There’s mounting pressure for content creators to, well, create content.

Not necessarily to satiate audience demand (though people seem to be upping their content intake) but rather to stay atop the constantly growing heap of content that other content creators are creating.

So we get lazy resourceful and we pick the low-hanging fruit.

From Adam Singer:

While I don’t think we suffer from information overload, I actually think we suffer from a more sinister problem. Curator overload.

Not good curators like Robert Scoble or Jason Kottke. Those guys are worth their weight in gold, in fact we need more curators like them: they uncover unique, useful and obscure things before everyone else. And if they do repost they always add something.

I’m talking about curator overload in the form of people taking popular content (usually images, but not exclusively) surfaced on sites like Google+, Reddit, or Stumble and reposting again (as if it is new and / or they originally discovered it) on a different network or blog, without bothering to credit the original sharer.

I understand that sometimes it is difficult to credit, especially when digging for content on your own. But it is painfully obvious when you belong to multiple networks and see someone basically copy-pasting content someone else has surfaced recently. In essence, it’s different when you’re sharing something you searched for / found, vs. something you’re specifically taking from another.

I’m not sure if I’m in sync with the spirit of Adam’s post (or if I took something entirely different from it), but I do have this to say to all content curators (myself included) before we hit publish:

Add content, add context, or add a comment. Anything else is just adding a copy.

[Image: bettyx1138]

The fate of your website will be decided in less time than it takes you to finish reading this sentence.

The same people who a decade ago would wait patiently through the screeching greeting of a dial-up modem are now frustrated when the homepage of CNN doesn’t refresh as quickly as a wiper blade across a windshield.

Consider the following:

• The human brain senses delay after 0. 1 seconds (This is when people start to notice “slow”).

• 75% of sites load in less than 5 seconds. (The benchmark for “acceptable slow” is created).

• 57% of people will leave a website if it takes longer than 3 seconds to load. (Impatience kicks in: Game over).

Your organization won’t get your 15 minutes of fame if you don’t win the first 5 seconds.

And if the statistics aren’t sobering enough, think about these 5 reasons your digital efforts should focus on feeling the need – the need for speed.

1. The mobile revolution demands speed

As screens and devices get smaller, expectations for what said device can deliver get higher. Over is the era of device novelty where people were willing to wait for the little loading bar to painstakingly tiptoe from left to right across their screen because the eventual reward (the content) would be so novel that tardiness was forgiven.

Now people want to be able to sit on their couch and figure out in a few seconds who the NBA MVP was in 1994 (David Robinson) with their smart phone. And increasingly, those same people want to find a local shop that sells a replica jersey from that same year – while they are driving there (though we certainly don’t endorse the behavior).

2. Search engines are speed freaks

It is estimated that at least 1% of all search queries have results which are affected in part by the speed of a site. In other words, all other things (content, inbound link profile, etc.) being equal, the faster site wins the ranking at least 1% of the time. I imagine that number is only going to grow.

Ever notice how Google shows you how “fast” their results load? If the search giant is focused on it, we should be, too.

3. Speed is a byproduct of simplicity

People like when things are made easy for them. Hey, it’s why the Staples Easy Button has caught on as a mini-pop-culture-phenomenon of its own: it speaks to our very human nature.

Easier is better because it is faster. But this also plays out in the real world:

• In a now famous study, researchers found that people who were exposed to a smaller menu of jam in a grocery store were more likely to purchase jam than those who were exposed to a larger list (debunking the notion that “more” means “better”).

• Siegel and Gale’s Global Brand Simplicity Index found that people are willing to pay up more for products that seemed “simpler” to them.

While websites of today are less likely to be plagued with way too many giant images and clumsily loading content (though that still happens), they still run into the problem of including too many calls to dynamic content (like embedded Twitter streams) that slow down the overall load speed of a site.

Boil down your core content offering to your audience and simplify your site. The collective patience level of the Internet will thank you. (Don’t believe me?  In a 2009 study, people ranked load speed as the most important factor that impacted their browsing experience).

4. Speed paves the way for engagement

It’s a small miracle to get someone to arrive at your site (with all the competitive sources they could turn to instead). Making them wait once they’re there is like begging them to click the already tempting “back” button. The logic is simple: people are more likely to read a page that loaded quickly, they are more likely to share content that loaded quickly, and they are more likely to click another link on a site where pages seem to load quickly.

(To top it off, Google conducted research that found that users who experience a delay in site performance are less likely to take another action on a site.)

There are enough reasons for people to not visit your site. Don’t make speed one of them.

