I’m a behind the scenes type of person, thus I didn’t latch onto Twitter at first. The idea of people following what I was doing and where I was going was creepy to me. Talking about uh tweeting my whereabouts and actions felt narcissistic . Following the comings and goings of others seemed like a time waster.
No more! I ‘m a believer now. Twitter has its uses. I Tweet on the regular through a nifty social network organizer. (More on that in another post.)
I’m not a savvy Twitterer – yet. But I can learn from the ones who are. And their names aren’t Mr. and Mrs. Ashton Kutcher, though I am following them.
Stephanie Quilao is a savvy Twitterer worth following and learning from. She has over 45 thousand followers. In a recent post in her blog “the Everyday Blogger,” she shares some smart and real advice in the 10 Habits of a Savvy Twitterer . Three tips that stood out:
- People have to like what you stand for, what you’re about, and what you have to offer.
- Focus on two things: content and others
- Mix up your tweets with original content, retweets and @replies.
Rebecca Coleman is another Savvy Twitterer you should know and follow. She’s an arts media relations whiz and blogger. She has over 800 followers which isn’t too bad for someone who got on the Twitter bus last August. She shares some practical advice on Twitter from how to get started to what not to Tweet in her blog the Art of the Business. From the post Please Don’t Tweet Like This, somethings to remember:
- Please don’t tweet like this: ALL IN CAPS!
- Please don’t tweet like this if you’re a business – Happy hour goes until 9.p.m. so come up and say hi.
- Please don’t recycle tweets.
The One About Content Strategy
Content strategy is a new field within the Web site publishing industry. (Content is defined as the ‘stuff” on Web pages like text, photos, graphics etc. in case you didn’t know.) Author Kristina Halverson of Brain Traffic, aka the Tina Fey of Web Content defines content strategy as “the practice of planning for the creation, delivery and governance of useful content.”
Content strategy was the subject of a panel discussion organized by CHI Atlanta and AIMA (the Atlanta Interactive Marketing Association) this month. Several meetup groups interested in Web site creation from different perspectives came together to hear the talk.
The panel brought together the typical cast of Web characters companies generally assemble to create websites:
The Web cast: (from lft to rt) John Muehlbauer, Ryan Esparza, Karen McGrane and Brian Ikeda websites:
The Marketing Guy
The IT/Content Manager Guy
The Designer Dude
The User Experience/Editorial Chic.
The roles were filled by real life professionals:
Karen McGrane, User Experience/Editorial Chic from Bond Arts Science
Ryan Esparza, IT/Content Manager Guy who’s an independent consultant
Brian Ikeda, Designer Dude from Philips Design
John Muehlbauer, Marketing Guy, from Intercontinental Hotel Group
Halverson moderated the frank and animated discussion.
Author, moderator Karen Halvorsen, aka the Tina Fey of Content
Because of their backgrounds, each panelist had a different perspective.
John the Marketing Guy felt content should sell his brand and communicate to customers. Ryan the IT/Content Manager Guy, was interested in delivering content in a timely manner. Brian the Designer Dude wanted good content to frame good design around. While Karen, the User Experience/Editorial Chic mused that content should solve problems for users.
It’s the Content Strategist’s job to create strategies to reconcile these goals and voices. While Web Content Editors should implement them.
But both are not often empowered to do so.
The group conceded that one of the problems is that organizations or groups know they need websites, but they don’t grasp how much time, thought, effort, planning and production is required to create them.
“The problem is people think anyone can do a website now,” said John. “My teenager does this at home. Anyone can write that stuff or isn’t it written somewhere?” he continued mimicking a company exec.
Ryan noted that another issue is that everyone in the organization wants to put their voice into web pages. Guidelines and workflow are not adhered to. Standards are not enforced.
Karen advised that businesses and organizations need to think like publishers and run their sites like magazines. The same effort and time many publishers put into planning issues, developing stories, writing and editing pieces, assembling the issue together, publishing and then surveying readers for what they want should be put into developing web sites.
As a Web Content Editor/Developer myself, I agree. Most organizations are not ready to invest in a true Web editorial team. It’s a shame since as we all know content is king. Good content brings loyal subjects uh customers, clients, followers, readers and users.
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