Content 911

8 iPad Apps for Brilliant Writing | Copyblogger

Check out this post from Copyblogger about some great writing tools for your iPad:

8 iPad Apps for Brilliant Writing

These are all good apps, whether you're writing web content, a book or other prose. I personally use Pages and My Writing Nook quite a bit. Which writing tools do you use on your iPad?

Lisa Kirschner
Managing Editor, Content 911
Managing Director, Flair Interactive Services Inc.

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Have writer's block? Read "How to Write Your A@$ Off"

This may offend some people, but I'm taking Johnny's advice and posting this to the Content 911 blog anyway.

Why? Because this piece really nails it and explains what you need to do if you've got writer's block or keep procrastinating with that deadline to crank out 100 pages of content. And if you're like most other readers, I'm betting that you'll click on the link below now that the headline has intrigued you...just to see what all the fuss is about.

This advice from Copyblogger applies to any kind of writer--whether you're writing content for a web site, brochure copy or the next Great American Novel.

http://www.copyblogger.com/johnny-b-truant/

Check out it and share your thoughts here. Does this resonate with you? What other tactics do you use to push past writer's block and crank it out?

The iPad, the Kindle, and the Future of Books : The New Yorker

Excellent recap of the history between Amazon.com, Apple and traditional publishing houses by Ken Auletta at The New Yorker. This has forever changed my view of Amazon!

As a writer, avid reader, former magazine editor and someone who's kept a close eye on the emergence of ebooks and Amazon's domination of that market, I found this article really interesting. Here at Flair, we've definitely seen digital publishing, social networking and Web 2.0 technologies become much more visible pieces of our clients' projects and overall marketing strategies during the last few years.

On the morning of January 27th—an aeon ago, in tech time—Steve Jobs was to appear at the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, in downtown San Francisco, to unveil Apple’s new device, the iPad. Although speculation about the device had been intense, few in the audience knew yet what it was called or exactly what it would do, and there was a feeling of expectation in the room worthy of the line outside the grotto at Lourdes. Hundreds of journalists and invited guests, including Al Gore, Yo-Yo Ma, and Robert Iger, the C.E.O. of Disney, milled around the theatre, waiting for Jobs to appear. The sound system had been playing a medley of Bob Dylan songs; it went quiet as the lights came up onstage and Jobs walked out, to the crowd’s applause.

via www.newyorker.com

Can RSS Syndication Really Increase Exposure?

In a word: yes. But only if the syndicated content you have to offer is valuable, insightful and leaves your subscribers wanting more.

RSS syndication allows for content providers to gain exposure and increase news and content distribution, giving even smaller 'players' the opportunity to compete in the majors with providers such as Reuters, Associated Press and major journals and papers.

You should definitely consider syndicating your content if you wish to increase your exposure. First, create and manage great content. Then, simply create RSS feeds and 'open the door' to make the feeds available for syndication. You can refine your content over time based on subscriber feedback, requests and traffic.

Any great syndication success stories out there?

Stephanie Bach

UX Lead

Flair Interactive Services Inc.

Viral Content is King!

Here's a GREAT article on viral content, and why it matters beyond social media circles:

http://www.dailyblogtips.com/5-reasons-why-viral-content-is-the-new-king/

What is ‘viral’ content?

"Seth Godin coined the term 'viral' as it applies to ideas. Viral content is:

• Easy to understand
• Worth sharing and talking about
• Simple to spread and share
• Rewarding to share"

Viral posts are meant to be shared and designed to drive traffic. Although its beginnings can be found in social media, creating viral content--including video, articles and live discussions--is just as applicable to traditional web sites. As viral content becomes increasingly more popular, it plays an important role in search engine optimization strategies, since the more other sites link to yours, the higher your search engine rankings can be.

Have you seen viral content in action? How has it worked for you? Share!

Stephanie Bach
UX Lead
Flair Interactive Services Inc.

How Much is Too Much Content?

It's always great to have lots of fresh content on your Web site and you want to be sure you give users as much information as they need, but it's also important not to go overboard.  How can you tell when you have just enough content or when it's too much?  Here are a few tips to help you decide:

Is your content is organized in a logical way?

• Sites that have too many topics or too much text on every page completely overwhelm their users.
• Organizing your content can be as simple as developing an outline (the way you did in high school) or a more complex information architecture.

Are your pages relatively short?

• You should include all of the information your users will find interesting, but the content should be broken into small, easily digested segments.
• Ideally, each page will focus on a single topic--but you can always add sub-pages.

Have you kept scrolling to a minimum?

