That was the closing session, but before that, the incredibly smart and knowledgeable Lee Smallwood took to the stage and shared some tips on some of the things we can all do to improve how our blog’s rank on Google.

Author rank

Lee explained that there was a way to tell Google that you own a piece of content, and that doing so could help that content rank a lot more highly in search than ‘unsigned content’. Here’s an article on author rank and why it’s important.

Lee didn’t get a chance to go into how to do this in much detail about author rank as he was mobbed with questions from pretty much everyone there, including me, but I did a bit of digging afterwards and managed to figure out how to link my blog to my G+ profile. (When Lee puts his slides live – I’ll link across so you can see in more detail why this is important)

Here’s how I linked my WordPress self-hosted parenting blog to my G+ profile, so Google knows I wrote all the posts on there.

Taking author ownership of my blog with Google

1) I got a Google+ profile https://plus.google.com/u/0/114730564675993386882/ – actually I already had one, but if you haven’t got one, go to http://plus.google.com and get one set up.

2) Inside the WordPress dashboard, I went to Users, clicked on my profile and made sure the First Name and Last Name fields matched what I had in Google+. Then in the bio section, I added my description, plus a link to my G+ profile. I’m not sure this bit is essential, but the end of my bio looks like this: I’d love you to follow me on <a href=”https://plus.google.com/114730564675993386882/”>my Google Profile+</a>.

3) I went to by ‘About’ Page (http://www.amummytoo.co.uk/about-a-mummy-too/) and added a mention of my Google+ profile page. I linked on the phrase “my Google Profile+” and apparently the + on the end is important. The URL I linked to was https://plus.google.com/114730564675993386882/?rel=author and yours should look exactly the same, including the ?rel=author bit at the end, just change the long number to the long number in your profile address.

NOTE: If you have an email address on your blog domain (e.g. me@myblogdomain.com) you can skip the remaining steps. Just make sure you’re logged in to Google+ and register here.

If not, get ready for some PHP tweaking…

4) BEFORE YOU DO THIS PART, BACK UP FIRST – IF YOU GO WRONG, YOU MAY NEED TO RE-UPLOAD A FILE USING FTP.

Still in the WordPress Dashboard, I went Appearance > Editor and because I’m running Bee Crafty on Genesis, I went into Functions.php and found the function that said:

NOTE: Your code might look a little different, depending on your theme. If you don’t have functions.php, try looking in single.php and search for a phrase like “posted on” or “posted by” (or whatever the author, date credit days at the top of all your posts) – that will give you a clue. If you find the bit of code you need, but aren’t exactly sure how to edit it, feel free to paste it into the comments and I’ll reply asap.

5) I changed it so the code now looked like this:

IE I replaced the post_author_posts_link part with a link to my about page, anchored to my full name.

6) I went to any post on my blog and made sure that my name under the title linked to my ‘About Page’ (http://www.amummytoo.co.uk/about-a-mummy-too/)

7) I went back into my Google+ profile and clicked Edit

8) I clicked on the section that says “Contributor to” and created a new entry where the name is “+A Mummy Too” and the link was my about page ie http://www.amummytoo.co.uk/about-a-mummy-too/

9) I  checked it was all working by hopping over to Google’s Rich Snippets Testing Tool and entering the URL of any of my posts.

10) The results showed a snippet of how my post would look in Google search results, followed by a green message saying “Verified: Authorship markup is verified for this page”

That’s it, done.

If you try this, let me know if you hit problems and I’ll see if I can help.

Once you’re up and running, make sure you share your lovely posts on Google+ and let me know if it’s having any impact for you. I’ll do the same.

But one question remains, looming large, and making lots of marketers uncomfortable: what’s the value of being involved?

It’s not a simple question. In some ways, we’re getting to a point where brands HAVE to be on Twitter. It’s expected. Not being there, for some sectors, is like not having a helpline. Customers want to talk to you on Twitter and if you’re not there, they’ll vent furiously until you turn up to fight the fire.

But Financial Directors need to see return on investment (yes, seriously, don’t gag) so there has be more reason to be there than just obligation.

