I ran across this post from Dion Hughes at Persuasion Arts and Sciences, a marketing communications firm. Using the iPhone as an example, he makes a simple, practical case for usefulness. According to Hughes, it’s no longer enough to be cutting edge or technologically smart or totally socially networked. In order to really get the marketing to work, you’ve got to be USEFUL.
Kristina Halvorson of Brain Traffic has a marvelous new post at A List Apart about “The Discipline of Content Strategy.”
Her premise is that, although we know all about designing, building, optimising, and using web media, we have often been woefully lax in our attention to the actual content that appears on our carefully developed pages. I have often lamented that a perfect timeline can go awry due to missing or incomplete content to put on the pages themselves. Often we have the perception that “…content is really somebody else’s problem —’the client can do it,’ ‘the users will generate it’…” and the project begins to unravel.
However, all is not lost — a strong content strategy can help to define this pieceof the puzzle and get it executed in an efficient, timely manner. Content strategy plans for the creation, publication and governance of useful, usable content. Ms. Halvorson outlines a number of points to consider when defining a content strategy:
Take a look at the full article, and let us know what you think.
Each month, Go East picks a marketing challenge. We collect all of our enthusiasms, thoughts and observations about it and boil them down to just the most relevant bits. The result is a highly focused, meaningful and, we hope, sometimes entertaining look at the pain points we all face.
It’s a great (quick!) read. See the latest versions:
Volume 1 Issue 3
Volume 1 Issue 2
Volume 1 Issue 1
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A recent Adweek article discusses how difficult it is to create social media applications — especially the corporate branded apps in Facebook. It underscores the essentially flighty and viral nature of social media; like pop music and reality TV stars, there is a limited appeal to many of these efforts.
Brands, in general, have found Facebook unforgiving terrain for marketing. It’s well known, for instance, that banner ads perform poorly on the site … But the Facebook Platform, launched 18 months ago — which lets developers create social applications for users — was thought to offer the perfect opportunity to move beyond banners to provide “branded utility.” So far, however, Facebook apps from brands like Coca-Cola, Champion, Ford and Microsoft are as popular as desolate Second Life islands.
Spam was once a simple annoyance, but its exponential growth has led email users to mount intensive efforts to block unwanted messages and incited companies to circulate blacklists of alleged spammers. As he tries to comply with all the details of spam laws, newsletter publisher James Morris wonders if free speech might be an unlikely victim of the Internet age.
Here at Go East, we’ve been seeing very interesting results from our newsletters and email marketing efforts. Spam laws and compliance can change quickly, and an email that sailed through spam filters one month may be unexpectedly flagged the next. As Morris points out, the culprits can be an innocuous word or an innocent turn of phrase. Keeping a vigilant eye out for these items and vigorous testing can help mitigate these problems.
(If you’re interested, have look at our newsletter series.)
Oh my. Sometimes I find it very funny when you get a request to use a “Real World” metaphor for a software application or website. Here’s a great interpretation of what Photoshop would look like if it really was made up of scissors, tape, paint brushes and rulers …
“Inspire Me, Now!”
Polish IA guru Szymon Blaszczyk has a fantastic Tumblog of Imagery. Not much commentary, just marvelous items to spark creativity, discussion and wonder.
I am always torn between total fascination (tinged with a wee bit of envy) and complete irritation when I run across websites that have very unique or unusual navigation schemes. This website, from Normann Design in Copenhagen, skitters along that knife edge of wonderful/irritating. The glorious design and products tip me over into the happy side.