(For resources on how to boost your website’s load speed, click here.)

This post was originally published on Engage the Blog.

Social media has made its way into boardrooms at organizations across the planet.

But the next stop after the boardroom, all too often, is the chopping block.

Why? Because it is expected to survive on its own. In other words, organizations don’t tie social media goals to their actual business goals. They give social media its own set of goals. You’ve seen them before, they look like this:

“Increase our Facebook fan base!”

“Get more @mentions and RTs!”

“Make sure we respond to conversations on LinkedIn!”

“Generate X blog posts per week!”

In other words, social media is placed in a vacuum (on its own) and expected to grow (on its own) in that vacuum. And that, my friends, almost guarantees failure.

Tamar Weinberg summed it up nicely in a blog post today:

“While I get pitches all the time to offer “social media services” to clients, I rarely, if ever, exclusively offer social media marketing.”

“An integrated digital marketing approach is the best way to see success online for any business.”

“I have news for you, social media experts: if social media alone is what you’re selling, I hope you start getting other skills under your belt.”

The takeaway? Social media – like radio, television, ad campaigns, website copy, email newsletters and any other form of customer communication – should be all working to accomplish business goals, not chase feel-good metrics that look great in a PowerPoint slide but not so great during budget meetings.

In simpler terms, put social media in a vacuum and it will act like it is in a vacuum: it’ll most likely suck.

[Image: Sporkist]

What’s more interesting to listen to: an echo of something you’ve already heard, or an entirely new sound altogether?

Jimi Hendrix knew the answer.

So did Led Zeppelin.

And so does Adam Singer, who wrote a thought-provoking post (as usual) over on The Future Buzz today. The heart and soul of his perspective is this:

“[Y]ou have to evolve past networking and begin leading if you want to become one of the definitive voices in your industry.”

It’s true in the world of rock and roll and it’s true in the (less glamorous but equally competitive) world of marketing.

If you want people to hum along and nod their heads, parrot what other people are already saying.

If you want people to drop their jaws and turn their heads, come up with something original.

Sure, you’ve probably got to listen and learn from others before you leap in – whether you’re attending shows or reading blog posts – but eventually, if you really want to matter, you’ve got to take that next step.

Don’t obsess over trying to mimic someone else’s sound, unless you’re OK never making it past the cover band stage. If you want to change the world (or at least the 10 mile radius around you), play something new. Take a stand.

Blow out some speakers.

(And yes, I realize the irony of echoing Adam’s point in this very post, but come on, I’m no Jimi Hendrix.)

[Image: Marco Raaphorst]

When you’re talking about the future it’s hard not to get carried away.

The future of almost everything seems exciting. Futuristic cars, houses, and of course, websites, will seemingly be able to perform almost any function, thanks to creativity and advances in technology. So our imagination runs wild. And we sound like Dave Gelernter sounded in a 1997 BusinessWeek article, when he discussed the radical notion of ”lifestreams” — a flood of data from an individual person that shared every detail of their life.

At the time the idea didn’t feel right. The technology was getting there or was already there but that didn’t mean everyone was adopting it right away. Fast forward to 2011, and most people will find out about this blog post through someone’s lifestream on Twitter. Our imagination tends to outpace our ability to invent. And something can be invented long before it’s a conventional part of people’s lives.

So we must separate the bells and whistles from the nuts and bolts.

Creating a strategy focused on measurable business goals will help you develop a filter that helps decipher flash-in-the-pan technologies from the sea changes. (How to develop this type of strategy is an entirely different post topic).

But instead of focusing on the technology side of the future, focus on the human side. Human behavior is a more consistent bet than technology. If we prepare our website for the future with human nature in mind, we will put our organization in a good position regardless of how the flood of technology leaves things.

5 Future-proof ideas for websites

If we bet on technology, we can either be really right, or really wrong. But if we bet on human nature, we can count on consistency and know that our website is going to be well-positioned for the future. Besides, there’s no prize for beating your audience to the future (unless you’re the inventor).

The website of the future must be:

1. Simple
2. Portable
3. Fast
4. Human
5. Useful and/or interesting

1. Make it simple

Image by civilian scrabble

People value simplicity

Every day, more than 100 million pieces of content are shared on Facebook. More than 90 million Tweets are Tweeted. About 50,000 new blogs are created to get stacked on top of the 150 million+ that are already out there. As you read this, some of the 294 billion emails that are sent each day are being written.

We’re in an era of information overload. Our audience members are busy people who are overcommitted *outside* of their Internet lives. It’s a small miracle each time they make it to our sites so we shouldn’t overwhelm them once they get there.

