Daniel Eizans: Content Strategist, Geek

Marketers have always had to worry about overall brand health via word of mouth but are are now becoming more reasonably concerned (if not panicking) about consumer sentiment in the social media space and on properties they otherwise don’t moderate or own. This is considered a necessary evil, but all fine and good; because at least we have control over what content is published on our own Web sites and can limit what consumers are adding to the conversation. Right?

Now, with Google Sidewiki and other web annotation services like Blerp, publishers are realizing they have no control over what users are saying about their content, and that those opinions can now convieniently live right next to our carefully worded, incredibly insightful site via Google Toolbar or widget. Gasp! Shudder! The Horror!

Should you worry?

If your content or your brand isn’t useful, then yes you absolutely should be worried about it. However, if you’re publishing content that is optimized, honest and useful to visitors, you should see sidewikis as one more oppotunity to connect with your readers on a deeper level. The fast evolution of the Web is forcing companies to become more and more transparent out of necessity, which in turn calls for better content. People aren’t as concerned with connecting with brands on an emotional level online. They want you to be useful, which calls for web content to be functional, relevant and most of all valuable to the consumer.

Have A Plan

No matter how good your content and content strategy are, you should still be prepared in the event negative entries do start to pop up. Be honest, open a dialogue and address issues. Orvis does a phenominal job of addressing every negative comment or review that appears on its Web site by openly admitting how the feedback was addressed by consumer relations teams, how it affected the future development of the product and if any immediate changes to the product in question will occur as a result. Because the company handles business in this fashion, the users of their Web site wear their love for Orvis on their sleeve, improving word of mouth offline. These consumers also act as an army of brand evangelists for the company in numerous spaces online.

But Will Sidewiki Take Off?

I think that’s a great question. I’ve waited almost three months to write about it and form an opinion. I think early adopters have done some really interesting things with Sidewiki – adding insight, history to articles and opposing perspective to extreme points of view. Personally, I think tools like sidewiki were 100% inevitable, and that ultimately, a moderate portion of web users will adopt, while a smaller number will participate. That being said, Google has historically pulled the plug on projects that didn’t turn out the way the company was hoping for. Lively comes immediately to mind as one of the failed lab experiments, so the jury could very well be out on Sidewiki for the next year or two.

Don’t Panic. Everything Will Be Ok

I understand the worry site publishers have about having unmoderated commentary attached in a convenient sidebar right next to the site they worked so hard to produce and the jury also still seems to be out on whether sidewiki content will hurt the SEO value of the actual site. I also worry that sidewikis have the potential to become giant graffiti walls that serve no real value to enhancing conversation or elaborating on existing site structures, but still contend that the content on your acutal site is what you as a publisher really need to worry about.

We can spend a lot less time worrying about what could be said in a sidewiki, provided we focus on useful, relevant messaging. As content strategists, we say it all the time – it all comes down to what content you put out there. You either have the confidence to put product and your voice out there to stand up for themselves or you don’t. You can always choose not to participate, though I strongly discourage that course. Stay the course content creators. Stay the course!

What do you think of Google Sidewiki? Should we be as worried as some people seem to be?

Every Wednesday morning, I wander upstairs to cheat on my colleagues in the content strategy and user experience departments to broaden my knowledge base and talk about things just as geeky as our collective practices.

You see, Wednesdays are my weekly trysts with my agency’s Content Management and Content Integration groups. I very much enjoy these sessions, not only because it provides me the opportunity to fully nerd it out on everything from asset grids to meta data, but it also affords me the opportunity to vent shared frustrations, create new efficiences and discover insights as to how we make this whole content strategy/content management thing play nice. I do this because ultimately, I’d like to better serve our clients and assist our content developers in producing more relevant and compelling creative.

Let me start by disclaiming that I’m of the opinion that content strategy is most certainly NOT content management. As strategists, we have input on how the content is produced, managed and governed, but our goal is ultimately to aid in the creation of a strategic set of best practicies and personas to be sure that content developers are creating the most appropriate content for machines and humans.

So, if content management is concerned with the cataloging, re-purposing and proper tagging of assets so they’re readily available and relevant, and content integration is concerned with making these assets usable for a variety of media channels, how do these guys get along with and provide insights into the content strategy role?

The answer that I’ve slowly been coming to after a few months of getting inside the heads of various content integration and management team members is that there is an absolutely crucial need to design a common set of systems, routines and nomenclature for an integrated content development process – something myself and two colleagues are working very hard to shape.

It seems that our separate languages can certainly be understood by one another, but somehow can become twisted in interpretations when they’re translated to those outside our happy content development cycle. So, it seems far better to step forward with a universal dialogue to properly marry content strategy and user experience to content management and integration so that POV can be articulated to the content development process laymen.

This calls for unprecedented collaboration, which can be difficult in a large agency setting. It means content managers and strategists need to work very hard to understand the other’s practice.

