Directors of content strategy: why corps need to create this post to save us from digital garbage

In the time I’ve worked on corporate sites, now nearly ten years, I’ve learned a lot about the variety of tasks and skills involved: content creation, SEO and PPC, social media,  analytics, corporate (website) politics, metadata strategy, taxonomies, globalization, CMS, and this…

Corporate websites (incl. non-commercial organisation sites) haven’t really progressed beyond the ill defined goals they started with more than a decade ago, and in some cases almost double that: “It’s new. We need it. Do it. Content? Whatever’s available in the brochures will do.”

Social gaming’s the next online fad

http://blogs.ft.com/techblog/2009/10/social-games-to-change-the-world/

Now that social networking has lost its sheen, and it’s bedding down where it’s useful while disappearing where it’s not, the next rush of enthusiasm will be about social gaming.

While social gaming will be a lot of fun for some, it’ll have limited use for corpcomms, better fitted to advertising and marketing (if you make a distinction between corpcomms and marketing, that is).

It’s not the future of content but it is content nonetheless, and will be part of tomorrow’s standard content offerings, so try it out and get used to it.

Mckinsey wrote a report on 2.0

Another report on 2.0 and how corporations are using it. This one’s from Mckinsey and it’s called Six ways to make Web 2.0 work.

It’s okay-ish. If you’re an enthusiast, then you’ll probably like it. But it’s not very good at pointing out that:

Analytics for non-transactional sites

I’ve recently had to think about how to set measures and metrics for a corporate web estate that’s about the size of a small country.

Actually it’s not that big. I’ve worked on much larger corporate sites.

Up to now, the metrics the online team have been using are mainly  to do with reach, with a little bit of conversion or task-success thrown in for colour (but not much).

Edelman digital trends series

Edelman’s Steve Rubel is publishing a series of  ‘insights‘ into digital trends.

I’ve read the first one (17 Feb, pdf 2mb) and it’s a pretty good overview.

How to write rules for forums

Take a lesson from CBS’s Rules of Engagement by Michael Rossellini.

Here’s an excerpt:

“…no libel, slander, no lying, no fabricating, no swearing at all, no words that teenagers use a lot that some people think aren’t swearing but we do, no insulting groups or individuals, no ethnic slurs and/or epithets, no religious bigotry, no threats of any kind, no bathroom humor, no comparing anyone to Hitler, Stalin or Pol Pot. We expect heated, robust debate, but comments should be polite and civil. We consider this to be public space so behave and write accordingly.”

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2005/10/20/utility/main959709.shtml

Leo Burnett’s website

Leo Burnett’s website has gone for a different approach (I don’t know when, but I just came across it):

1. It’s all about Flash

2. Frames are back

3. It talks a lot

4. The navigation is like catching a cat

5. It’s disturbing to be followed around by a pencil

www.leoburnett.com

None of the devices are new and there’s a reason Leo Burnett’s alone in their choice of design and devices.

Seems like ‘marketing’ just can’t get over Flash.

Sigh.

Web analytics nerds are people too

So there I am, reading Web Analytics Demystified while travelling on a bus towards the City first thing on a very dull, Baltic-cold morning, getting a little bored of conversion calculations and such like.

I’m about to close the book and grab some zees when I see the section  detailing how useful analytics tools can be in measuring search success ratios.

Riveting stuff. Not.

Social networking backlash offishul now mainstream press confirms it, innit

There’s the Register’s story: Facebook in goldmine potential deficit (29 Dec)

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2008/12/29/social_networking_deloitte/

And the FT’s: Tories fail to connect on network sites (28 Dec)

http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/565a229e-d395-11dd-989e-000077b07658.html

And The Guardian’s:  Freezing cold, no internet, boring: it’s a French web 2.0 …(10 Dec)

http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2008/dec/10/startups-internet

Think we can pack up this blog then…

More about blogs

The BBC has an editorial strand called City Diaries, in the business section (http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/7788608.stm).

Are these blogs? Are they user generated content? Are they vox pops? Are they amateur journalism?