The first step in preparing your website for the future happens offline. Websites are often a reflection of the organization that created them. If our organization is disorganized, silo-ed, and poor at communicating, our website will be, too. Design by committee often results in a battlefield of compromise where your visitor is the casualty. As an organization, we must go through the difficult task of truly answering some basic but powerful questions:

1. What kind of person is my audience member?
2. What’s the one thing they actually want from me?
3. What one action do I want them to take?

There are no Swiss army-knife sites (except for maybe Google). We need to simplify, specialize and stick to our core mission or risk becoming irrelevant.

If the future of the web is simplicity, here’s how you can prepare:

• Boil down your organization’s core offering
• Conduct a 5-second usability test (fivesecondtest.com)
• Conduct a website audit: check for competing initiatives on your own site
• Check your analytics to see where you are losing visitors

2. Make it portable

People value convenience

The world is going mobile in a hurry. You’ve heard the stats. By 2015, 48% of U.S. citizens will browse the mobile web. Nearly 150 million people will own smartphones and mobile traffic will increase 26-fold.

Mobile isn’t a trend. Mobile is the trend.

But the web isn’t just going to mobile devices, it’s going to any screen that can present the internet. Think kiosks, augmented-reality digital signage, screens we haven’t thought of yet. The web is going to be portable: found wherever a digital screen exists.

When you’re creating a mobile version of your website (which should be your priority over running out to create a mobile app just to create one), the simplicity you gained in step 1 (“Make it simple) will help pave the way for you to create a simpler menu that satisfies your audience members desires on your site.

To prepare your site for mobile:

• Start thinking now about how you’d simplify your navigation menu and site content
• Discontinue developing Flash elements into your website, focus on HTML or JavaScript
• Focus on mobile-friendly first, and then app (if it makes sense)

3. Make it fast

People hate waiting

Nobody likes to stand in line. Waiting is tough for people. That’s why 40% of web users have abandoned a page after 3 seconds of loading.

Taking the steps to making sure our sites load quickly will have benefits to user experience and SEO. People are more likely to click through more on quickly-loading sites. And Google has mentioned that they take load speed into consideration in their algorithm.

Remember, simple sites load faster. And this is even more true (and more important) in mobile.

To get your site sped up for the future:

• Check site load speed
• Run Yahoo’s YSlow
• Run Google’s Page Speed Online
• Create a checklist of tweaks to apply to your current (or to be created) site

4. Make it human

People crave human interaction

Image by touterse

We’ve heard the statistics on social media. And to be fair, a lot of organizations are at least trying social media. But the humanization of your website shouldn’t be limited to your social media pre-approved channels.

Social media – or the human element – should be a layer across your digital presence, not a channel-based silo. Humanity evokes emotion from people. Showing the human side of your organization can have many benefits.

For instance, during the Clinton Bush Haiti Fund donation drive, an A/B split test was conducted to see which donation form was more effective and generating donations. One form had a photo from Haiti, the other did not. The one with the photo – the human – element – converted 10% better and resulted in $1 million more in donations.

The social side of your organization can come out anywhere you have content. Your email subscription thank you, your administrative copy, your error messages can all incorporate the human element.

For instance, this error message was written in a more human-friendly way and decreased the bounce rate by 66%

HemAware.org human-sounding 404 error page: decreased bounce rate by 66%

If the future of the web is social, here’s how to prepare:

• Take inventory of your social media outposts: are you acting like a logo or a person?
• Investigate where your audience socializes online (Try CubeSocial.com)
• Start monitoring social media to keep tabs on influencers and your audience

5. Be useful or interesting

People love a good story

An article this long has to include the cliché “content is king” at least once so here it is: content is king. In a recent survey, 73% of people said they preferred to learn about organizations through articles as opposed to ads. Content is 61% more likely to drive someone to make a purchase than ads, and content can live forever on your website.

The power of a good story is strong.

And content can pay dividends down the road for your site. A Tweet or Facebook post usually only lasts for hours. A blog post can last for years.

The future of the web is storytelling, so start generating content that captivates your audience because it’s useful or interesting (or both!)

If you want to prepare for the future of the web, focus on human nature. Make it simple, portable, fast, social, useful and interesting you’ll be ahead of the race.

This post was the blog version of “The Future of Websites,” a presentation given by Andrew on September 15th for the Association Media & Publishing “Lunch and Learn” series.

The original presentation:

(Special thanks to Jackie Roy for patient help on this presentation.)

