Se7en deadly sins of online - GLUTTONY

Each day this week we are uncovering w00tonomy’s take on the se7en deadly sins. These are the vices we’ve seen drag businesses into the express elevator to redesign hell. Going down!

GLUTTONY - just stuff the content in without thinking

We’ve all been there. You know this “content stuff” is important and you know you need a lot of it so you grab big chunks of it and throw it all on the plate.

But the best websites are like a balanced meal, not a bargain bucket from Alabama Fired Chicken. The secret to content success is realising that text, video and pictures are ingredients that need to be blended together to produce pleasing combinations tailored for different palates.

Your editorial processes will ultimately determine how successful your site is. The responsibility for site content often falls on the shoulders of a few individuals in the marketing/web team. They are regularly provided content from different business units in a format and using language that is completely undigestable for an online audience. However, what can happen is that faced by the needs of the business the pressure is on them just to get the content up there.

This can so easily become the norm and you end up shoveling content on the site without really thinking about it. The site ends up bloated and unwieldy until it struggles to handle that waifer thin piece of content that will appeal to a vital demographic.

Because content can be fed so easily into a site, the false impression it gives is that it doesn’t require the same thought as offline corporate communications. But the content you publish online is part of your marketing mix. This is why you need to have the user experience at the heart of your editorial process. The usability of your content and how people are going to find it through search engines are key to you not losing control of the growth of your site.

Se7en deadly sins of online - LUST

Each day this week we are uncovering w00tonomy’s take on the se7en deadly sins. These are the vices we’ve seen drag businesses into the express elevator to redesign hell. Going down!

LUST - project blindness and desire to deliver

Businesses and agencies love projects. The project world is a familiar and comfortable place for us all; we know how to scrum, scope, budget,and deliver. And to put icing on the cake we enjoy that great feeling of hitting the finishing line, the launch party.

Too often, though, we are seduced into failing to realise that how the site looks is less important than how it works.

For our customers there is little short to medium term benefit in what happens prior to the launch date. The value to them comes afterwards. Delivering this value is based on publishing engaging content that is targeted at different audience segments. Even though many businesses understand this principle, they struggle to achieve it because they are geared towards one-off project delivery rather than the continuous improvement model for online publishing.

This is why when developing your online strategy you need to be marketing-led. By focusing on the importance of the long term relationship with your customers you will not be distracted by the lustful allures of the project life cycle.

Se7en deadly sins of online - ENVY

Each day this week we are uncovering w00tonomy’s take on the se7en deadly sins. These are the vices we’ve seen drag businesses into the express elevator to redesign hell. Going down!

ENVY - not understanding how others succeeded

Online, your message is fighting for the attention of the user alone against the rest of the internet. There are no sectors, there are no walls. The internet is one vast open playing field. And your message is up against the BBC, YouTube and blogs about kittens.

You’ve seen the success that other sites have had and you want that. But your downfall is that you do not appreciate why those others have succeeded. You want what they have but you haven’t done the work they have.

The BBC and Amazon are classic sites we all rightly admire and desire to copy in some shape or form. But the one principle many fail to recognise is their commitment to quality and engaging content - content that tells a story that people want to hear.

Every organisation has a story to tell about its brand, its products and services and online their is an audience that is receptitive to that message. Understanding the value proposition of your business and your customer is essential to ensuring your content reaches that audience.

Se7en deadly sins of online - PRIDE

Each day this week we are uncovering w00tonomy’s take on the se7en deadly sins. These are the vices we’ve seen drag businesses into the express elevator to redesign hell. Going down!

PRIDE - just expecting your site to work

Remember the film The Field of Dreams? In it, Kevin Costner was told that if he turned a field into a baseball pitch dead players would turn up to play on it. He was told: “Build it and they will come.”

In the online world, baby, they don’t. They really really don’t. You have to go and get them no matter how much good work you’ve done.

The Information architecture may have been well designed; the creatives and navigation structure may have been user tested and the stakeholders may have all signed it off. No doubt, the content management system is industry standard and you bet it’s flexible enough to cater for future developments. It goes without saying the site is 3A, XHTML and W3C compliant to boot. Your analytics package will be in place ready to measure the large number of customers who will come to admire your work. You are all so very very proud as your new site launches. Look upon our works, ye mighty, and despair. You have built it and they will come.

But they don’t and after a short peak of modest initial interest the traffic begins to die off. It dies because you haven’t attracted anyone to your site with interesting stuff.

The reality is you live and die by your content. No matter what your business, when you are online you are in the content publishing business. This is the only long term determinant of the success of your site.

Se7en deadly sins of online - SLOTH

Each day this week we are uncovering w00tonomy’s take on the se7en deadly sins. These are the vices we’ve seen drag businesses into the express elevator to redesign hell. Going down!

