Internet Strategy | Virtually Anything is Possible

Aug
29

Cut through the noise: You know your audience best

Category: Content strategy, Digital strategy, Internet Strategy, Social Media Tags: consultants, opinion, sme Leave a Comment

On any given day, we are exposed to thousands of messages, and with the proliferation of social media we’re bombarded with more and more “expert” tips, tricks and approaches for engaging our customers for online success.

How do I cut through the noise?

With a plethora of “experts” telling us what to do, it’s no wonder we have lost our own voice, our intuitive guide, or even our confidence around the fact that we actually do know what is best for our customers – and probably have a pretty good feel for how best to engage with them both on and off-line.

You gotta trust that you are the SME (Subject Matter Expert).

The bottom line is that no one else knows your audience and customers better than you do. After all, your job is to understand their pain-points and priorities – and deliver value in meaningful and relevant ways. You know how best to help them to be successful, to walk away smarter and to keep them coming back for more.

Even if you don’t have a lot of experience using online tools to do so, your experience with what works vs. what doesn’t will go a long way with your online activities.

Don’t lose the plot.

What you bring to the table is really important, because these days it’s really easy to lose that point of clarity.

Listen and learn.

When choosing consultants, agencies and/or contractors, be sure they really listen and learn from you before partnering with them, and certainly before they make any ‘expert’ recommendations.

Only after truly listening can they add value by helping to open up new doors with fresh ideas and approaches. After all, a truly successful partnership can only happen when both parties are actively listening and complementing each other with knowledge and ideas. A partnership like this is a fearsome thing to behold!

So I ask – what do your relationships with your consultants, agencies, and/or contractors look or feel like?

Dec
16

By Susan

Social media strategy and content strategy: like peas and carrots

Category: Associations, Content strategy, Digital strategy, Internet Strategy, Social Media Tags: content, tips, web strategy 3 Comments

If I have said it once, I have said it a thousand times. Developing a content strategy and plan is extremely critical for a successful social media strategy.

You can’t invite folks to dinner without offering them a meal.

And why does everything come back to food, anyway? or shoes – oh yeah, that’s another post.

Back to the topic at-hand. Developing a focused and valuable content strategy requires us to think through a few high-level things first, then apply that to our social media activities.

Here is what I recommend:

Get your smart, innovative creative thinkers in the room. Ask the following questions (can be about a program, product, or around organizational goals):

What are our goals – in one year, what is the story we want to tell?

This is where you clearly articulate the outcome, based on what you want to be saying when you have successfully accomplished it. Then you work backwards from there.

About your core audience(s), ask yourselves the following questions:

What are their pain points – needs?
What do they find valuable?
Who are they and where are they already gathering online?
How many are current members or participants in any way?
How many know who we are as an organization?
What are the possibilities for future engagement/interactions (membership, content creation, speaking, interviews, etc)?
Beyond the default ‘networking’ answer, what do we have (or what can be created) that would be really valuable to them: Experiences, Content, Knowledge
What is the best way for us to brainstorm activities, events, content to address the answers to these?
How do we use the web and social platforms to engage and/or disseminate where appropriate?

Now that you have gathered an arsenal of knowledge, you can build your strategy. Here is what I suggest:

Develop an content grid/calendar that identifies topics, events/activities & content on a month-by-month basis
Brainstorm content tactics & identify resources for each
- consider existing content that can be re-purposed
- opportunities for new content creation: interviews for podcasts, guest articles and blog posts, white papers, toolkits, etc.

With this information, you can build your social media strategy and easily identify ways to disseminate, communicate, and engage using both traditional and new (social) media.

Make sense? Leave a comment and let me know your thoughts.

Sep
11

By Susan

Engage your audience with interactive presentations

Category: Digital strategy, How to, Internet Strategy, Site-seeing, Social Media Tags: Audience Response System, Interactive PowerPoint Presentations, SMS poll, SMS polling, SMS voting, text message polling, Text message voting Leave a Comment

Looking for ways to better engage your audience at your live, in-person events or education sessions? How about polling your audience and discussing the results in real-time during the presentation?

Use Poll Everywhere to engage your audience. Poll Everywhere enables people to answer via text (sms) message, twitter, or the web and can display results real-time on your powerpoint slides.

How cool is that?

Sep
2

By Susan

Using tags for collecting, organizing and publishing content

Category: Associations, Content strategy, How to, Internet Strategy Tags: Content strategy, custom content, mashups, rss feeds, social bookmarking, tagging strategy Leave a Comment

Strategic content tagging is one the most overlooked practices online today. Using them strategically not only helps others find your stuff, but it helps you repackage and repurpose content easily and in very targeted ways.

If the basic concept of tagging confuses you – check out this “Tagging 101″ tutorial from ZDnet:

Many people associate tagging with Social Bookmarking – which is a very powerful (and useful) concept worthy of a conversation on its own – Jason Falls provides a great explanation about this on Social Media Explorer.

Most organizations are overwhelmed by the fact that their content and resources live in different places (especially in a web 2.0 world). My organization has content on Flickr, YouTube, Slideshare, Delicious, and have several blogs and podcasts. I also use google news and blog alert feeds from time-to-time as well. We are also having conversations on Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook, Meetup and Ning.