Improved brand awareness? A higher ‘net promoter score’? Direct sales? Indirect sales? Savings through more online orders and fault reports, meaning fewer calls to the call centre?

All valid measures, but whatever a brand’s intention, whatever metrics get that social media budget signed off, there has to be a plan to actually make it happen. Remember when websites were quite new, and millions of businesses had to learn the tough lesson of ‘if you build it, they won’t necessarily come’? Well businesses are back and they’re learning that lesson all over again.

You can’t just set up a profile on Twitter, or a flashy page on Facebook, put together a nifty content plan and then say “ok, we’re ready for you”. Even household names like Coke, Vodafone, Tesco had to do outreach. They didn’t just sit back and wait for it to happen.

But who do you reach out to? How do you find the people who’ll care that you’re there and be interested in what you have to share? And how do you reach out to the people who’ll not only want to form a relationship with your brand online, but also become an advocate, influential enough to help spread the word.

And that’s where Kred comes in. Kred is public directory of Twitter users (other social media platforms coming soon) and it measures a user’s influence and outreach levels, both globally, and in respect of specific topics, from tech to alternative health.

Kred is looking like a significant challenger to its competitors (chiefly Peer Index and Klout) for a number of reasons, but mostly because it offers a real-time and totally transparent measurement system.

There’s a lot to understand about Kred, from what it is and how it works, to how it can be used productively by bloggers, PRs and brands.

Recently I spoke over Skype with Andrew Grill, UK CEO of PeopleBrowser, the company behind Kred and asked these questions and more.

Come back soon to see the video interview in full.

01. Pilot markets its fine-line pen by micro-tattooing a series of LEGO men	02. Zaini promotes it’s smooth milk chocolate with a perfectly fluid kiss	03. Coca Cola erect a ‘living billboard’ that absorbs air pollutants
04. Martor goes gory to comic effect with this billboard ad for razorblades	05. The Economist promises big ideas with a bulb that lights as you pass underneath	06. The University of Aarhus reaches out to science students with a microscopic brochure
07. Audi erects a metallic billboard where part rusts, revealing the ad over time	08. Montana Meth Project releases a striking illustration of the dangers of meth use.	09. PampaVerde uses makeup to great effect to promote the size of its Extra Big Burger
10. Pepsi leaves us in no doubt about just how light its diet soda is	11. Sony goes retro to promote the capacity of its Microvault USB memory stick	12. Beau Rivage Resort & Casino creates an unusually inviting luggage belt
13. GITAM BBDO gets noticed with spicy promotional business cards	14. Sensodyne goes minimalist with a double-take ad for toothpaste	15. A dentist launches a street campaign that’s a bit like pulling teeth
16. A Swedish horror  festival breaks from tradition to pull in the press	17. An environmental consultant puts his stamp on waste with this alternative to the business card	18. The Shoe Hospital treats footwear as patients, if this ad is to be believed
19. Amnesty launches domestic violence ad that responds to being looked at	20. A Romanian ad forces payphone users to face domestic violence	21. Stop’n Grow circulates a shopping bag that puts you right off nailbiting
22. A direct mail campaign against shark finning puts the damage in your hands	23. Alzheimer’s New Zealand creates eraser-like USB sticks to highlight memory loss	24. Superette promotes its ‘short shorts’ with a bench ad that prints right on users legs
25. Nivea makes bold claims about the power of its cellulite cream with this sofa	26. Graco uses flawless photo manipulation to promote its mattresses	27. WWF uses minimalist materials and a familiar cloud to highlight water pollution

Want more? Follow me on Posterous for daily doses of creative inspiration.

I’m pleased to announce that I’ve joined the Global Editorial Team for Social Media Week (SMW) – “a global platform that connects people, content, and conversation around emerging trends in social and mobile media.”

Here’s a bit more about the Social Media Week initiative, in the words of the organisers, Crowd Centric:

“Social Media Week’s mission is to explore how local and regional societies, cultures, and economies are becoming more integrated & empowered through a global network of communication. Delivered primarily through a network of internationally hosted biannual conferences and online through social and mobile media, Social Media Week brings hundreds of thousands of people together every year through learning experiences that aim to advance our understanding of social media’s role in society.”

