Content - it’s all about your audience

Here it is - the notoriously difficult second blog post. I have to say I thoroughly enjoyed writing the first one; sat in a quiet corner of the office, feet up with the sun streaming in through the window. Alas, today is a very dreary day in the Wharf and I’ve been turfed out of two meeting rooms. Let’s hope that’s not a bad omen.

So, what am I writing about today? I thought I’d jot down a few thoughts about content. Nothing groundbreaking, more a little exercise to set out my stall on the topic. Starting with: “content is king”. I know, I know, it’s an awful phrase but clichés are born out of truths and it would be remiss of me not to reference it here.

I kicked off this foray into blogging with a post on Facebook but that shouldn’t be interpreted as a signal that it’s the most important part of our strategy at SquareDigital Towers. Social media platforms such as Facebook and Twitter are brilliant resources for engagement and reach and must be a part of the mix. *Deletes 205 words on a “how to use social media effectively” tangent* But they should not be regarded as a destination in themselves. For me, the ultimate goal is to use social media and the like to tease people into coming along to see what we’re doing onsite.

Now, here comes a staggeringly obvious point but one that can’t be said often enough if you ask me: if you don’t have something compelling to present to people once they’ve been motivated to click on your link from search results or your quirky video on Facebook or your enticing Tweet, then they aren’t going to do the crucial stuff - stay there (think bounce rates), click around (think page views) and come back tomorrow (think return visits).

For me, the key to a compelling content strategy all comes down to keeping your audience at the heart of everything you do.

You should have a clear idea of who you’re writing for and every piece of content should speak directly to that reader. If you can’t define who your audience is, then there is little chance someone who stumbles onto your site will find something that strikes a chord with them. And we all know what that means - the dreaded back button.

This needs to run through everything from the nature of what you’re covering, the angle you take, the language and tone you adopt right the way through to the look and feel of your site - not just the overall layout and design but also the videos you post and the images you choose.

Once you’re clear about who you’re writing for, you should be clear about the expectations they have - you have set them after all. It is important to deliver on those expectations, but it is your unique and exclusive content that can’t be found anywhere else that will really make you stand out and draw people in.

Making some of those unique ideas regular features is a great way of creating a relationship with the reader. Recurring features say, “If you like this, come back at the same time next week for more of the same”, which gives you the chance to stake a claim to a little slice of your readers’ time each week.

Finally, consider seasonality - think about what your audience is interested in (and therefore tapping into search engines) at this very moment to ensure you remain relevant to them and continue to deliver what they’re looking for.

To sum up, it goes without saying that social media is now just as important as the core principals of SEO to anyone publishing online. But in a climate where everyone is a publisher; if you haven’t got anything compelling and relevant to say, nobody is going to stick around to listen. Keeping your audience in mind when devising and implementing your content strategy should help ensure your content is just that. 

What Facebook Timeline means for our brands

Around about this time last Wednesday I was sitting in a seminar room, listening to some very wise words on social media. Some great ideas but what really caught my attention was an aside that revealed Facebook had rolled out Timeline for brands.

I wasn’t alone in exclaiming (quietly under my breath, I was in a seminar after all), “They’ve done WHAT?!?” The sense of relief across SW5 was palpable as everyone realised they had until March 30 to get their Facebook house in order.

Which is just what I’ve been thinking about this week and I thought I’d share my initial thoughts with you in this post. Now, I know what those of you who know me are thinking: “Mandy is blogging about the latest developments on Facebook? Facebook?? She’s still listening to music on tape isn’t she?” And I’ll admit, change has never been my thing - I am a late adopter to the core (I still listen to my copy of What’s the Story (Morning Glory) in tape format) - but I have to say, I’m very excited about Timeline.

Overall, I think that excitement stems from the opportunities Timeline presents in three areas - aesthetics, identity and engagement.

Aesthetics first. Surely it’s undeniable that Timeline is more appealing visually than the clunky layout it replaces (all those tabs along the side. And the wall - yuck). To my eye, the combination of the cover image, the overlaid profile picture, the bio and apps at the top of the page looks much cleaner. I also like the way the actual timeline is set out - each post looks clearer, with the added advantage of being able to star content that you want to highlight. Yes, I love the look and feel of the whole thing.

Then I start thinking about what Timeline means for the image of our brands and I get even more impatient to implement it. The new layout gives brands the opportunity to stamp our identity all over our Facebook page more easily than we could before. Remember the old adage “a picture paints a thousand words”? Well, ladies and gentleman, that massive cover image is your canvas.