This post was originally published on Social Media Explorer.

If I had only one thing to say about search engine optimization, it’d be this: don’t chase the search engines, instead chase what the search engines are chasing.

Search engines are in the business of getting people what they want.

In an ideal world, people ask search engines an honest question and receive an honest answer.

Unfortunately (and perhaps obviously), black hat SEOs (spammers for search engine listings) and overzealous webmasters have made this difficult by trying to “game” the search engines: in other words, they manipulate their content to “appear” to be higher quality and more relevant than it actually is.

This results in low quality listings that aren’t as relevant to the original search query as they could be, which not only disrupts the service search engines provide, but it also turns off the end user.

And for the webmaster who employed the “get rich quick” scheme equivalent of driving online traffic? Any surge in visits he/she gets probably won’t be sustainable, and will certainly be accompanied with a high bounce/exit rate. In the long run, it doesn’t work for anyone involved.

Gaming search engines, chasing algorithms and manipulating social media will provide short-term gain at best. Content should be used to build relationships – not simply drive traffic volume – and ultimately develop an audience that trusts and values your brand or organization.

The rise of the search engine and subsequent rise of social media has birthed snake-oil salesmen and silver-tongued, self-proclaimed gurus who set up shop to squeeze a quick dollar out of your organization. Their focus all too often is on how to use tricks (with both black and grey hats) to get your message in front of as many eyeballs – qualified or not – that they can fit on a slick measurement report.

But what they fail to measure is the disappointment, the dissatisfaction and ultimately the sour taste their potion leaves in the mouths of what could have been your audience.

Because they don’t focus on quality content.

They don’t focus on what your audience truly desires. They don’t answer questions your audience is readily asking. They simply apply a formula, manipulate the rules while they can, and disappear when the algorithm or social tide changes (or worse, offer an up-sell to the latest and greatest scam).

Without a focus on quality content, all SEO efforts are rendered useless. Without a focus on the human being at the other end of the communication, the best lain SEO strategies will ultimately miss the point. No matter how optimized for search or prevalent in social media your communications may be, it will ultimately be a human user who evaluates the merit of your offering.

Strive to create compelling content. Listen to your audience, and let their voices inform your recommendations. Employ the best editorial minds (and standards) to generate truly powerful content. Do it regardless of the popular platform of the day.

Make sure you understand the nuances of search engine optimization and the inner-workings of the world of social media. But don’t take any shortcuts because it’s more convenient. Shortcuts shortchange your audience, and make the road to long term success perilous.

[Image: yd]

By now, you’ve probably seen the radical campaign from K-Swiss where Kenny Powers (a fictional character played by Danny McBride) takes over as CEO (ahem, mother***king CEO) of the company and reinvents their image via profanity-laced one-liners and no shortage of comic gold.

(If you haven’t, scroll down for the video. Make sure you’re wearing headphones at work and children in your immediate vicinity are wearing earmuffs. It’s not safe for work or childhood.)

It’s being lauded as marketing genius from a lot of smart people who know what they’re talking about. And why shouldn’t it? It’s cut through the proverbial clutter and (as of the writing of this post) has been viewed more than 1 million times on YouTube.

Pardon my (ab)use of buzzwords, but it’s been a viral success.

But before we thrust any more accolades, high-fives or advertising awards toward K-Swiss and 72andsunny (the agency that came up with the concept), I wonder if it’s worth examining the possible ramifications of their viral success.

The video:

(Ok, just watched this again. Forget what I said about the advertising awards, they’ve definitely earned those).

My gut reaction was split in two ways:

1. This is awesome

As a consumer of entertainment, I can’t get enough of it. You can’t look away from the screen when Kenny Powers is on it. He’s one of the most provocative personalities since Sacha Baron Cohen’s triumvirate of inappropriateness and he’s wildly entertaining. If you’re in the right demographic. Which brings me to my second reaction:

2. Is this right for K-Swiss?

Prior to this campaign, I would have told you that K-Swiss was a bit of a stiff brand, sort of “classic,” and for people who cared about their shoes staying white and matching other articles of clothing they were currently wearing. In other words: not for me. This is a tremendous leap in a different direction with a new target customer.

Maybe abandoning their old image will come back to haunt them, or maybe it’ll pull off exactly what they wanted to achieve. Either way, it’s messaging that gets attention, provides value in the form of entertainment, and is clearly getting media coverage.

But will that make a new generation of people buy K-Swiss? Maybe, maybe not. Perhaps more importantly: will it make an old generation of people stop buying K-Swiss?

