Archive for the ‘Content’ Category

RE: Conan O’Brien Flashes His Social Media Brilliance

Friday, January 15th, 2010

On last night’s The Tonight Show with Conan O’Brien, the embroiled, soon-to-be-switching-networks, wickedly funny host proved he’s no novice to social media while demonstrating his marketing acumen in a Post-Advertising Age.

To wit, he announced during his monologue that he had put his show for sale on Craigslist – “while I still can.”

Sure enough, the listing could be found under the “For Sale/Wanted > Collectibles” category in Los Angeles.

Titled: 4 SALE: BARELY-USED LATE NIGHT TALK SHOW”
Text: …looking for your best offer, but also willing to trade for Coldplay tickets.

(Sadly, the posting was flagged for removal as of this morning.)

A good smile for a Friday.

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New, more effective, way to write online is emerging

Monday, April 20th, 2009

Apologies to 8th grade English teachers everywhere. Prose are history. So are long sentences. And those grammar rules drilled into our heads growing up. Many should be broken.

Clever writing is also dead. Sorry to all brilliant headline writers trying to catch readers’ attention with puns, double entendres and misdirection.

A new – more effective – way to write online has been confirmed by countless marketing and usability studies.

Today, web users:

  • skim, scan, and select
  • browse
    • forage
    • quick glances and occasional very brief stops
  • read a little at a time
    • mostly in short burst
    • grab and get on towards the goal

And web users don’t read sequentially. Long narratives and anecdotes should be saved for the print world.

Every. Word. Counts.

Even word placement matters. Critical, information-carrying words should be at the beginning of sentences. Even if you must write in passive voice.

Why? The web experience is fundamentally different than print – and different than how most writers were trained:

  • Web is an active medium. Users are engaged; actively making choices; and goal-oriented.
  • Print is passive. Reader is relaxed. Not making choices. Willing to be told a story.
  • Computer screens project light directly into and therefore fatigue users’ eyes quicker. Users can’t read for long stretches. Printed page reflects light, therefore easier on the eyes, so readers can read longer.
  • Web users are more impatient (think frustrations with high load times) than print readers.
  • Web users often arrive at a page through search. Thus, they’re seeking information. Not looking for long narrative.

Clever writing is antithetical to user experience. It makes readers waste time filtering out the hyperbole or “cleverness” to get at the facts.

Example: Headlines should predict what users will get when they invest time to click and read. Cute yet unclear wording doesn’t aid users’ understanding. It wastes time.

  • Also, headlines often appear by themselves in lists of topics or search results. Users are less likely to click on cute phraseology than specific, direct text that explains the subsequent content.

The new rules:

  1. Headlines and Subheads: Clear not clever. Move all information-carrying words to the front.
  2. Introductory paragraph: Skip the welcome and warm up. Just tell what page is about. Or eliminate.
  3. Rest of text should tell users only what they want/need to know. Every phrase should add value. Edit out tangents and flowery writing.
  4. Ever word should add value. Eliminate most simple modifiers, “a” and “the.”
  5. Use Inverted Pyramid style. Start by telling users conclusion (like good newspaper reporter).
  6. Deliver “chunks” of information. Not sentences.
  7. Use familiar words – not made-up terms or jargon to avoid wasting users’ time translating.
    • Also, readers more likely to use familiar words when creating search queries. Proprietary terms NOT searched as often. Example: Use “word of mouth” instead of “viralization”
  8. Use bulleted lists, bold, italics, and underlining to highlight points.
  9. Edit out redundancies.
  10. Avoid wasteful flourishes like “to summarize” or “in my opinion.”
  11. Edit out redundancies.
  12. Use numerals like “23″ not “twenty three” to aid users scanning for information and facts.

Good writers will adapt. Others will complain about it and find fault with web users.

What’s next? Google book search and Amazon’s Kindle will change the way books are written too.

Resources:

The Authority is Jakob Nielsen

Great example and illustration at MIT Labs

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RE: What Business Do You Have on a Facebook Page?

Wednesday, March 11th, 2009

What began as a story comparing Facebook Pages and Groups, quickly evolved into how Facebook as changed Pages and what it means for marketers.

First, a brief explanation of Facebook Pages

Facebook frowns upon commercial entities or public figures setting up profiles. It even put in place limitations that restrict a profiler’s ability to speak to larger audiences. Instead, companies are encouraged to create “pages” which allows Facebook users to join or “become a fan” of the individual, company, product, service, or concept. When users become a fan of a company, the company’s icon or logo shows up on the user’s profile page. Users can interact with the company’s page by writing a message on an area called the “Wall” for others to see, as well as upload photos and join other fans in discussion groups. Companies are also able to add applications to their pages that engage their users with videos, reviews, flash content, and more.

Since pages are integrated with Facebook’s advertising system, page owners can easily advertise to fans by sending them news, promotional announcements, and offers. They also have access to software that provides analytics of their fan base.

Finally, a Facebook page improves a company’s natural search rankings, i.e., its search engine optimization, because Facebook pages get indexed by Google – and Google displays a sampling of which pages Facebook users are fans of.

Facebook Pages Compared to Facebook Groups

Companies, clubs, and public figures can also establish groups which Facebook users  can join. Group membership can be controlled by the administrator, so a group may be open (anyone can join), closed (the admin has to approve all members), or secret (only the members and invitees know the group even exists). Groups tend to be more informal and based around interests or events. Anyone can set up a group around any topic. However, a significant drawback for businesses is that groups can’t be customized and no applications can be added. In addition, there’s a 5000 emailing threshold, which prevents groups of substantial size from communicating with all members at once. Groups, in general, are wonderful for small businesses that want to start marketing themselves within the Facebook community and to bring together people in their industries.

Most companies, especially with the recent changes, should opt for setting up a Facebook page.

The Changes to Facebook Pages and What It Means to Marketers

Beginning today, March 11, Facebook launched extensive changes to its user profiles and branded pages. Users will now have much greater flexibility in the way they share and follow information. Borrowing from Twitter, a user’s home page will now feature a news “stream” (which used to be called a news feed) that updates in near real time, instead of refreshing every 10 minutes or so. Users will also be able to filter content more easily to see updates only from family, closest friends, or a smaller network of friends.

Facebook is also replacing the status box at the top of the page with what it is more broadly calling the publisher box — asking “What’s on your mind?” Users can drop not only their musings but also photos and videos into it, and that material flows into the news stream their friends see.

Branded pages also underwent significant changes, and now resemble, both visually and functionally, standard Facebook profiles, including tabs and wall design as well as the “status” feature. This all means that businesses can publish content directly to their fans’ homepages, and allows them to interact with their fans much more frequently through status updates, links and questions – essentially moving into their fans’ social graphs. Think Twitter times ten.

Further, Facebook applications will now be integrated into a company’s page and can even direct users to specific tabs on a page with, presumably, targeted content.

Collectively these changes will produce a more engaged user experience between a company and its fans. And the best reason yet to develop and execute a Facebook strategy.

Topics we’ll cover include: Engagement Ads, Facebook Connect, Case Studies, and President Obama and Politics.

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