But it doesn’t end there. The ability to create milestones also gives you the chance to tell your brand’s story, noting key dates in your history. The usual big names have done this well but my favourite use of the Timeline comes from masters of brand reinvention, Old Spice. They’ve infused their reinvented identity right the way through their timeline all the way back to 1938. (If you haven’t seen it yet, it’s well worth a few minutes of your time.)

Visual appeal and the ability to tell a story are two cornerstones to the third, and most crucial, reason I’m excited about Timeline - the opportunities it presents for engagement.

The positioning of the apps - your most engaging Facebook content - enables you to shout at visitors “Hey, look at this brilliant thing I’ve placed right here just for you!” Similarly, the ability to pin content and keep it prominent for seven days allows you to put material you think people will find interesting right under their noses.

Changes made to messaging also make your Facebook presence more engaging than ever before. Firstly, messages are given greater prominence. But the greater integration of the admin panel makes it easier for you to respond to messages directly - privately even - presenting more opportunities for communicating with the people who are talking to you.

And finally, the admin panel also provides better insights - how many people are talking about your brand, how many people you’ve reached - so you can see how well you’re actually engaging with people. That’s got to be an appealing innovation from a brand perspective.

So, overall, I’m very much in favour of the Timeline and I can’t wait until we’ve rolled it out across our brand pages. We’ll let you know once we’ve done this so you can stop by and let us know what you think.

Why authorship is key

Search engines cannot assess quality of content, only humans can.

Similarly search engines cannot assess the quality or qualifications of the person writing the content – only a person’s peers can.

But they can use signals arising from human interaction, for example through the act of linking, tweeting, liking, to determine the value of a piece of content.

At a really basic level if someone links to it, it must be good. If people are talking about it on social media it must be interesting, engaging or controversial.

This helps search engines to make a value judgement when determining how important a piece of content is relative to others and thus where to return it on a results page.

The introduction of authorship into the mix potentially takes this a step further and it’s why author profiles are a key priority for us at SquareDigital in 2012.

The value of a piece of content will no longer just be down to the buzz around it, but also down to the buzz around the person writing it.

It heralds the introduction of a further human element into the search engine ranking process, and in theory provides searchers with better results.

Now, to rewind a little, in June 2011 Google announced that it was supporting authorship in search – enabling authors to link themselves to their content for the first time.

It introduced the rel=author and rel=me meta tags. For sites with author bios, the rel=author tag is simply linked to the author bio page, and then the author bio should be linked to Google Plus using the rel=me tag. Sites without bios should simply link bios to Google Plus using the rel=author tag.

There appear to be two reasons for its move in this direction. The first is that linking real people with content is a good way of tackling web spam. Secondly it is also promoting membership of Google Plus.

But there’s no question this is going to play an important role in rankings in future, as Google Engineer Othar Hansson’s comments when launching rel=author last August show.

“So we are hoping to use this information, as with any information, as a ranking signal,” said Hansson, appearing alongside Matt Cutts in a Google Webmaster Help video.

“So in this case we want to get information on credibility of authors from all kind of sources and eventually use that in ranking. We are only experimenting with it now. Who knows where it will go.”

Who knows where it will go indeed. I think there is no doubt this will become a significant factor in determining the quality of a piece of content.

For SquareDigital, adjusting our bespoke Content Management System to cater for author profiles on all content, using the author bio route rather than a direct link to Google Plus, was a priority for development in 2012.

And we’re delighted to say that we should be rolling out this functionality over the next month or so.

For our journalists it also represents an excellent opportunity. The narcissists among them can rejoice as personal brand just became even more important.

Further Reading:

1. Author information in search results - Google Webmaster Tools Help

2. Author Markup and Web Search - Official Google Webmaster Blog

Travelbite infographic: Best value city breaks

Infographics have become an increasingly popular way to convey information in a different way to the standard news story or feature.

We have been offered more and more by third parties to display on our websites over the last year, and when relevant and well put together we've often taken up these offers.

But what we hadn't done was have a go at producing one ourselves, until now.

Below is our coffee cup price guide to Europe which can be found on Travelbite.co.uk (view the full size infographic).



We've taken data from a Post Office survey and published it in a smart, graphical manner that provides the information the reader needs at a glance. I certainly won't be rushing to Oslo or Copenhagen for a cuppa in these times of austerity.

Naturally the investment that goes into a bit of content such as the above is more than your average news story. So now we need to ensure that people "like" it, Tweet it, and link to it.

And all being well this will be a regular feature across our websites in future.