The next SMW is due to take place September 19 – 23 2011 in:

• BEIRUT
• BERLIN
• BOGOTA
• BUENOS AIRES
• CHICAGO
• GLASGOW
• LOS ANGELES
• MILAN
• MOSCOW
• RIO DE JANEIRO
• SAO PAULO
• VANCOUVER

You can read more about the editorial team here – and look out for my first blog post, coming soon.

What does this new platform mean for PR, marketing and other comms professionals?

It’s not an easy one to answer, but here are five articles that helped me get to the heart of the matter:

1. The PR and marketing implications of Google+ by Shel Holtz. This is about as thorough as you can get right now. Shel hasn’t churned out a Google+ 101 post, he’s written an article with the uses for comms pros in mind. Read it.
2. Should PR and social media people be getting excited by Google+? by Phil Szomszor. Should we all be leaping on board and putting our campaign budgets into Google+ right now? Phil has sensible answers.
3. Conversations matter in Google+ by Chris Brogan. I have to agree with Chris’s simple but crucial observation here. The quality of conversations and responses in my stream, right now, is blowing Twitter and Facebook out of the water. If that continues, it’s a big deal for brands (particularly when the door opens to them).
4. Why Google Has the Hammer To Make Businesses Use Google Plus by Jay Baer. This is a comparatively complex article (make a cup of tea before you start reading) but it takes a really good stab at mapping the evolution of search, SEO, social, where Google+ fits in, and where it’s going. Useful stuff.
5. Google+, Businesses and Beyond by Christian Oestlien. In a video rather than a written post, Christian, a product manager on Google+ explains why it’s not quite ready for businesses yet, and gives some hints on where it might be going. Watch it below:

So, when it comes to Google+, what are your predictions, observations hopes and concerns for the comms industry?

Tonight’s #CommsChat (the weekly Twitter-based chat for comms professionals) will aim to identify the best tools out there for monitoring and evaluating social media activity. Here’s my summary of the tools I use every day.

The blurb for tonight’s chat reads: “There’s a huge array of free, freemium and paid-for choices out there – so which ones do you invest your time and money on and why? What are the lesser known tips, tricks or features you’ve found, and which tools don’t cut the mustard?”

So, here are the questions to be posed on the night, along with my top tips.

What are your top social media tools – and why?

• For getting a one window view of all the activity on every Twitter profile and Facebook Page I manage, Hootsuite
• For spreading the great stuff I read in the morning out across the day on Twitter, you can’t beat Buffer which lets me stack up quality content to go out at pre-set intervals
• For identifying the hottest trends in my Twitter stream, StrawberrJ.am is a must
• For filtering out a hashtag or keyword if I really don’t want to know the tennis result, Proxlet
• For putting some quick (but debatably fallible) numbers to influence on social networks, Klout and Peer Index
• For figuring out the behaviour and trends around a particular Twitter user, TweetStats (see also Hashtracking)
• For assessing the reach of a hashtag, tweet or even @username, TweetReach.
• For getting a quick, free overview of the reach and sentiment of an idea / campaign on the social web, SocialMention.com

Which ones are more hype that happening?

• Not keen on Klout’s +K as a measure of ‘expertise’ in certain topics. It measures ‘vote for me!’ popularity rather than true influence and is easily gamed
• Paper.li drives me crazy. Billed as a tool to bring you the best of your stream in paper form, it does work, but it’s being overused in a spammy way. Turn off those auto-tweets, people!

From dashboard to dashing about – best tips for tablets and mobiles

• For sheer simplicity, you can really beat Twitter’s official mobile app
• For managing multiple accounts, and checking on your scheduled updates, HootSuite for iPhone and HootSuite for Android are top quality

Freemium to premium – which upgrades are worth it?

• If you have more than one Hootsuite user in the office accessing the same Twitter profiles, you’ll need to upgrade, but it also cuts out the ads and gives you full access to an Outlook-like scheduling calendar, so it’s well worth it
• Buffer premium brings you the usual scheduling goodness, plus the option to have multiple admins and unlimited tweets and Twitter accounts
• TweetReach only analyses the last 50 tweets it finds in Twitter search, so if you’re looking at a very busy hashtag, it’s worth paying the $20 for a full snapshot

How are these tools helping you with strategy?

