An Bui, Spelled An With 1 N

Apparently I need to clear my cache, because when I went back to Mack Collier’s blog, I didn’t get redirected to his new site.

Instead, I saw this title: “The idea that ‘content is king’ in blogging is total bullshit”

According to Mack, “Being Social is [king in blogging]”

The idea that good or even great content is not enough. Besides, “Good” or “Great” content isn’t even actionable - it’s too abstract. So let’s get concrete.

What makes good content?

1. Applies to your target audience

2. Findable or discoverable by your target audience

3. Helps or is otherwise useful to your target audience

For example, if you were trying to launch a new boutique geared towards teens/early 20’s demographic, you’d want to offer clothes they’d want to wear. You’d make your retail location accessible to them and you’d make it easy for them walk in by literally leaving your doors open.

One company that did this well? Abercrombie & Fitch, which changed its business from offering outdoors gear to offering clothing for the Tweens/Young Adult demographic. They even got a mention in LFO’s summer hit (’99), “Summer Girls”

Same deal with online marketing.

1. Provide germane (relevant) content - answer questions your audience may have or give them information they want to know.

2. Findability/searchability means that search engines can crawl AND index your content. If your content can’t be found, your audience can’t find you.

3. Helps or is otherwise useful - the call to action is so valuable for this reason. If you let people know what to do next and they want what you’re offering, you’ve lowered the barrier for purchase, adoption, etc.

So why does being social matter?

1. You get invaluable feedback loops from others - your content can improve based on customer/user feedback. You learn what resonates with people and what they think is worth repeating. Given the speed of publishing social media, you can iterate more quickly - concept to publishing no longer takes weeks or months.

2. You enable people to find out about you sooner, rather than later. Trust takes time. If you’re hanging out by yourself online generating amazing content, search is basically the only channel by which others can discover you. By leaving your blog, going to others’ and leaving insightful (not spammy!) comments, you’re creating other channels for people to discover you.

3. By adding or providing value (ie - being useful) you start building trust. Intention matters. Be open and honest about who you are, what interests you, and what you find interesting.

Good content is the minimum barrier to entry and great social content helps you learn, grow and refine your thinking.

Thanks to Deb Robison for the conversation that spawned this blog post and Mack Collier for his thoughts.

Then yes.

Earlier this week, Danielle Morrill and I gave a talk about Twitter to a group of entrepreneurs in Seattle. I wanted them to take away that the social value and the business value of Twitter went hand in hand. I also approach Twitter as a channel to find brand-evangelists, discover opportunities to help others, and share useful information. As a data nerd, I like to attach metrics to pretty much everything.

Some quick metrics to take away from Twitter include # of following to # of followers. The closer those numbers are to 1:1, the more likely it suggests reciprocal relationships, assuming that those you’re following are following you back and vice versa. DocuSign has nearly a 1:1 ratio of those it follows to those who follow it:

DocuSign's Twitter Metrics 368:374

Tweetstats, from Damon Cortesi, generates a lovely graph that tells you how many @replies you tweet (indicating conversation) and to whom you interact with the most.

DocuSign Replies ~ 61% of its tweets

In the Twitter Talk, one of the attendees said:

This is a way for me to broadcast what my company is doing

Um, share. Absolutely Twitter is a way to share what your company is doing. Why? Because people (potential customers, users, employees) care. However, they don’t care if your only interest is one way data flow. They want to know that the feedback they’re giving you is going somewhere, being considered, and possibly having an impact.

Twitter is a one-to-many content sharing application. It’s like having a back-and-forth conversation in a public space. You are having a directed conversation that is indexed by Google and then searchable.

Starting social media with listening, understanding what the audience wants/needs and then generating content gets you to…

PARTICIPATION

If you aren’t comfortable with putting out, you should start by listening. Integrate feedback into product development, messaging, customer service…

Listening alone creates value for business. Actually participating enables you to create and realize even more value.

rel·e·vance (rěl’ə-vəns)

n.

1. Pertinence to the matter at hand.
2. Applicability to social issues: a governmental policy lacking relevance.
3. Computer Science The capability of a search engine or function to retrieve data appropriate to a user’s needs.

The American Heritage Dictionary provides the above three definitions for the word “relevance.” Notice that the primary definition is the broadest, and the tertiary definition is the most specific.

I recently went to LA (and flew Alaskan Airlines), and while there, I unplugged – traveled to a place where I had dial up or random wi-fi access only.

I didn’t blog, I tweeted less often than I generally do, and I didn’t post to my blog. I got back online when I got back to Seattle, and noticed my number of twitter followers dropped off, and that my last blog post was five days ago.

What does this mean?

I’m no longer relevant - my content got stale. In this day and age, users like and want fresh content, from 140 characters to a few hundred words. Readers want it. Fellow Twitter users want it. Search engines want it. And frankly, those interested in social change, social justice, and making the world a better place want it.

My message? Be relevant. At the very least, be relevant.

Relevance matters.