Let your content go — Online marketing shifts

Just when you thought you understood search engine optimization (SEO), increased adoption of Web 2.0 is greatly influencing online marketing, branding and of course the user experience. This shift is affecting how and where to get your message out, what content and in what format you offer, and user behaviors.

Eight online marketing shifts to take note of are:

• From defining your brand – to having your brand defined “Your brand isn’t what you say it is, it’s what Google says it is”
• From “interruptive” marketing – to peer to peer testimonials and reviews
• From telling your story – to getting customers to tell stories about you
• From posting content on your own site – to becoming part of communities on the web – “Let your content go”
• From having a passive customer waiting to be served – to having active participants demanding control and a voice
• From users hoping to find something relevant – to expecting a high degree of relevancy in the format of their choice
• From attracting “HITS” – to targeting customers
• From treating everyone the same – to understanding behaviors

It’s no longer enough to follow SEO techniques, with the further adoption of social networking and collaboration sites, all content needs to be optimized, no matter where it resides on the Internet. It’s also important to note that it’s not enough to have your content just on your website.

“Be in the path of every audience” advises Fredrick Marckini, Founder of iProspect and Chief Global Search Officer, Isobar, and keynote at the recent Search Engine Strategies conference held in Toronto.

Your content needs to reside on the web, woven into social networks and collaborative sites like YouTube, Slideshare, Flickr and Facebook. Each video, image, presentation and piece of textual content needs to be optimized using relevant keywords in context with your brand and then it can reside anywhere on the web and it should always link back to you.

• Blogging will continue to grow; there are over 80 million blogs and the trend is for them to be organic and authentic, less blogs from CEOs and more from subject matter experts.
• There are over 7 million videos on YouTube with an average length of five minutes but most are only watched for 10 seconds. Quality and relevancy is the way to capture audiences.

Your content will need to be offered in different formats as user expectations and demands expand.

Google has tabs for images, groups, news and maps and last year started offering Universal or blended search which means your search engine results page (SERP) could be a mixture of images, stories and videos. So not only is relevancy expected but the type of content in the format of the users’ choice will soon be mandatory. People who consume video will demand it; people who want to play a collaborative role will find a way to contribute.

“Own the results page by offering content under all tabs” Marckini advises.

Relevancy will also be affected by growth and quality. 20% of searches on Google have never been done before. Keywords in context within content will become more critical while tagging will increase.

“Your brand isn’t what you say it is - it is what Google says it is” - according to Mitch Joel, President, Twist Image.

If you think Joel is giving Google too much credit, think again. 80% of people’s first experience with a brand is within search. However, if its news you’re after Yahoo is the hot ticket with its news claiming 33.7 million readers, Google follows with 10.3 million readers of its News tab and then the New York Times with 1 million readers.

So stop thinking just about getting your website found and start thinking about your overall web presence. Start participating in Web 2.0 by starting and/or commenting on blogs, belonging to relevant communities and offering collaboration. Expect users to be more demanding but also offer more of themselves in the way of opinions and hopefully testimonials. Understand your online reputation and your brand. Offer quality and relevancy and shift with the times. And let your content go – it belongs to the World Wide Web community.
Sources:
· Meatball Sundae by Seth Godin
· SES conference, Toronto

when short is sweet

Personally, I dislike Twitter. I don't really care what other people are doing at every given moment and most of their thoughts of wisdom, well aren't. And I'm starting to get a bit paranoid about those that are following me. But I do like that it's short and when used effectively it can be great - a link to a relevant article is about the best example.

No surprise, I'm not a "texter". I like to talk to people and not write coded short forms that can be misunderstood or not understood. But hearing that people buried in the rubble in Haiti have sent texts to friends and been saved is fantastic. It is a brilliant use of technology. And that the charitable organizations have quickly caught on and have coordinated texting to donations is also brilliant. Make it easy. Easy to ask for help. Easy to give it.

You Talking To Me? Online Communications Considerations

Communicating is a tough gig. Once you’ve nailed down what you want to say you need to consider how you’re going to say it. Your tone, use of words, and body language all make an impact and when you start removing these cues it just gets tougher. Now, there are even more things to consider in addition to generation, gender, and learning styles, there is jargon and communication methods or channels.

