daddy.”

7. We’re at an odd point in the
history of marketing where
brands can talk to us.

10. The concept of a post-purchase
relationship with a customer is
quite novel.

11. Relationship Starters
! Purchased digital content that required an
account
! “Liked” them on Facebook
! Tweeted about them
! Registered at their website

12. What should/can brands “say” to
make us buy more of their
products?

14. Question #1
How is news different from
other content?

15. Question #2
How effective is news content?

16. Question #3
How can news content be
made more effective?

17. News as opposed to…
! Reference content
! Branding/lifestyle content

18. News vs. Reference Content
! Reference content generally has no time
sensitivity
! Reference content is pulled, news content is
pushed.
! Reference content is generally known-item
searching – it’s not usually browsed

20. News vs. Branding Content
! Branding content is meant to drive home an
impression of a brand
! Imparting actual information about an
organization is secondary
! More advertising, less news

23. Key Differences of News Content
! Time horizon
! Information architecture
! Delivery
! Intent

24. Time Horizon

25. Time Horizon
! Temporal vs. Eternal
! Post vs. Page
! Blog vs. Wiki
! Dynamic vs. Static
! Chronological vs. Permanent

26. CNN
Wikipedia

27. “With Wikipedia, you’re not seeing a
series of posted items. You’re seeing a
single body of information,
continually updated and groomed.
Thus, the basic information stays right
where it’s easy to see. Wikis are more
‘speak to me like I know nothing’
information, rather than ‘tell me the
very latest nuance’ information.”

28. Time Horizon
! News is generally tied to some moment in
time.
! It either follows or precedes an event.
! After the moment has passed, does news
have any value?
! Is the event of any historical importance?

31. Information Architecture

32. Information Architecture
! News content is not “placed”
! It’s generally subject to two large groupings:
! Date
! Topic

33. ! Pages have an intentional relationship to the
pages “around” them.

34. ! News items have no
“spatial” relationship
with other content.
! Only relationships:
! Time
! Topic

36. Delivery

37. Push or Pull?

38. Pull?
! Very few people browse
news feeds
! Any searching of news
feeds is generally known-item searching
! Posting news items to a news feed is helpful
as a link target

39. Push
! To the general public, news content is
pushed, rather than pulled
! Users know that reference content is there,
so they go looking for it – known-item
searching.
! They don’t know news content exists, and it’s
temporal, not permanent.

40. Problem:
Pushing news dilutes your
analytics.

41. Solution:
Push notifications which drive
users to pull from a single
location.

42. Drive traffic to a central point

43. Intent

44. The Big Eight
! To Inform
! To Impress
! To Associate
! To Introduce or Elaborate
! To Recount, Then Position
! To Educate, Then Position
! To Comply
! To Magnify

45. To Inform
! Promote an event the consumer might want
to be involved with
! Recount an event the consumer might not
have been involved with

47. To Impress
! To demonstrate some level of momentum
! “Top of mind awareness”
! “Forget me not”

50. The audience is often the
press or financial analysts.

52. To Associate
! Associate the
organization with
another that
might be held in
esteem

55. To Introduce or Elaborate
! Explain services and offerings from the
organization that the consumer might not be
aware of
! New product announcements

57. To Influence
! Official position on a
government decision
or external event

59. To Recount, Then Position
! Tell a story of a particular event and then
position the organization’s utility to this
event
! “Case Study”

61. To Educate, Then Position
! Announce a statistic, then position the
organization’s response
! Traditionally the domain of white papers
! Oftentimes they maintain a veneer of
neutrality

64. To Comply
! Required
announcements

65. To Magnify
! Our organization
“in the news”

66. How do we make news better?
Painful Facts and Key Questions

67. Painful Fact #1
Almost* no one is going to
browse the news on your website
through sheer interest.

68. Painful Fact #2
A majority of news is posted out
of a sense of obligation or
routine, with no larger goal or
plan of action.

69. Painful Fact #3
News that is not proactively
targeted to an audience and then
pushed onto that audience is
probably wasted.

70. Key Question #1
Who is the audience for this
news item?

71. Something is
only
“newsworthy”
in the context
of an audience.

72. Key Question #2
How is my audience going to
find out about this news?

73. News that isn’t pushed, is
news that is wasted.

74. Key Question #3
What do I want this audience to
do because of this news item?

75. The Big Eight
! To Inform
! To Impress
! To Associate
! To Introduce or Elaborate
! To Recount, Then Position
! To Educate, Then Position
! To Comply
! To Magnify

76. Goals
! Attend an event
! Know about a product or service offering
! Develop a sense of urgency about their
circumstances
! Think more highly of my brand

77. Key Question #4
What steps have I taken to enable
my audience to achieve my goal?

78. What is the call to action?

80. 1. Who is the audience?
! Current clients
! Prospective clients
! Prospective employees
! Local press

81. 2. What is the goal?
! To Impress:
! Blend is growing and therefore needs more staff
to keep up with demand
! To Inform:
! Be aware that Blend now has increased capacity
and can engage more work

82. 3. How is it pushed?
! RSS
! Facebook
! Twitter
! Pushed to Silicon Prairie News
! Companion press release to Argus Leader

83. 4. What is my call to action?
! There was none.
! It could have been:
! Visit their new profile pages
! Contact Blend to see how we can use this new
capacity for your benefit
! Apply at Blend

84. News has to become less
obligatory, more purposeful.

85. The End
(FYI: You made it through 85 slides.)