by Steve Seager on May 16, 2012
One of the most common tactical communications questions I’m asked is, “How long should a blog post be?” I recently mailed a client with this answer:
It’s really all about clarity and value to your target audience – not length.
However, as a general rule of thumb there are three types of posts:
1. Short insight or news item of a few hundred words – primarily to share something or point people towards some valuable information. General rule: get in, give the message and get out. You tend not to get many comments on these, but they are often shared quite a bit – when they’re valuable.
[This post you are reading is an example of that sort of post.]
2. Tactical ‘how to’ or ‘what is’ posts usually come in around 400-700 words. Best practice is the use of a great headline, the body text split into short paras with great sub headers that tell a story in themselves. These often get a few comments and shared a lot. Note: if you feel an article is too long, write an abstract of it as a blog post containing what the article is about and who it is for, plus the key points of the article, then turn the full post into a .pdf for download. Read more …
by Steve Seager on May 4, 2012
by Steve Seager on March 28, 2012
Your first priority as a business is to make sure you are around tomorrow. We already know that those companies who are web 2.0 savvy outperform those who aren’t. But things just moved up a gear. Google and Facebook are rolling out significant changes to their models – changes that bring web 3.0 one step closer.
If your business relies on traditional advertising in social networks, getting found in Google, or still thinks with a mass marketing headset, it’s time to rethink and rebuild.
A quick refresh on web 3.0: content and context
Around a year ago I wrote a primer on web 3.0 and semantics for exactly this moment. The heart of the matter is:
The goal of the semantic web – web 3.0 – is to create more context around everything that we publish online. So that content search & delivery can have greater meaning, relevancy & value for the people you are targeting.
Read more …
by Steve Seager on March 21, 2012
Some advice for marketers in medium sized businesses with ambition: if you want to set yourself up to best leverage Big Data in the future, start adopting targeted marketing strategies right now. And include ROI as a core social metric. If you’re up to speed on Big Data, jump to the last para down below – that’s where the takeaway is. If not …
… What is Big Data?
‘Big Data’ is the rising flood of data now available to businesses via the social web and enterprise ICT infrastructures. The Big Data challenge involves its Volume (there’s tons of it), Velocity (it’s real-time) and Variety (there’s loads of different types of it).
Sure there’s a danger of drowning but Big Data is also the ‘Next frontier for ‘innovation, competition and productivity’. There’s examples across industries in everything from supply chain management to strategic decision making.
But how does Big Data impact marketing in social channels? Read more …
by Steve Seager on February 22, 2012
You already know the type. You are leading your strategy meeting, trying to figure out company-level strategy for the social web.
You want to move towards some sort of vision of what your future might be, explore the possibilities.
And every time someone brings up a great idea, in jumps your in-house ‘Devil’s Advocate’ with an annoying ‘Yes, BUT …’
Agh. It’s so much easier (and productive) to work with the ‘Guardian Angel’, who elegantly supports progress with a ‘Yes, AND …’ Someone who knows how to build on ideas rather than put fire to them.
Current conventional thinking in management consulting circles is that the ‘Yes, AND’ people are your friends and the ‘Yes, BUT’ people are a pain in the ass and of very little business value.
However, before you start coaching the ‘BUT’ out of your strategy team, it’s worth taking another look.
Angels and Devils in organisations
Liz Strauss echoes the common current perspective on the ‘Yes, AND’ people:
“The position of Guardian Angel is inherently positive. The role is to find and fill holes in the proposed idea. Arguing for the possibility of what might work, while checking for risk, leads to dialogue that builds and molds ideas into useful realities.”
So a ‘Guardian Angel’ is typically seen as Read more …
