Good content isn’t fake. It doesn’t make promises that it can’t keep. It’s human and honest. It has a personality and a point of view. It’s intrinsically social. That’s why it engages us. That’s why we follow or like your brand.

(more…)

“We basically have two kinds of readers that visit the site: native readers and nomadic readers. Natives come to you because you’re you; nomadic readers are coming in from other communities or search traffic.” Welcome mats are an attempt to do what every news organization hopes to: to convert some of the nomads into natives.

(more…)

The National Archives has developed guidance on the need for a digital preservation policy. It discusses the main success criteria for a policy and its relation to other policy areas.

Policy guidance | The National Archives.

Our first step was to conduct a thorough content audit of these sites and all other financial aid related content within the Ithaca.edu structure. Once we knew what we had, what we didn’t, and where it lived within our site structure, we spent significant effort doing focus groups, interviews, and usability testing with key audiences (including internal staff). (more…)

1. Process Efficiency. Content developers are knowledge workers, and an efficiency goal is to create more time that can be spent on the important tasks associated with content creation. Using a CCMS to produce content supports efficient processes by reducing, and sometimes eliminating, rote tasks such as searching, cutting and pasting, checking for identical changes in multiple places, and repetitive set-ups for generating content output.

(more…)

Most Coming Soon pages collect email addresses, but invite-only betas have their advantages. A trusted, closed environment accomplishes a number of things. A. The creation of a vetted testing community. B. The why-not-me/this-must-be-fantastic buzz factor created by an “invite-only” beta. C. The ability to iterate, reinvent and fine-tune behind closed doors with expert input.

(more…)