• Managing multiple feeds is time-consuming. The better the tools, the more time you can devote to actually engaging
• Knowledge is power. The more data you can get on how you’re performing, the better honed your strategy becomes

Should tools focus around ‘search’ or around ‘social’?

• I guess this is asking, should we look at a) numbers – followers, number of RTs etc, or b) engagement – depth of conversation, sentiment, reach etc?
• My answer is a little of (a), a little of (b), but ultimately you’re going to have to get your hands dirty and remember that tools are just tools – nothing automated is going to tell you everything you need to know, or do everything you need to do, that’s what comms professionals are for ;)

The chat takes place tonight (Monday 4th July) 8-9pm UK time. Talk to you there?

Let me tell you a story…

About 2.5 years ago, I was just starting out with a new consultancy. As such, I hadn’t filled my client roster, and had some free time to network, learn, and promote myself and my business. So I joined Twitter. I monitored it all day, chatted, posted regularly, and manually made sure I was consistent throughout the day.

But of course, as I got busier, this became more and more of a challenge. I began finding the articles I wanted to share during my ‘free’ time, either at the weekends, late evenings, or very early mornings. These are great time to catch up on reading, but probably not the best times to start a work conversation.

So what is Buffer?

Leo from Buffer

Buffer isn’t the first app to offer scheduled tweeting, but it is the smartest solution I’ve come across so far.

Instead of having to manually decide what time each tweet will go out (a la Hootsuite), you just preset some times each day that you’d like to tweet (e.g. 10am, 12pm, 2pm, 4pm) and then drop all the cool stuff you find into your Buffer, where it queues up and posts out throughout the day.

Add more goodies than can fit it in a day – it’ll buffer over into the next day. Decide you want them in a different order – it’s a simple case of drag and drop.

During the day, you’re then free to use what free time you do have to indulge in what Twitter (and all social media) is really all about – conversation.

In Leo’s own words:

“Buffer is a tool that helps you to tweet consistently every day without flooding your followers. It was an idea that came out of Joel’s use of Twitter [ed: Joel Gascoigne is co-creator of Buffer and an experienced developer with an MSc Computer Science]. He wanted to share more of the great articles he was reading, but without all these tweets in a row. Having a ‘Buffer’ which spreads out these tweets seemed to be the optimal solution.

“The heart of Buffer are the browser extensions. Whichever article you are reading on the web, just give it one click on the Buffer icon and add it to your Buffer. What we found is that many people tweet one article and add the rest to their Buffer. This spreads them out and never floods their stream.”

Why might you need Buffer?

Generally speaking, you might like Buffer if a) you don’t use Twitter much, or b) you use Twitter all the time.

Here’s why:

Leo: “We are seeing 2 groups of people using Buffer heavily at the moment. The first one is Twitter new comers. People told us they are overwhelmed with Twitter at first and with Buffer they come to gradually use it more and more in a piecemeal process.

“Of course another large percentage of Buffer users are Twitter Pros. So people who are very heavily involved in Twitter and also have a business interest. What many seem to appreciate is that they can save time and be more efficient by Buffering, yet still remain a genuine personality and not turn into an auto-bot.

“What I found for myself is that it is often hard to tweet consistently. Yet, only a consistent appearance, similar to blogging, can build trust and help you stand out from the rest.”

Are the spammers circling?

Just as I asked Proxlet and StrawberryJ.am, I had to ask Buffer if they see the app being used for spamming, and what they’re doing about it:

Leo: “We try to fiercely work against that. Our tagline is “Be Awesome On Twitter” and we aim to help everyone to flood users less.

So we basically try to optimize instead of automate. This means we try not to implement things such as pulling RSS feeds in or tweeting the same tweet multiple times.”

