Clever ways to get good content out of stupid peopleCatherine Toole, 18 June 2014

@stickycontent@catherinetoole

We do 3 things…

Who we’re working with…

“You can redesign a home page. You can buy a new CMS. But unless you treat your content with strategic consideration, you can’t fix your website. Once people started to accept this fact, the conversation took off. It’s a pain point everyone shares and content strategy offers relief.”

What’s the point of content strategy?

From Content Strategy for the Web by Kristina Halvorson & Melissa Rach

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“Please don’t look at our website. It’s awful! But I’m trying to change things…”

100s of delegates share their content pain

“A lot of our content is unnecessary but managers get upset if we suggest culling it”

“We’re so reactive, most of the time we’re creating content on demand”

“The CEO just wants to know why we’re not on instagram/Facebook/ twitter…”

“Our stuff is too long for mobile and full of jargon. If I change it, I’m ‘dumbing it down’”

“Biggest challenge? People just don’t really get it…”

Are your problems really content problems?

Core Strategy

Substance

Structure

Workflow

GovernancePeople components

© Brain Traffic 2011

Content components

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It’s people who screw up your content

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They’ll do it at the planning stage…

The Venn diagram of content shame

… and they’ll do it during creation.

They’ll do it at sign-off stage...

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…and they’ll also ignore your governance.

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They’ll turn your lovely stuff to frankencontent

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How will you make these stupids listen?

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“If you talk to a man in a language he understands, it goes to his head.If you talk to him in his language, it goes to his heart.”

Nelson Mandela

1. Win hearts and minds

Hearts need different techniques from minds

♥ Engage – don’t manage – stakeholders♥ Include everyone, generate excitement, reward ideas♥ Find a content place for everyone♥ Instil pride (or at least a competitive edge)♥ Counteract fear constantly

£ Suggest and share measurement for every activity£ Publicise all kinds of ROI£ Show both overall efficiencies and individuals’ benefits£ Map everything to core business strategy

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“A camel looks like a horse that was planned by a committee.”

Anonymous

2. Streamline stakeholders and sign-off

5 tricks for getting good content approved

1. Set limits: on numbers of people involved, rounds of amends and timescales for feedback

2. Streamline the publishing approvals: build risk categories into your inventory and only seek approval of high-risk content

3. Insist on expertise over opinion.

4. Have the fights first. Establish levels of content veto before anything is created. Agree a hierarchy of feedback and that conflicting feedback will be resolved between individuals, not arbitrated by you

5. Stop ‘asking for it’!

Hi Claire,

Please review the attached and send your feedback as soon as possible blah blah…Here’s some fantastic content for your approval which we need by 2pm this Friday at the latest…

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“In my career, I found that the best people are the ones that really understand the content. And they’re a pain in the butt to manage! But you put up with it because they’re so great at the content.” Steve Jobs (1955-2011)

3. Build a content culture (not a corporate)

Corporate behaviour V editorial behaviour

corporate editorialContent planned around what the company cares about

Content planned around what people want to read/watch

Sign-off according to seniority

Sign-off according to editorial expertise

Processes built around existing company workflow

Processes designed to get good content out to deadline

Design and build before content

Content - led design

Any questions?emailus@stickycontent.com ww.stickycontent.com +44 (0)20 7963 7070

@stickycontent@catherinetoole

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