SLOTH - failure to plan beyond launch

This is the sin of indifference and failure to make the most of what you have. It always happens after the dust of the project delivery has settled. The hustle and bustle of the project review meetings are a distant memory of post-it notes and cheap cofee. A good job has been done by one and all. But nobody has planned for what to do beyond the launch date.

Thinking and acting like a publisher is essential for seeing beyond the go-live date. A publisher would only ever see a delivered site as a tool to get started on the job of attracting an audience.

Is that the internet in your pocket (or …)

The PC vs Mac debate part II (see our previous post from 3rd March)

For Marc Davis, Yahoo’s social media guru, there’s no doubt that the future is about mobility - with the number of handsets about to hit 4 billion.

We are about 18 months from an incredible boom in mobile applications and mobile adoption Mike Butcher, TechCrunch

“The mobile web is not just about accessing the web from your phone. Mobile phones that are location aware, temporarily situated and socially connected will transform our experience of the web, the world and ourselves.”

“The next web,” he says “will be about place and time.”

He suspects that we are near the point at which more people will be able to access the web via their phone than their desk top computer.

work with w00t to market your content in time and space in the emerging world wide social web.

more more more on http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/7366403.stm

Sunday Herald Digital Futures Debate: ‘Transsexual bodybuilders living a lie’

Scotland needs to change its business culture to embrace risk, encourage ideas and get the most from its workers, according to the second of the Sunday Herald debates on the future of digital in Scotland.

Gordon Thomson, Operations Director of Cisco Scotland and Ireland, saw a gap between invention and sales. He said that there was a need for collaboration between different companies and bodies to bridge this gap.

Raymond O’Hare, Regional Direcotr of Microsoft Scotland, emphasised that while the climate seemed right for innovation to flourish , it seemed like something was missing. He felt there was a need to intensively push those with ideas.

Then Steven Thurlow, Technical Director of Graham Technology, called for a greater appreciation of the power of risk in innovation, using the example of the 39 products that failed before WD40 became a success.

Taking a different tack, Stewart Kirkpatrick, Content Marketing Director of w00tonomy (yay!), said that in order to reach customers all companies, organisations and public bodies had to understand that anyone trying to attract attention on the web was a content publisher because of the nature of the online landscape. Scotland had failed in this respect, he claimed, adding that Scottish organisations and companies (even ones dealing in content) had yet to produce truly great online properties that made effective use of targeted content and the online innovations that engage the user/customer. (An honourable exception is Rockstar North, which produces the insanely successful Grand Theft Auto games.)

All four speakers all emphasised that Scotland needed a change in culture to embrace innovation - a point that was also raised from the floor, along with observations about the need to involve more young people in the debate.

The event was fronted by hyperenergetc ringmaster Iain S Bruce, who characterised the format as being like Kilroy, hence his frequent references to “transsexual bodybuilders living a lie“. However, his mind may have been wandering to the trip to Amsterdam he was going to embark on immediately after the debate ended.

(In terms on “content people”, the event could have been better attended. But it was good to see Alistair Brown, who - given his record at scotsman.com - is about to do exciting things at STV and Shaun Milne, whose knowledge about journalism and digital media far outweighs his understanding of football.)

Content = prosperity

You might be thinking, what a lot of w00t. These w00tonomers are w00ting, whittering, even twittering. Where’s the beef?

Well, ok - follow the money!

Businesses prepare to spend nearly $5 billion by 2013 on social networking tools, according to Forrester research. Social networks will attract the greatest levels of investment.

The old monolithic marketing models are rusting like an old Trabant. For social networks you need marketable content: content to interest, amuse, intrigue, empower your audience - and yourselves.

w00tonomy speaks!

David Petherick has done an interview with our very own Tony Purcell. In it you can hear Tony’s soothing Irish brogue explain how our content marketing approach increases traffic for our clients online messages. David has a number of other very interesting interviews, including one with Werner Vogels (or is it Verner Wogels) of Amazon.

Listen in, and find out a little more about content marketing in the social media sphere.

w00tonomy director relentlessly delivers nauseating self promotion

Stewart Kirkpatrick, our Content Marketing Director, has induced a bout of vomiting at w00tonomy with this self-serving communique:

“I have been elected to the New Media Industry Council of the National Union of Journalists (in a jobshare with Euan Williamson of Imagineering). Like nearly every large body, the NUJ has struggled with what the web means for today and tomorrow. I am delighted to have this opportunity to help guide its thinking.”

Stewart will also be speaking at the Sunday Herald’s Shaping Scotland’s Digital Future event - at 9am on 24 April at The Teacher Building, St Enoch Square, Glasgow - where he will be tarred and feathered by the rest of w00tonomy if he comes out with anything similar in tone to the above statement.