Jon Thomas has a smart take over on the Post-Advertising blog (which originally inspired this post and is definitely worth a read):

“It’s certainly not endearing them to their legacy fans that liked the upscale, tennis whites. But maybe they realized that those fans could only take them so far, and there may be an opportunity to take an approach so over the top that any other brand that tried it would only be imitating, not duplicating.”

What’s your take? Should my conservatism in the face of innovation be mocked? We both know Kenny Powers would think so.

Audiences are made of people, they aren’t made of logos. And when building an audience, you must connect with other people as a person, not as a logo.

There are very few that can succeed while ignoring this basic mantra. According to the law of averages, you are not one of them.

This doesn’t mean that logo-bearing organizations can’t have success online. It just means that they must approach it in a way they may not be used to. They need to activate the people that make their brand great, and lead their efforts with those people.

In sales, people buy from who they like. The attention economy works the same way. People pay attention to people they like. (There’s that word again: people.)

You can’t fake it (for long). You must commit to the idea that the people in your organization are what make it great. And the people in your organization are the ones that will connect your brand with an audience.

The cornerstone of success online is authenticity:

• Be a person (Transparency)
• Sound like a person (Tone)
• Act like a person (Bring value)

You’ve got to be clear about who you are. You need to communicate in a way that allows other people to relate to you (as a person), and you need to bring value in the form of social currency (i.e. content that is useful or entertaining).

The digital world is a microcosm of the real world. People compare it to high school. People compare it to a cocktail party. People compare it to a conversation.

People compare it to a lot of things that mean the same thing: the web is a collection of information and entertainment that people search for and share.

It is this basic premise that reinforces the idea that if you want to build an audience online, you’ve got to act like you would when you’re trying to connect with people in the real world: be honest, be candid, and be useful or entertaining.

Transparency, tone, and value.

Whether you’re writing a blog post, responding in a forum thread, leaving a comment on a blog, interacting on Twitter (or Facebook, or Google+, or Reddit, or whatever) you’ll have most success when you identify who you are and what brings you to the conversation. Have a tone that fits the context of the conversation. And bring value to the conversation.

• You can game search engines. You’ll either be exposed by Google or have disappointed readers. You lose both ways.
• You can automate social media. You’ll either be suspended by the social network or blocked by its users. You lose again.
• You can send spam emails. You’ll either by blacklisted by email clients or marked as spam. You lose once more.

You can try all you want to ignore the basic premise that authenticity works best but you’ll never gain traction.

Be transparent, have the right tone, and bring value.

Otherwise, you’re just a fake waiting to be exposed. A voice that is tuned out or ignored. Or another logo hawking their products.

None of that makes people want to connect with you. It’s the quickest way to turn them away.

[Image: Sebastianlund]

The market for attention-span is crowded.

“Cutting through the clutter” in our world of stimulus overload is more often an advertising cliche than a witness-able reality.

But some still find a way:

Attention, yes. Sales? We’ll see.

We’ve all had these meetings: Big ideas are being discussed. The future of the company is being diagrammed on a whiteboard.

The word “should” is being used a lot. The greatest thing since sliced bread is being articulated with passion.

Everyone is smiling. People are enthusiastic and everyone pats each other (and themselves) on the back as they are leaving.

Three months later, nothing has been done. This morsel of genius was not put on anyone’s plate. Nobody was tasked with nurturing it. Nobody was tasked with ownership.

And if nobody owns it, does anybody care?

This notion was the oversimplified crux of the question Garrett Hardin was asking in 1968 when he wrote “The Tragedy of the Commons,” originally published in Science magazine.

My friend Wikipedia explains:

The article describes a situation in which multiple individuals, acting independently, and solely and rationally consulting their own self-interest, will ultimately deplete a shared limited resource even when it is clear that it is not in anyone’s long-term interest for this to happen.

Forty-two years later, the concept manifests in myriad other ways: This is the reason public restrooms are treated so badly. This is the reason the company microwave never seems to get cleaned. This is the reason a shared, limited resource — like a great idea — may start to die the minute it is born, if it isn’t given a custodian of its well-being.

Ideas only turn into action if a pair of hands gets them there.

Every task needs an owner with accountability, motivation, and fear of failure.

Leaving ideas to fend for themselves never lets them mature. They never grow up into actions, into real things.

These morsels of genius will get stale — or rot.

Give them the life they deserve. Give them an ambassador of their well-being.

Give them an owner and avoid the tragedy of the commons.

This post was originally published on Engage the Blog.