On top of this, we are implementing an enterprise-wide content management system (cms) to manage and publish our core content as well.

The question was, how can I strategically combine and repurpose content from these different online properties efficiently and effectively? How can I repackage them around topics, issues, events, etc., when they come from different places? Even with enough resources – this can be very overwhelming.

This is fairly easy to do if you consistently use tags. Here is what I do:

Create an index of tags to be used throughout my organization – essentially this is a keyword list. It is a living document that we update regularly. This can have many applications but at the very least it helps make content management more efficient.
Tag content on all of our online properties accordingly – keeping it as consistent as possible. Everything from blog posts to video – making it possible for us to create very specific feeds.
Create RSS feeds and used feedburner (when appropriate) to publish content on our sites. Feedburner also allows users to subscribe via email, which comes in handy as well. This way the feeds are controlled through feedburner – and I can adjust them accordingly. I also get stats for performance as well.
Create “packages” of content accordingly – either via dashboard pages on our websites or through repurposed feeds throughout our social networks.

Using tags this way allows me (and users) to easily combine, repackage and repurpose content in many different ways. It also allows us to manage content in a distributed environment, as long as we are all working off of the same list of tags “keywords” – we are able to quickly combine and organize our content and links – and deliver it accordingly.

I am still experimenting with alternative ways of using tags – so let me know if you have any thoughts or ideas.

Sep
1

By Susan

Website Design / Usability Feedback on a Budget: Fivesecondtest.com

Category: How to, Internet Strategy, Site-seeing Tags: design, How-to's, information architecture, usability testing, web strategy Leave a Comment

I just came across a nifty site called fivesecondtest.com. The site is primarily for web designers/developers who need feedback and input on overall design and information architecture. According to them it is a “simple online usability test that helps you identify the most prominent elements of your user interfaces.”

I was on the site earlier and tested out a few sites loaded by others. Take a look and let me know what you think.

Aug
19

By Susan

Connecting the dots with your web, content, and data strategy

Category: Associations, Internet Strategy Tags: "data strategy", "technology strategy", Content strategy, outcomes, web strategy Leave a Comment

When trying to make the case for investing in big picture web strategy – it is important to take a few steps back and connect the dots between your web, content, data & technology. Successful organizations understand the connections and the importance of each, then leverage and plan for them accordingly.

Tell your story
The best way to figure this out is to begin by articulating the story you want to tell in, say, 2 years. For example:

Our members are able to easily solve management issues by connecting with fellow members and knowledge experts, participate in conversations, and find solutions by searching through previous discussions.

or

Our members and customers are able to get everything they need on their personal dashboard – from subscriptions, topic feeds, setting up in-person or online meetings, browsing group activity, register for upcoming events, viewing their professional itinerary…

Once you have defined the story – then peel apart the layers and determine what data, content, and connections you will need to make this happen.

Your Data Strategy – Understanding your relationship with your members and customers
Based on the end result – determine what data you will need to both make this happen. You will also need to think about what information you will use to make decisions on future products and services. Typically, you start with understanding not only who your customers are, but how they are interacting with you (online and offline), and what types of content/topics they are looking for. You will also need to think about opportunities for gathering this information over time, how to gather the “trending” information, and how to manage this as part of your core data set.

Your content strategy – think and act like a publisher
Most associations have a large inventory of valuable, relevant content. Publications, white papers, articles, video/audio content, blogs, experts databases, etc. All of these, when packaged and delivered in the right context, are extremely valuable. If you can think and act like a publisher you will use your data to better understand what is of value, then repurpose/repackage and deliver content accordingly. Here you begin to value where other ‘self organizing’ communities cannot.

Your Web strategy – Bringing it all together with Community, Connections, Conversation & Content
Your web strategy must be focused on nurturing/strengthening relationships and engaging members and other key groups. If your web strategy is successful, your organization will be the gathering place for your communities where they make connections through conversation while providing valuable content and tools in a relevant context.

Your technology strategy – connecting web, content & data to make your story a reality.
Technology is not the driver, it is the facilitator, and a good technology strategy is based on outcomes. Once you are clear on what you want to do, then involve technology in the conversation.

Don’t lose the plot.
With all of this said, it is good practice to continually re-assess your activities and identify how each initiative is helping to achieve big picture goals. Don’t be afraid to weak and improve as you go along.

Jun
5

By Susan

Feed my Twitter Addiction? Learning from a digital native.

Category: Internet Strategy, Site-seeing, Social Media Tags: blogging, digital natives, music, twilight, twitter, youtube 2 Comments

This video is hysterical – it’s by Kaleb Nation (aka Twilight guy) – and extremely creative, talented author, musician, blogger and more. He is a digital native.

I shared this because it is VERY entertaining, plus this is a learning opportunity. Here’s why:

He has more that 7500 followers on Twitter

His YouTube channel has just under 30,000 subscribers

He just published his first book, and made his own trailer (with music he created)

He has 2 blogs, one for Twilight Guy and one for himself (and his book)

He constantly connects all of these things. He creates additional excitement and activity via twitter, with contests, and with blog.tv.

Even if you are not geeky like me and into the content, pay attention to how he has managed to create an extremely powerful brand, reputation and following.