Content

The brightonSEO conference earlier this month came and went with a flurry of insight and opinion, and a hadouken.

Those returning after a classic sun-drenched Brighton lunch hour were treated to a presentation from iCrossing’s very own Charlie Peverett. He told a tale of innocence, how he spent his days as an editor blissfully oblivious to the intricacies of SEO. However, when the curtain was pulled back he peered into a murky world that revealed the true reason why nobody was reading his content

The presentation is now available to view in all its glory, where you’ll discover why ‘great content’ is more than just a check box on a SEO to do list (an issue discussed in greater depth in our latest ebook, How to Plan a Content Strategy).

If you pay attention you may spot a random satsuma. Read more…

iCrossing’s Fashion & Retail Editor Jo-ann Fortune talks to some of the UK’s top fashion bloggers about their experiences of working with brands.

Take some tips on how to, and how not to, go about working with fashion bloggers from the writers themselves:

Dos

“The best brand collaborations involve working with individuals that respect the fact that blogging is a business – actually compensating bloggers for their time, blog space and the promotional value they give to brands.” Audrey Rogers www.befrassy.com

“One of the best brand collaborations I’ve been involved in was when I was asked to dress the windows of a well-known high fashion store on Bond Street. Seeing my name on the window felt like such amazing recognition.” Carrie Harwood www.wishwishwish.net

“I really enjoyed a high fashion brand’s window-dressing event in Milan last season, and this season’s Lomography follow-up, and loved working with another designer brand to create my dream piece – a biker jacket with a hoodie inside.” Kristin Knox www.theclotheswhisperer.co.uk

“The more relevant information I get and the greater access to the products I have, the better the content I can produce around it.” Laetitia Wajnapel www.mademoisellerobot.com

Don’ts

“Some agencies are woefully behind when it comes to blogger outreach. Anyone still sending those ‘dear blogger’ emails needs a refresher course!” Jen Holmes www.littlebirdfashion.com Read more…

Content often defies the law of gravity; we’ve all seen cases where something innocently placed within the confines of a website goes viral, takes on a life of its own and flies off into the ether.

Whilst these instances can be meticulously planned, more often than not it takes website owners by surprise. To capitalise on the opportunities exponential traffic can bring your way and to make a guesstimate about which content might have wings, it’s important to understand the various environments within which content may exist.

• Content Troposphere – Where things remains close to the core
  Content is what keeps your website alive, allowing it to breathe and allowing those looking in to understand your species. Even if visitors have come from many light-years away, this is where they will carry out their interactions and transactions with you, so the content portraying your brand needs to be solid as a rock.

Become a content cosmonaut: The most appealing websites are those which offer a different way of absorbing what can often be standard information. Give all your content a sense of style, from the privacy policies to the press releases.

• Content Stratosphere – Where you’ll experience strong jet streams
  Translating company knowledge into interesting content about your products and services is a vital tactic for wide message disbursement. It isn’t about you or what you want to say, it’s about what your audience wants to hear – the key to success is delivering content at the right frequency, in the right format and through the right channels.

Become a content cosmonaut: Treat your customers as individuals and attempt to tailor their experiences as often as possible throughout your website journey with dynamic content placement. Read more…

We are always thinking of new and innovative ways to create content for our clients. Often this involves starting from a blank page, but here’s an example of where we discovered existing assets that we didn’t think were getting the attention they deserved.

While you may not think old knickers command much attention, it’s a different story when they’re from legendary lingerie innovator M&S. Using information and images buried deep in the retail giant’s fascinating Company Archive, we brought these to life through an interactive timeline that spotlights the style, technology and history of M&S lingerie from the 1920s, through the War and into the 80s.

What gems does your brand have hidden?

The history of lingerie timeline is hosted on the M&S Stories social site.

The recent Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas and the annual Detroit Auto Show both saw the unveiling of new apps and tech for in-car connectivity – and highlighted the speed with which this technology is developing.