Get the very best from Buffer

I asked Leo what his top tips would be to get the best from the app. For him, it’s all about convenience:

• Bring Buffer to you: “With our browser extension, you can go to Twitter.com and Buffer Retweets from your native Twitter stream.”
• Know the shortcuts: “Press “alt+b” to bring up the Buffer box (again, needs the browser extension)”
• Get jamming: “You can Buffer tweets from inside StrawberryJ.am, a Trend based Tweet aggregator”
• Grab text for tweets: “Highlight some text and then click the Buffer icon and it will be turned into a tweet.”

For me, the ability to add multiple accounts (if you have a pro subscription) and set different times for each is a god send. So what feature is are other users loving the most?

Leo: “What a lot of our professional users are thankful for are the analytics we are providing for all Tweets that are Buffered. [ed: you can link your Bit.ly account into Buffer] It helps a lot to understand about how well your tweets are doing and if you should change your patterns.”

Plans for the future of the app?

Just like any new app, Buffer is promising, but could be more useful. I’d like to see it go truely mobile, for example, and then extend out to LinkedIn and Facebook. So what’s in the pipeline?

Leo: “We really want to built it out further in the future. One main goal is to allow people to Buffer from anywhere they are. We are currently in talks with many different reader and mobile apps as well as Twitter clients. The integration with Strawberryj.am was fantastic and definitely the route we want to pursue in the future.

An iPhone app is high up on our list and Joel is working away on it as we speak.”

A game changer

At the moment, I use Buffer for about five tweets a day per account, usually buffered up that morning. But overall, Buffer is only one of the ways I access and manage Twitter, along with Hootsuite, Twitter for Mac, Twitter for iPhone, Twitter.com and Bit.ly, according to my needs. Of course, Buffer isn’t intended to do everything those clients do, but if it keeps on the promising development path it’s on, that list could reduce.

So, have you tried Buffer? Is it working for you? What improvements would you make?

(Hat tip to Sarah Arrow for first making me aware of Buffer.)

Ask yourself a question: how long do you think you could go without using an internet search engine? I did some research among my friends, colleagues and networks, and two thirds of the people I asked said that, on average, they use a search engine more than ten times per day. They don’t think about it, they just do it.

It was while I was on a train heading into London that the idea of #NoSearch came to me. Looking around my carriage, about three quarters of the passengers had their heads buried in HTCs, iPads and laptops. And it struck me that all of these people – my friends, my contacts, me, you – we’re all totally reliant on what Google tells us. In fact, more than that, we have 100% trust and, arguably, blind faith in the results that we get back when we click the search button. This gives search engines immense power over us and the way we perceive the world. So I decided to give up Yahoo! and Bing for two entire months; to go Google cold turkey.

Is search behaviour changing?

The #NoSearch project was borne from a desire to investigate just how vital search engines have become to our everyday lives and whether it’s even possible to function without them.  I’m intrigued by the impact that the web is having on society, and I wanted to see whether social media is empowering collective intelligence as much as it’s purported to be doing; whether a social network can act as a ‘personal search engine’. So during June and July I intend to find out whether I can get by online by forgoing search engines in favour of my online networks.

Two weeks in and it’s already throwing up some really interesting areas for further thought and investigation. Google Instant (the feature that auto-suggests websites as you type a search term) quickly became my nemesis, to the point where I had to disable it. I’m not stopping myself visiting URLs that I already know, but typing them into the browser was proving a nightmare as I was effectively performing a search every time I did so. It highlighted to me how much search has changed from ‘pulling’ information from the web to having information ‘pushed’ to us via search engines, and is further evidence of Google’s power and influence. But do you ever question the results Google gives you? How often to you go beyond page one of the SERPS? Think about it…

The power of social networks

From a social media perspective, Twitter quickly became my lifeline. Facebook just doesn’t cut it when you need information in any sort of speed, and Twitter beats it hands down for expediency. And the people who use Twitter are also different; they’re more clued up, more reactive, more socially-savvy. Maybe there’s a learning there for social marketers?

I’ve also started to see great value in social bookmarking, an area I’ve never previously engaged with very heavily. Delicious, Diigo and Stumbleupon hold such a wealth of valuable information, and while they can’t compete with Google for finding a website URL, they’re good for information.

