commbasics

Lots of journalists have a hard time distinguishing what is good content (in other words, stuff that people will read and watch) and what they actually produce. Facebook recently announced it would be "punishing" users with bad content b y driving it out of friends and followers news feeds. Reports are coming in that most marketers have no idea if their content is actually effective.   More experts are saying there is an extreme disconnect between "best practice" SEO and good content. And it goes beyond marketing.  Lots of journalists have a hard time distinguishing what is good content (in other words, stuff that people will read and watch) and what they actually produce.  A couple of weeks ago the president of a large media company told me in frustation that his advertisers what to tell one story and his journalists want to tell another.  But the readers are asking for something altogether different and he can't get his team or sponsor...

Content creation is a big problem for modern corporations.  Not only is it hard to find people inside of the company walls to create it, making it effective is almost impossible.  Sure you can publish something that gets lots of views, but most of those views go to spider bots, not human beings and when you look at the time spent by actual people, finding them spending more than a minute on your site is like finding gold in the kitchen sink.  But there are ways to fix that. For the next couple of weeks we'll be sharing some approaches that will increase the involvement (also known as engagement) of your audience.  Some of these (like today's) may seem counterintuitive, but in the way the 21st century media works, it is crucial to learn how to create content engagingly.  Today's tip is: Pursue brevity Online content tends to be interruptible even when it is great content.  You have about 10 seconds to grab their attention until the next ema...

Recently read a post over at Hubspot (that I can't find right now) about how companies are lowering their investment in communication tactics because they are disappointed at the  results.  The author blamed the decline not on the efficacy of the tactics, but on how poorly they are implemented by the companies. I can't say I disagree with him entirely.  Most of the marketing communications plans I see are more checklists than plans (press release, check; trade show booth, check...) While there is tremendous investment made in the marketing infrastructure, I see almost no investment in content and content is the gas that makes the marketing machine go. Few companies I talk to believe they have great content, and when we review what they have we tend to agree.  It’s the same press releases, the same marketing brochures, the same white papers, and the same contributed articles that everyone else produces... and they read almost identically to every other co...

 A few weeks ago I started a discussion on Facebook on what goes into the creation of good content and that turned into the first in a series that ensued from the discussion.  Don Tuite of Electronic Design magazine asked an interesting question regarding what makes a piece of content "truthy," an adjective created by comedian Steven Colbert .  that question is a perfect example of what is wrong with content development today: the effort to make something seem true rather than try to make sure it is actually true.   Tom Foremski wrote an interesting piece over on ZDNet on press-imposed censorship that fits in well as an example of what hampers the creation of good content. Foremski talks about the habit of B2B journalists to continually go to the well of what they consider "reliable" sources that invariably consist of the top players in a given industry.  I've pointed out it past posts that every journalist has subjective filters...

I've been having some interesting conversations of late on the subject of engagement, including one short argument over whether the term was overused and understood within the context of social media.  I don't think it is overuse but neither do I believe it is really understood.  So I started pondering how I might help with that understanding.  Amazingly enough, I found my inspiration from a Ragan Report post on Ray LaHood (DOT Secretary) and his social media approach . You can read the entire report in the link, but let me summarize it for you:  Offer content readers can't get anywhere else, don't chase numbers, use other mediums other than just text, open the site to participation, learn the value of each medium, and give up control. Most of those points are anathema to marketing and sales people... maybe even to engineers.  But the spell the difference between success and failure in social media.  This is probably going to be come a...

As I said in part one a few weeks ago ,  Social media attacks the tradition mass communication paradigm with a natural flow of communication, which is why marketers and journalists often chafe at embracing the practice.  What I've seen happening through this paradigm shift (geez, I never thought I'd hear that phrase again) is the rise of the value of talented, trained and experienced communicators within corporations and organizations that are making an effort to figure this stuff out.  That probably doesn't include your company, though. I was describing what is happening in social media to a friend who has no connection with high tech (they do exist, you know).  He thought a bit and then said, "Sounds like their going at it like they're killin' chickens."  It was a great analogy.  When you slaughter chickens (and yes, I have done this) it involves a lot of running about, noise, flyiing feathers and blood.  Total ch...

I just got off my fourth phone call in the past week from someone asking my to help them get some media attention on another partner release.  I've told them the same thing I've been telling everyone for three years: Unless it is a painfully slow news month the chances are virtually zero.  Here's why:  First, there are 5,000 private technology companies in early to mid stage funding in the US at any given time, according to Dow Jones, Second, All 5,000 of those companies are negotiating with at least on Fortune 500 company on some sort of partnership/joint agreement.  All of those companies will issue at least one news release about the agreement and will be seeking media coverage.  That means the technology press are dealing with, on average 13 partnership announcements every week. Third, none of these agreements will mention what specific customers are being served by these agreements, nor what products will be made available to customers as a...

Ron Ploof  chimed in with a post on brevity today.  It was like a cool breeze to me.  The hardest task in communications counsel is teaching clients to be succinct.  The writing style of the real journalist requires paragraphs of no more than two sentences, no more than 25 words long each.  It is the best way of getting an idea across.  That's how most people talk.  That also means you have to keep the superlatives at a minimum and THAT is really hard for most marketing people and CEOs. Had breakfast with Shel Israel yesterday who explained one of the reasons he left PR was pressure from client's boards who believed adding adjectives increased "buzz" for news release.  The more said, however, the more obscure.  Get to the point.  That's all I'm sayin'.