In the latest issue of A List Apart, Cameron Koczon writes about the state of "orbital content"—where "individual users are the gravitational center and content floats in orbit around them." Users have tremendous control over how they consume content. Applications like Instapaper push the boundaries established by RSS and Google Alerts because they can republish content in other mediums, altering context. This raises … [Read more...]
Making Friends with the Backend
April 19, 2011 by
You know who is one of your most valuable partners in content development? Your web developer. I'm a big believer in integrated teams, and the closer you can work with the web developer to understand the goals of your content initiatives, the more he or she can bake the structure and coding into your content that supports those goals. Content strategist Rachel Lovinger, who has written extensively on the semantic web and the concept of making … [Read more...]
Defining Authentic Content
April 15, 2011 by
"Be authentic" is popular advice for using social media. But this attribute is not only applicable to social media content. All web content needs authenticity. So what does that mean? How does that requirement fit within a content strategy? How do you plan for authenticity? In a video interview with host Erik Michielsen of Capture Your Flag, Simon Sinek provides the most tangible description and defined value of authenticity I've … [Read more...]
Talk About the Passion
April 14, 2011 by
While user-generated content is not a magic bullet for an effective content strategy, it is pretty nice to have in the arsenal. But what actually makes user-generated content work? As content marketing expert Joe Pulizzi explains, using LEGO as an example, the most fundamental building block for successful user-generated content is passion—when people love you so much, they can't help but tell the world about it. How have you … [Read more...]
A Simple Test for On-Brand Content
April 12, 2011 by
People typically associate branding with visual identity. But what about content? How often do you consider whether content is effectively on-brand? Do you consider your brand when writing articles, blog posts and tweets? What about when taking photos or creating videos, podcasts and presentations? On Fast Company, Martin Lindstrom challenges people to test their brand by removing the logo from their web pages. Does whatever remains adequately … [Read more...]