Time as a commodity

One word sums up my #NoSearch experience so far, however: frustrating. Living without search engines is, believe it or not, not that difficult if you have a network of any moderate size and a bunch of reliable and bookmarked web resources. But the time it takes me to find anything is starting to drive me nuts. With search engines you can be on a relevant website on any given topic within a few seconds. Without them it takes minutes at a time to dig out information. And when you’re as busy as I am that’s a lot of wasted time. You don’t realise how valuable time is until you don’t have any because it’s taken up with things you know you could do a lot quicker.

So have I been tempted to quit already? You bet! But in actuality, that’s more through impatience than a real need for Google. So I’m going to stick with it. I suspect that first search in August will be a delicious moment and I’ll probably start dreaming about it soon, but hopefully I’ll have a learned a hell of a lot about online behaviour and social media by the time that comes around.

You can follow the #NoSearch project on Posterous, Twitter and Audioboo. Paul Sutton is Head of Social Communications at BOTTLE, blogs at www.thesocialweb.co.uk and can be found on Twitter as @ThePaulSutton

What is StrawberryJ.am?

Still in beta and currently open only to those with invites, StrawberryJ.am connects up with your Twitter account and then sifts through your friend’s recent posts to figure out what’s been particularly hot in the last 24, 16 or 8 hours..

Dennis, an experienced developer, seasoned dotcom-er and one half of Hettema & Bergsten, explains:

“We are all about showing the best links shared within your own network on Twitter. We trend the links for your @account, Twitter lists, #tags and searches. The results are Reddit-like lists that are specific for your social network.”

The value of friend-based trends?

The beauty of the Strawberryj.am concept is that it’s not about filtering out the noise, more about making sure you don’t miss out of the really good stuff.

“I was always a highly infrequent Twitter-user as I could never really handle keeping up with the stream. Whenever I did decide to take a peek at my timeline, I virtually always found interesting links,” explains Denni. “So Strawberryj.am started with the question: ‘what were the most popular links that I missed today?’”

“For me, and I might be a little biased, it has completely changed the way I look at twitter. I check my strawberry stream in the morning and evening and use the daily email as a backup. It gives me a sense of calm because I know that anything that becomes popular will not be missed by me. I now use Twitter every day.”

So for Twitter users that don’t watch their streams 24/7, it’s a way to pick up on good stuff they’d otherwise miss. And for comms pros / those with particular topics they want to investigate in detail? That’s where the ability to see what’s hot within a Twitter list or hashtag comes in.

It’s early days for the app, and functionality is relatively limited, but I can see it blossoming into something really useful.

A friend or foe to spammers?

Often, a tool that makes Twitter better for bona fide users also has the unintended side-effect of giving spammers a leg up. Is this the case with StrawberryJ.am?

It is virtually impossible for spammers to dirty up your @account trends as these are links by people whom you actively choose to follow. Twitter lists are also fairly spam insensitive as they are (or at least should be) curated.

Search and #tags do tend to get spammy, though as spammers are learning how to hook in to Twitter trends. We are working on introducing silencing functions and would love to get in touch with the Proxlet guys to see if we can team up.

And what of those people who – legitemately – run several accounts. Could they skew the results? Yes, according to Dennis, but they’re working on ways to even this out, without penalising users.

Top tips to get the most out of StrawberryJ.am

I asked Dennis what users could do to make sure they get the best out of the new app.

Here are his tips:

• Be particular about who you follow. Automated systems can be gamed. “I created an account called @chicagofoodtest to see if I could be on top of Chicago food related news in my @account stream and… well… Need to know anything about that scene? Ask me!”
• Experiment and refine. “Set up some list & #hashtag trends and experiment with good combinations (my favourites at the moment: @scobleizer/most-influential-in-tech, #design, #recipe).”
• Set up your daily email “so you never, ever miss out.”
• Used timed retweets to reach the maximum audience. “Retweet from within the timeline using Bufferapp for maximum exposure.”

Ready for launch?

With StrawberryJ.am functioning pretty well, and the buzz on Twitter looking positive, I asked Dennis when we can expect them to open their doors to the public.

First of all, thanks to everybody for your amazing feedback! Up to now virtually everyone has been very positive about the product which is the best motivator I can imagine. Thanks :)

We would love to release the product to the public as most of the interface is quite stable, the reason why the doors are still closed is the immense load that this little system produces.