Take age – it’s no longer just the youth and the adults you need to consider, now, according to Econtent magazine’s article “The Generational Divide” there are four generations in the workforce, each with different values:

Traditionalists

• Loyalty
• Patience
• Mission
• Respect

Baby Boomers

• Teamwork
• Long hours
• Hard work
• Recognition
  

Generation X

• Competence
• Ongoing learning
• Informality
• Feedback

Millennials (or Generation Y)

• Achievement
• Structure
• Collaboration
• Mission
  

Wikipedia explains the generation distinctions as:

• Lost Generation (1883–1900)
  Greatest Generation (1901–1924)
  Silent Generation (1925–1942)
  Baby Boomer (1943–1960)
  Generation X (1961–1981)
  Generation Y (1982–2001)
  Generation Z (2001–)

Gender is another well document variance. According to Dr. Louann Brizendine, a neuropsychiatrist at the University of California in San Francisco and author of The Female Brain in a Canadian Living article, women have 11 per cent more neurons governing language and hearing then men. And it isn’t just about brain circuitry, according to an article on Microsoft’s site “6 tips for bridging the communication gap”. In general terms:

• when women start projects they ask a lot of questions, men just start – then men think women aren’t up to the task
• women tend to use anecdotal or relationship stories while men use sport or war terms
• women try to build relationships and consensus while men like to take leadership
• women get details to show involvement and understanding while men want only enough detail to get the big picture
• women tend to talk more about feelings while men like facts and statistics
  

Understanding learning types is critical if you want to transfer knowledge. There are three basic types of learners:

• Visual learners (let me see it)
• Audio learners (tell me again)
• Kinesthetic learners (let me do it)
• And of course a combination of any two

Then there is jargon relative to a role, industry or company. Just check out some of the sites explaining IT jargon: Top 10 IT Jargon You Love to Hate (slide show) on Network World; IT Jargon Busted; and IT Jargon Buster. But when a communications person asks an IT employee for something and they are told “we can’t because of the firewall” the communications person just hears “No blah, blah, blah” - like that Far Side cartoon by Gary Larson on “What we say” and “What they hear” – with “they” referring to dogs, who apparently only hear their name and blah, blah, blah.

The way in which people receive information can impact how receptive they are to it. Different generations prefer different methods, for Millennials instant messaging and social networking sites are the norm but Baby Boomers are less comfortable with text messaging and traditionalist prefer face to face. Therefore, one method will seldom reach all audiences; consider the variety of communication methods and channels:

• Email (pushed out but maybe overloaded)
• Enewsletters and RSS (pulled in but is it relevant)
• Websites (if you find it does it speak your language)
• Social networking/communities like Facebook, LinkedIn (who else is in the community)
• Collaboration – e.g. Wikis (is it pre-populated by subject matter experts
• Consumer generated media – e.g. blogs, YouTube, Slideshare, rating/rankings (can it keep visitor attention after 10 seconds)
• Customization and Personalization – e.g. bookmarking, portals, RSS (what are the choices)
• Mobile Devices - e.g. ringtones, images, weather, news, maps, direction, twitter, buddyping, text messaging (is it legible in small format and interesting)
• Instant Messaging (do you understand the lexicon and abbreviations)
• Print (also static – think of all those PDFs online)
• Face-to-face (usually refers to in person but teleconferencing is effective)
  

There is a lot to consider when communicating and it is important to match the message to the medium and the medium to the audience. Don’t assume because you have a website that everyone can hear you – Generation Xers and Millennials probably won’t know of your existence. If you don’t have any imagery - a visual learner will move on. If you use jargon or acronyms you’ll lose people at the beginning of their search. And if your message isn’t interesting, why bother? Even dogs are trained with audio and visual cues, as well as a treat or two.

Focusing on your website user by developing personas

Is your website organized and designed for your audiences to achieve the results that they want and you need?

Common website Problems

• Senior staff want something to go on the home page, and then something else and something else and so on... the site looks unorganized and without a clear purpose.
  
• Users complain that they can’t find information or that it is buried deep within the bowels of the site and it takes forever to find it or it is impossible to remember where it is;
  users phone staff to be sent the information or to be given a direct link or step by step directions - taking up their time and yours.

