Conversations at the intersection of community, content and communications | The Official Blog of Bob Stanke

The 3-2-1 Content Rule

Bob Stanke — Tue, 21 Feb 2012 05:23:00 +0000

A content strategy that reaches far across an organization sometimes needs to serve several different purposes all at once. Some individuals within an organization might want to provide instructional content, some want content to drive leads, and some want to promote new products or services. This can be a difficult balance for content developers, who need to craft a strategy that services the business, yet does so in a way that keeps your readers coming back for more.

To help with achieving this balance, I have developed a basic framework, or rule, I follow when planning content development and deployment. No matter how many silos of content needs you have, on a percentage basis, if you can follow the "3-2-1 Content Rule", you can keep a good balance.

How The "3-2-1 Content Rule" Breaks Down

For every six blog posts (or podcasts, webinars, etc.):

* 3 should be original, informational content pieces. These are the pieces of content that help your audience solve a problem or answer a question.

* 2 should highlight and share content from other sources. These pieces of content promote, support or offer a counterpoint to someone else's content. Highlighting someone else's content helps build your credibility and level of trust with your reader.

* 1 should be promotional for your organization. This is where you can make your pitch to your audience. Highlight the products and services that can help your audience. Open up the funnel, drive leads and close the deal with this content!

What I have outlined above is merely a framework for a healthy content mix. Balance your content as you see fit and what is appropriate for your audience.

Spotify launches beta community to provide user-to-user based help

Bob Stanke — Sun, 19 Feb 2012 11:00:58 +0000

Do I sense a new trend occurring? Just last night I blogged about Google's brand new AdWords help community that recently launched, only to find out early this morning that the popular music service, Spotify, is following in the same footsteps.

Spotify launched its new help-based online community, which it prominently states is in beta in the header of the site. Similar to Google's new community site, Spotify has a top contributors section, featured posts and plenty of early discussions to keep momentum going.

In typical community fashion, Spotify does make sure to communicate with visitors that the community is not the official support service for the music service, stating the following in an announcement module:

"Please bear in mind that the Community is not an official Spotify support service. It's a place where we all help each other, whether we work for Spotify or not. So please use your discretion when using the forum."

This is not Spotify's first attempt at community collaboration. The company has a fairly active presence in GetSatisfaction as well. Again, as I noted in the Google post from yesterday, it is interesting to see this trend and I hope it continues to grow.

Google converts AdWords forums to community-based platform

Bob Stanke — Sun, 19 Feb 2012 05:13:26 +0000

Google has officially moved its popular AdWords Help Forums to a more community-based look and feel, implementing several features that are popular in most succesful online communities.

Complete with ranks, top contributor listings, top starred authors section and an "online now" widget, Google is taking help functionality to a whole new level, giving the AdWords power users a better way to help each other and build some "community crediblity". Looking through the community shortly after it has launched shows a great start - helpful threads and good conversations are forming.

Some notable features Google has implemented include the ability for community members to "+1" threads and replies, rate items with a star system, and subscribe to individual threads via RSS.

I am interested to see if Google moves other popular help forums to a similar format. Regardless, this is a strong statement for the growth of community functionality across Google's different products and services.

It's a slam dunk when basketball and content strategy come together

Bob Stanke — Mon, 13 Feb 2012 03:14:44 +0000

It is a great day for a person like me who loves both basketball and digital content when he or she gets a blog post delivered to their feed about how an NBA team is giving social media the full-court press! This is a great blog post by The Content Strategist about how the Phoenix Suns are setting the bar on fan interaction and content strategy. I can't believe they have a full-time team of nine devoting their time to social media and straight-up content development!

I think the NBA organization in general does a great job in social media. They have a great Twitter presence, active Facebook Page, an awesome YouTube account, and they were early adopters to Google+.

Basketball fans here in Minnesota are also spoiled by some great social media efforts put on by the Timberwolves. The Wolves are incredibly active on various social media sites, and are often my go-to source to stay up-to-date on my squad. I have gotten a chance to speak personally with Scott Spiridigliozzi, who is the Strategy & Interactive Manager for the Wolves, and it is amazing how progressive the thinking is when it comes to interactive elements. I gotta admit, I do find myself jealous of not working for an NBA team in any capacity!

I love baskeball. I love digital content and strategy. It certainly is even better when they come together!