The Chevrolet Volt research concept vehicle at CES showcased General Motors’ second-generation OnStar system. Users can stream content from the cloud using the Verizon  Wireless 4G LTS network, and share this between users; two rear-seat passengers can enjoy different music, video, games, news and other cached or streamed files, thanks to independent controls, as well as making Skype video calls.

The existing OnStar telematics system has been developed to enable owners of the Volt (a range-extended electric vehicle) to remotely access data on the state of its battery charge and remaining battery range, locations of nearby charging points, reservation of charging points, and vehicle diagnostics thanks to a full integration of the RemoteLink mobile app. OnStar also allows home energy management – control of thermostats, lights and garage doors whilst on the road. OnStar is also to open up its application programming interface to third-party developers, reports Gizmag, with the first partner to be car-share company RelayRides.

Useful apps are available for electric cars already on sale, such as the Nissan Leaf and its Carwings app, but BMW takes things a stage further with the app it’ll offer with the i3 (on sale 2013). A preview on Facebook advises drivers on how to integrate their car journey with other forms of transport – whether train for a long-distance trip out of battery range, or going it alone on foot. Read more…

I think 2012 is going to be a really interesting year for content creators like me.

Regular readers of connect will know we’ve talked a lot about the Panda update to the Google search algorithm. A key reason for this update was to try and stamp out the really poor quality content that mucked up search results. Content farms were publishing 1000s of pages using search term research to create content that did just enough to fool search engines into ranking them high up in their search results. This was seriously impacting the quality of people’s search experience.

Panda kind of worked –a lot of the junk has dropped right off the search results. Many bonafide companies would argue they have been unfairly demoted too, whilst big brands seem to have done rather well.

The changes to Google’s algorithms in 2011 make it clear that it is increasingly serious about ensuring that quality content from trusted brands gets pushed further up the search results.

Content will matter like never before in 2012 – I see a really interesting battle on the horizon.

In the blue corner! Brands

‘Brands as publishers’ is a buzz phrase that has been around a while. With the arrival of the web, publishing was democratised. The right to an opinion that can be widely published is no longer exclusive to traditional publishers like newspapers, magazines and TV.

Up to now, brands have only dabbled with publishing online content for engagement and conversation, rather than to sell products. Why?

Firstly, cost. Creating great content involves serious investment. Why bother if sales are ticking along nicely? Just because you can publish content aimed at engaging with people before they’re serious about buying doesn’t mean you actually need to. Read more…

At one of the UK’s first stand-alone automotive websites at the turn of the Millennium, we experimented with video content, audio clips and live online broadcasting – and enjoyed the freedom of this new platform.  Without a magazine to ‘protect’, we could write what we liked, when we liked, and not spoil a scoop. Our forums and discussion boards were effectively social media before the term was coined, and we watched as the magazines and newspapers – and their advertisers – similarly learned to respond to and interact with their readership. And this relationship is ever-evolving: here are a few more ways in which the internet is continuing to change the automotive media.

1. Living deadlines. Once, a writer would go on a car launch or to a motor show, come home and write to a deadline somewhere near press day. Then came the rush to be the first to publish online, then live-blogging from the scene, then Twitter. News writers break stories via Twitter; road testers race to share their first impressions of an exciting new car. This can serve as a teaser for a full-length story to follow, or to publish a link to that story.

2. Blurring of boundaries. Thing is, everyone’s at it; how do you differentiate the impacts of the pro writer and the enthusiastic amateur blogger? Whose opinion is worth having, and who should brands care about? Don’t dismiss the reader’s ability to distinguish between an informed comment and the blatherings of an aspirant Jeremy Clarkson, for a start. Journalists may sneer at the bloggers, but many, if not trained writers, have their own specialisms and insight into the industry – and their own following, often people who wouldn’t otherwise dream of reading a car magazine. In the ‘green car’ sector, for example, several of the better-known websites and blogs (such as Next Green Car and Green Car Guide) are effective editorial adverts for eco-consultancies. Read more…

The economic news could hardly be worse, but after weeks of protest outside St Paul’s Cathedral against corporate greed, economic inequality and social injustice, a debate has begun that is long overdue.