Good content strategists should have a strong understanding of how asset management and integration works (EVEN IN NON-DIGITAL!!), and asset managers and integration specialists have to understand the insights and data sets that influence how a content strategist develops personas, works with experience planning, determines gap analysis and creates a point of view for a given project.

If content management doens’t understand the results of strategic persona process, assets can’t be tagged properly in databases and potential efficiencies for content integration across communication and campaign platforms will most likely be missed. Missed opportunity creates a creep on scope when new projects and the potential for new content creation comes around. Likewise, if content strategy doesn’t better understand the management and integration process influence on management and evenutal governance of an asset will never be achieved.

So I’m putitng out an APB for the creation of a content development dictionary of sorts. Content producers need a common set of terms and ways to explain the roles of their colleagues and everyone needs to understand these terms, roles, processes and routines through a common nomenclature.

Big agencies traditionally suck at this, so I’m especially interested in what you strategists working within this environment are doing to combat it.

I know it seems silly to have to tell people to integrate into a process for content development, but as agencies and organizations attempt to become less siloed by re-aligning as content production houses, they’re effectively creating new silos by coming up with their own language, process and routine for handling individual steps to creating the work.

So strategists … have you hugged your content manager or your integration team today? If you haven’t head upstairs and do so. They’re smart and insightful people who will make you think more deeply and cause you to write better strategies.

Drop thoughts below in the comments and check back for periodic updates to my attempts to write the Content Development dictionary.

Disclaimer: The opinions reflected in this post ARE NOT necessarily those of my employer. These opinoins are strictly my take on the content development process.

I’ve grown incredibly tired of hearing about the next big thing in marketing. Almost everyone seems to have their own version of snake oil that will magically increase ROI, increase customer engagement, grow consideration levels overnight, or improve the overall image of a brand in just three short weeks. Bad news friends — there is no magic bullet, no tonic or single tool that will fix a brand.

Social media won’t do it, digital won’t do it. Neither will print, mobile, TV, emerging media, gaming or whatever comes next. All those things are tactics. And while brands will toss millions on one or a combination of several of the above, most of them fall short on the most important part of their execution … the strategy.

Instead of simply patching the holes with tactics, wouldn’t it be better to eschew the promises of salvation made by individual practitioners and start thinking more skeptically in regards to your marketing/advertising campaigns? As a content strategist, my favorite question to ask any person in a meeting that brings up a creative concept or suggests the use of some sort of tactic is, “What does that mean to the consumer?”

It seems so simple, but 9 times out of every 10, no one thinks of how creative will ultimately be interpreted by the consumer. Perhaps our biggest challenge as strategists is attempting to persuade a client that we need to talk about our audiences and messages – and ultimately whether we have product or service that satisfies those audiences – before we get anywhere near a tactical discussion.

My recommendation to brands and the content strategists and content planners working for those companies, is to place the greatest amount of initial emphasis on finding out who the customer is.

What do they do? Why do they need your service or product? How do they consume media? What do their activities in social media look like? Develop personas for consumers you’re likely to encounter given the economic and product landscape and then figure out what kinds of messages need to be created to satisfy those minds.

Once we know who they are and we know what we need to say to them, we hopefully have something in our wheelhouse that they give a damn about. Then we can take those learnings to decide what we can do to creatively satisfy them, but whatever we come up with better execute against the strategic thinking we spent all that initial time on.

Social media and emerging media may be all shiny and new, and I’m sure brands have every ‘media expert’ that’s blogging in his or her basement telling them that they need a “Twitter-Strategy” or a “Facebook-Strategy.” That’s a farse.

All the “strategy” in the world won’t mean a thing if your customers aren’t looking for you to be there. Be skeptical, be like Socrates or like your 4-year-old. Ask these so-called experts “Why?” Ultimately, both strategists and brands should be asking the same question, “What are you trying to accomplish?”

“Why do I need to build a Facebook app that lets you change the color of my product and then gives me a badge to annoy their friends? What does this tactic accomplish and how does it support my strategy?”

“Why do I need to ‘tweet’ about my guys who drain septic fields? What does tweeting about that accomplish?”

“Why should I make a mobile game for my family sedan? What does that tactic accomplish?”

Brands get to where they are for a reason. They either have a service or product that satisfies a need or they don’t. All the tactics in the world won’t help boost profitability if they don’t have skeptics to make sure that the tactic is being executed to a strategic umbrella that ultimately influences brand consideration.

It’s time to stop being creative for creativity’s sake and time to start communicating with consumers in the ways they choose.

In short, brands shouldn’t steer away from delivering messaging in print because it’s percieved as a dying art, or put all of their eggs into digital and social baskets because many people access their information in that fashion. It’s about being accessible to all, being strategic with your messaging platforms and spending less and less time focusing on your campaign creative or tactics that may not even be appropriate. What are your thoughts?

Photo: Billie Hara