Fact; clear, concise, compelling content is at the heart of successful web projects. So why is it so often seen as the annoying little brother to its better looking and far more interesting information and visual design siblings?
The lure of the site map, wireframe and visual all too quickly leads to the lorem ipsum, ‘video goes here’ trap that renders even the most elegant design compromised in the face of badly thought out, rushed content.
Perhaps the accepted process is to blame leading to calls for a more agile approach to web design, with closer integration of architecture, content, and technology into a fluid and iterative process. With a focus on rapid high and low level prototyping using real content, and real code from day one, greater collaboration between designers, search specialists, architects, content producers, developers and the client, delivers a far more effective and relevant experience design. Extend this to the analysis of behaviour and site optimisation and the rewards continue to be felt long after go-live.
The issue is a far bigger consideration than content for the branded website. The rise of the social web has brought a new dynamic to content strategy, and given rise to a new generation of content specialist. Well beyond the writing and editing for the web brigade, these are professionals dedicated to monitoring, creating and shaping content about the brand in all its digital guises.
The ‘Continual partial attention’ created by grazing the likes of twitter, social commentary and YouTube videos is driving a veracious appetitive for stuff. This drives the need for brands to continually produce attention grabbing bite-size chunks that spark conversation, as well as the deeper, more engaging stories that keep the conversation alive. Carefully constructed pieces of content can, and will be, cut-up, edited, re-used and distributed all around the web. The ubiquitous cry for comments, feedback and opinion relinquishes control of content to consumers, shifting the responsibility of the brand from advertiser to brand-led content producer, to editor and host of content about the brand.
Against this backdrop the role of the content specialist extends to monitoring and mapping of all content and comment about the brand, from social networks to niche sites, as well as those owned by the brand. A framework for which conversations to participate in who does it and with what, is essential to effective and authentic dialogue. Skittles was one of the first to take the approach of collating this conversational content into a single branded space over the more popular distribution and control of content through social profiles and applications. Those that have seen success through the more casual seeding of branded content have shown this need to be more than simply posting the TV ad on YouTube. Encouraging users to join in this content creation process has seen its fair share of casualties, but where appropriate, this advocacy has dramatic and measurable brand benefits, something Virgin Atlantic has achieved well on facebook.
This is unchartered territory requiring a strategic, long-term, but flexible approach to content strategy. Tactically, brands and agencies must be flexible to produce a variety of content for a number of different purposes. Consideration needs to be given to where the content will live and for how long; how it is best presented; how portable it needs to be across media and devices; who creates it and who can edit or re-use it; and importantly measuring the effect.
Brands and agencies need to pay more attention to content strategy, or wake up to find that the annoying little brother has grown up to be the confident, successful one that gets all the girls.
Jeremy Baldwin
Director, Bright Blue Day Digital