Bob Diamond summarised the problem in the inaugural BBC Today business lecture when he said: “The only way that banks will win back the public’s trust is to become better citizens. That starts with how we behave, and in demonstrating we act with trust and integrity. At banks this means the interests of customers and clients must be at the very heart of every decision made.”

Perhaps the general disenchantment with high street banks is why we’ve seen the launch in the UK of several new contenders, all of which have seen an opportunity, though conditions are tough: Metro Bank, which breaks with long-held tradition by opening seven days a week; the British bank Aldemore; and the RBS-backed Shawbrook. They believe they can be modern banks with the values of the past, issuing loans without computer scoring and using customers’ own money as collateral: how revolutionary.

How can financial brands win back consumers’ trust? What do consumers want from banks? I’d say they want fairness in financial decisions; clarity when it comes to account interest rates and conditions; and to feel the bank is trying to save them money rather than take money from them. Personally I’d like to be told when the interest rate on that snazzy new account is about to come down – so I can decide whether to move my money. In short, I’d like the bank to be on my side in a scary world.

But considering the low levels of regard many people now have for banks, and the recent pain some have experienced when having their houses repossessed, their loans refused and, back in 2008, queuing to get their money back from Northern Rock, banks will have their work cut out winning back consumers trust.

But the Buddhists say that you can turn poison into medicine; banks new and old, therefore, have the opportunity to transform a toxic situation. Here are my 3 top tips that could get them there: Read more…

iCrossing’s fashion & retail editor Jo-ann Fortune takes a light-hearted look at how digital has helped transform the fashion landscape.

1. Blogosphere – Susie Bubble, Mademoiselle Robot, The Clothes Whisperer – not children’s TV characters but our new fashion heroes. Real-girl style inspiration, insider insight and one-on-one engagement have us hooked to the point that the big brands have had to sit up and take note. The best part is; anyone can give it a go.

2. Live in your living room – Burberry helped to democratise high-fashion when it became the first label to stream its fashion week shows live online, sell directly from the runway via iPad and release its new season looks through Twitter before they hit the catwalk. All we’re missing now is the front row goodie bags.

3. Street style – Ten years ago, if someone asked to take your photo outside Tesco, you’d be forgiven for making a quick retreat whilst avoiding eye contact – now, thanks to street style photographers such as The Satorialist, it’s the ultimate in fashion flattery.

4. 24/7 shopping – Picking up this season’s Topshop must-haves while in your PJs? Unheard of a decade ago – now common practice. We can now shop 24/7 – in our lunchbreaks, on the tube or in the evening after a few glasses of wine – the latter not to be advised… Read more…

I’m taking part in a panel session at World Travel Market (WTM) next week on the 9^th November at Excel in London’s Docklands. It’s titled Is just blogging about travel enough?

There are many ways you could answer this question and the panel features people with quite different expertise so I imagine it will be a really interesting debate. It’s got me thinking about the quality of content. We create travel features and destination guides to go both on our clients’ websites and on carefully selected blogs and websites to help amplify the messages we are trying to get across.

For way too long, content has tended to be almost an afterthought in the online world. But I’m increasingly optimistic about the future for content creators given the noises I hear from my SEO and Social Media colleagues here. The Panda update of the Google algorithm was a shot across the bows for people creating high volumes of poor quality search term-chasing copy. From now on, the watchword should be ‘quality’. And the importance of social buzz around this content for making it rank better is something that should be given real consideration as well.

So here are some suggestions for creating content that really counts:

Research – what kind of information are your customers and prospects looking for? Before you start creating content you absolutely have to know. We use a range of research tools to help us understand who it is we are writing for and what their interests and concerns are. Typically these tools include search term research, focus groups and questionnaires and social media research. Ideally we take a blend of all of these to get a really complete view. Read more…