Both these problems are being experienced not only on intranets but also on external websites. The first problem highlights strategy and governance issues and the second problem adds organization (of information architecture) and design issues. Both problems create inefficiencies gobbling up time both for employees and for customers.

First impressions count

Your website is being judged within 50 milliseconds with visitors sustaining their first impressions by seeking out ways to prove themselves right (that is, if they like it they look for evidence they should like it, if they don’t like it they confirm why and leave). Read Making and sustaining a good first impression for more information.

Risk

The risk in creating a bad impression can’t be understated – if the site is outdated, poorly designed and disorganized visitors will leave with the impression that the organization isn’t current, professional or efficient and that will hit you where it counts – your bottom line.

Solution

You may have heard of a user-centric approach to information architecture and design but if you take that up a notch you have a persona approach.

What are Personas?

Personas are representative of larger groups with detailed attributes to enable a focused approach to usability and design.
Personas are representatives, defined with “significant rigor and precision”, and built on a combination of assumptive reasoning and data, which allows for focussing requirements.
Personas also align the project team and clarify how to focus the requirements.

How they work
“To create a product that must satisfy a broad audience of users…you will have far greater success by designing for one single person”. – Alan Cooper (author of The Inmates are Running the Asylum).

Developing personas allows anyone developing or designing, or for that matter, writing, to focus on a person rather than referencing multiple data points. People respond to people, they are easier to remember than a compilation of data. Also, personas are generative – people can relate to them, understand them, acknowledge the relationship they would have with them or what they are designing, as well as the experience they will have and it can be acknowledge that they will change overtime. This real perspective brings life to the design. Personas help a team focus on important aspects of target users – they simplify the reference points.

Why you’d use them
You should be interested in a Persona Approach if:

• you are familiar with the concept of personas;
  
• if you want a user-centric design with a well rounded focus;
  
• if you have a diverse audience you need to understand
  
• if you have a targeted audience you need to understand
• if you don’t know who your audience is, or if your audience is very broad
  

How to Develop Personas

Personas are developed through workshops and data collection methods including interviews and focus groups. Assumptions are gathered along with research data and affinity is established with defined categories. Then “skeleton” personas are created and details are added until the personas are built. Then the personas need to be reviewed and a prime persona chosen. The prime persona establishes clarity in prioritizing, as the prime personas needs are those that must be met. Once that is done then the personas need to be used.

How to Use Personas
It needs to be said that anyone involved in the project where personas will be used (be it an IA, Design or even Content) needs to understand them and how they were developed. The personas need to be used as a reference for making decisions – there is no opportunity for senior staff to add something to the home page unless it meets the prime persona’s requirements or is a major factor for one of the other personas. It goes without saying that the personas must be aligned to the site's strategic objectives and goals which in turn should be reflective of the organization's goals. And if the personas were crafted correctly, information will be easier to find.

Results
It is far easier to say to people “that is something Debbie Persona would want” then to quote demographical information and statistics. It is easier to gain consensus once you have your personas as people can more clearly understand what “Debbie Persona’s” requirements are. And when it comes to creating focused, user friendly, and user centric design, personas are a great tool to keep the focus on the user to create something they will like and use – and that means a successful experience for all.

For more information, view "How to effectively focus on your website user: Creating Personas".

Socializing Social Responsibility

There is a growing trend to socialize social responsibility, that is, corporations invite people to join a community that reflects a topic or issue supporting a cause in which the company also plays a supporting role but generates good will for them alone.

Take a look at what Pepsi is doing at http://www.refresheverything.com/ or Aviva at http://www.avivacommunityfund.org/.

How effect these efforts are, only time will tell but they are already working to some degree because people are talking about them. How do I know? I first saw reference to Aviva`s social responsibility efforts on Facebook - someone had tagged it as a favourite or recommended it. And I first saw mention about Pepsi`s social responsibility on LinkedIn in the `Those in the Media`discussion group where someone mentioned a blog post about Pepsi dropping its superbowl ads for the social activity site: http://www.digitalbuzzblog.com/the-pepsi-refresh-project-social-campaign/.

Certainly if the goal is to generate discussion then these initiatives are working. And if you haven`t already, its time to join the conversation and consider socializing online for whatever you want to communicate.