A week ago we had about 250 active testers who generated over 75.000 links per day. The numbers get very big very quickly. We’ve got some pretty awesome server people working on this though so as soon as we feel we can handle it, we will rip the training wheels right off!

We also have a mobile version in alpha, as soon as our server structure is optimized we will start work on making it launch ready. To be honest, I can’t wait!”

Want to try StrawberryJ.am right now?

It's invite-only, but I've got 50 'beeta' invites

The lovely founders have been kind enough to give me 50 beta invites to share with readers.

Want one? Just head to http://beta.strawberryj.am/ and use the invitation code COMMS when you complete the sign up form.

Any problems, you can also tweet @StrawberryApp.

What do you think of StrawberryJ.am? Just another app, or the start of something really useful? Let me know your thoughts.

In this age of social media, companies are slowly waking up to the fact that it is no longer enough to ‘broadcast’ a message to an ‘audience’. Today, a successful web presence is all about engaging people in dynamic, multi-way dialogue; driving and contributing to key conversations; influencing, participating and responding to the buzz around emerging trends.

So what makes content ‘sharable’? What turns a site visitor from passive reader to active participant in a conversation around your brand?

Here’s my take on the key requirements for conversation-worthy content.

Offer value

It hardly needs saying that sharing is a big part of social networking. If the average user sees something interesting, controversial, enlightening or funny on Twitter, the chances are they’ll want to re-tweet it, or perhaps Stumble or ‘Like’ it. Even more so if they feel that it’s something their friends/followers will like, too.

Conversation-worthy content is often that which amuses, breaks news, surprises, or sheds light on a known but otherwise complex subject.

What are you doing to ensure your content brings a benefit to your audience, well beyond simply learning more about your brand?

Create investment

We know by now that user generated content isn’t just a way to keep copywriting overheads down – where users have a vested interest in the content on a site, they are more likely to return, more likely to engage, and more likely to share that content with others.

From relatively simple site additions such as guest blog posts or caption competitions, to more technical or time consuming additions such as user forums or content that crowd-sources advice or opinions from customers, the more a user feels they have contributed to content in some way, the more invested they are likely to feel, and therefore the more likely to continue, and indeed share the conversation.

What are you doing to encourage user contributions to your content base?

Track and monitor

When visitors hit your site, where do they come from? And where do they land? Once they’re there, what do they do next? Which types of content are the most ‘sticky’, holding attention for the longest? Which content drives the most ‘shares’ on social media?

Whether you’re part of a large company with the funds to purchase highly detailed analytics software such as Omniture or a small company with access only to a free tools such as Google Analytics, tracking and analysing user response is essential and not to be overlooked.

At any time, you need to be able to confidently answer the questions: What does your customer base respond best to? And what generates the highest level of engagement?

Listen; gather feedback

Of course, key information isn’t only to be gleaned from visitor behaviour. The real action is probably happening far beyond your blog post, news update or shiny new home page; it’s happening on social networks like Twitter and Facebook. Again, whether you have deep enough pockets for an all singing all dancing social mention tool such as Radian 6 or Meltwater Buzz, or whether you are sticking firmly with free tools such as SocialMention.com, the big questions here are:

What content is being shared, and how? What are people saying about your brand? What are you learning from the conversation? And what are you doing to drive it forward, positively, by being visible and responsive where appropriate?

Stay relevant

Clearly, social media monitoring has applications far beyond collating mentions for your own brand. By tracking key words and phrases, you can answer a whole raft of questions that will help keep your conversation relevant to your readership.

What is interesting to your target markets right now? What questions, concerns or excitement is growing around your industry?

And, most importantly, what are you doing to track, analyse and predict these emerging trends, so that they can be reflected in your own content?

I’ll leave you with a final point to note. The answers to all of the above questions will rarely remain static for long. It could be weeks, days, hours or even minutes before the conversation shifts, turns or otherwise develops, throwing a whole new light on your content strategy.

The conversation is ongoing, dynamic and exciting. Your content strategy must be, too.