Slides for talk on "Resurrecting the Content King" given by Jenni Taylor on 13 July 2018 at the IWMW 2018 event.
See http://iwmw.org/iwmw2018/talks/resurrecting-the-content-king/
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Jenni Taylor
Content person
WHO AM I?
● Deputy Head of Digital Communications, Cardiff
University
○ Head of Content - team of content producers
○ Creating content for external website and
intranet
○ Team oversees 450 devolved authors
○ Responsible for content governance
● Previously a content producer for Cardiff
University, University of Bath, University of South
Wales
● 11 years experience in Digital
● Twitter: @jennijuniper
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An industry that extols innovation
over customer satisfaction, and
prefers algorithm to human
judgement.
Jeffrey Zeldman, founder ‘A List Apart’
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CULT OF THE COMPLEX
TO BE GOOD IT’S GOT TO BE DIFFICULT
http://alistapart.com/article/cult-of-the-
complex
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CONTENT STRATEGY
WHAT IS IT?
The mindset, culture and
approach to delivering
your customer’s
information needs in all
the places they are
searching for it.
MICHAEL BRENNER
Marketing Insider Group, Author
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Planning for the
creation, delivery and
governance of useful,
usable content
KRISTINA HALVORSON
Brain Traffic, Author
‘‘
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Publish the right
content, to the right
people, at the right
time, in the right place
- using the right words.
ME
Content person
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PROBLEM IS…
RIGHT NOW
Content is -
● Created at the wrong time
● Written by the wrong people
● Made with the wrong aims (or no aims) in mind
● Published with no plan of how it will be promoted, managed,
maintained… or archived
● Seen as secondary to design or function
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Time to find some
content to fit into the
design and
functionality.
Discussions around how it should
work, how it should look, what it will
“do” when users land on it, time spent
on design and development.
VISUAL DESIGN &
FUNCTIONALITY
CONTENT
TESTING, FIXES,
LAUNCH
Time to test it, get ready for launch,
redo aspects of it that don’t meet the
stakeholders expectations, do the
fixes as the design/functionality
doesn’t work with the content.
THE CONTENT SQUEEZE
TIMESCALE OF A TYPICAL PROJECT
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Most organizations still reward employees
based on how much they produce and how
long they spend producing it. We also reward
them based on how much they please their
managers. When that ‘pleasing’ relates to
digital, it often involves the production and
publishing of stuff the manager wants
published. (Or the manager’s manager.)
Gerry McGovern, A Rebel’s Guide for Digital Transformation
“
CULT OF PRODUCTION
PRODUCE, PRODUCE, PRODUCE
http://gerrymcgovern.com/reward-outcomes-not-inputs/
14. Content is the number 1
reason users visit our
websites
They want answers and
inspiration
WHY DOES IT MATTER?
WHAT DO USERS WANT?
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WHAT CAN WE DO?
WHAT’S THE ANSWER?
We need to win people over…
● Convince them content can solve their problems
● Show them the benefits of good content
● Make it worth working on
● Help them
17. Performance
Open Day social media campaign
Average click through rate from ads:
0.76%
84%
Devices ads were displayed on:
9% 7%
0.35%
Average CTR
1.06%
Average CTR
0.52%
Average CTR
0.48%
Average CTR
24 reactions
1 share
8 likes
125 reactions
3 shares
1 like
117 reactions
10 shares
20 likes
42 reactions
1 share
1 like
18. Performance
Open Day social media campaign
Cost: £801.67
Cost
Facebook
£14.86 per conversion
Total bookings: 45
Facebook Instagram
6.1%
Of people who went
to the landing pages
converted
3.9%
Of people who went to the
website converted
£22.25 per conversion
Instagram
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WHAT MAKES WRITING GOOD CONTENT HARD?
IT’S JUST WORDS, RIGHT?
The content
has already
been signed
off - it has to
go up like
this
‘‘
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I don’t know
where to start
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It just needs
to be on the
website
somewhere
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STUDENT FEE ANALYSIS
HOW IS IT WORKING NOW?
● We looked at the current usage of tuition fee pages
● Explored the searches related to fees
● Went through the FAQs and compared with live pages
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STUDENT FEE ANALYSIS
HOW IS IT WORKING NOW?
● We looked at the current usage of tuition fee pages
● Explored the searches related to fees
● Went through the FAQs and compared with live pages
We found:
● Issues could be resolved by better signposting
● Some pages had out of date information
● Could add curations to search to promote fee content
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AND FINALLY
MAKING IT WORK
● We can’t bend to each others will - it will break us
● Find a new way - sell the benefits
● Don’t just be the guardians of the style guide
● Give more advice than just writing for the web
● People want to know ‘how’ to write
● Make friends with your stakeholders
You have to make
it work in a crazy
culture
PETER SLEE
Vice-Chancellor, Leeds-Beckett
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