• Users often don't bother scrolling down the page to read "below the fold", so put your most important information at the top of the page.
• Ask yourself if all of the content on a page that requires scrolling is necessary. Can it be eliminated? Can it be moved to a new page?

It's not okay to make the font really small.

• Stuffing a lot of words onto a page by using a smaller font makes the text way too dense, which also makes it harder for a user to read
• The font for your main body content should be no smaller than 12 points.

These are just a few things to think about when you're developing and adding content to your site.  If  you have other questions about content strategy or best practices, we can help.

Barb Conway
User Experience Lead
Flair Interactive Services, Inc.

Why Content Matters

We live in an era of 'raging' content. Access and availability, and the speed at which we enjoy them, is commonplace. We blog, we tweet, we text--and in those spaces use language and abbreviations that would make Strunk and White roll over in their graves.

So does content--and its format--really matter? You bet it does. Jay Fleischman has written a compelling arguement about this very topic. He gives these seven reasons why exceptional content is crucial to any good marketing strategy:

1. Consumers want to “get” before they “give”.
2. Being seen as an expert carries a lot of weight.
3. Good content is viewed favorably by search engines.
4. If your content is valuable, blog owners and webmasters will link to your pages.
5. The more useful your content is, the more likely it is that your pages will be submitted to social bookmarking sites.
6. News of a great blog post or web page travels fast on the internet.
7. Great content keeps readers coming back.

"Getting traffic is good… but keeping traffic is even better. Visitors who return again and again to partake of your knowledge are the ones who will be most likely to become your clients down the road." 

http://www.legalpracticepro.com/7-reasons-why-content-matters/

We couldn't have said it better ourselves.

Stephanie Bach

User Experience Lead

Flair Interactive Services Inc.

Winning Over Your CMS Content Contributors

Over the years, we've worked with numerous CMS tools--from enterprise-level to open source and homegrown tools. The bells and whistles may differ from product to product, but the challenge of training and managing content contributors remains universal: How to make the process of managing content easier and more compliant, even if users are not 'technically inclined'?

Here are our best tips:

-Customize training materials to your organization, and make materials readily available to all contributors via the CMS, a shared drive or your intranet. A step-by-step format works best for new users. Be sure to update these materials regularly.

-Create and update a style guide that provides proper usage for company terminology, voice and tone. Encourage 'approvers' to follow these guidelines for every post. Your marketing, communications or IT department may already have a style guide that you can utilize.

-Create a 'cheat sheet' or checklist for content contributors to follow each time they create or edit a content posting. The checklist should contain tips for maximizing content contributions, rather than a step-by-step instruction guide. Examples include: 'Add meta data which contains keywords based on the content topic,' 'Add hyperlinks to other pages within the site as relevant to the content and to the user,' etc.

-Stay connected. Solicit contributor feedback and provide FAQs, tips or other information to aid users in troubleshooting and problem-solving.

We've worked with the team at CrownPeak, who have this to say:

http://www.imediaconnection.com/content/9433.imc

Providing internal support and training for your content authors may mean the difference between good content and great content, and will make contributors feel like they're part of your CMS team.

Let us know what challenges you're having as you train and manage content contributors for your CMS.

Stephanie Bach
UX Lead
Flair Interactive Services Inc.

Don't Miss Copywriting 101

Copyblogger has just released a post entitled "Copywriting 101: An Introduction to Copywriting". It's a hands-on, practical list of things that you should do when writing copy (content) for online media.

We would also add an eleventh point to this list: Do NOT forget about your instructional content. This includes content on your forms, error screens, pop-ups (if you have them, which we don't recommend unless there's a really valid business reason), checkout processes, and other "hidden" areas of your site. Most of these screens are presented to users during key conversion steps--i.e. right before they're about to buy, enter a credit card, join your mailing list or otherwise convert. We've seen many, many web site owners neglect these areas, and then ask why they're not getting good results. All content on your site, including instructional content, should follow the steps outlined in Copyblogger's Copywriting 101 post.

Speaking of results, we urge all of our clients (and you) to leverage web analytics tools whenever possible to identify areas in your copy that need help. Many analytics products, such as the ultra-impressive ClickTracks Analytics by Lyris, will even analyze your content for you to tell you if it contains the right keywords, which keywords are performing the best, what keywords other web sites are using, and lots of other valuable information.

Interested to hear your thoughts on copywriting or analytics...

Lisa Kirschner
Managing Editor, Content 911 Blog
Founder and Managing Director, Flair Interactive Services Inc.