WRITING FOR THE WEB
FINDING YOUR VOICE
Effective content
and finding
your voice
ENGAGEMENT
BEYOND YOUR SITE
if your site was a person, what type of person would it be?
http://www.flickr.com/photos/thatrileygirl/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/erwinboogert/
GUIDELINES FOR ESTABLISHING A SITE PERSONA?
Informed by your business
Avoid a one style fits all approach
Counter balance bias
Ensure it has real personality
Be open and transparent
...Your unique selling points
...Your corporate culture
...Your aspirational persona
... our impression that computers are impersonal
... preconcevived impressions about your institution
... our belief that institutions are faceless
COPY STYLE GUIDE
Content providers will require help
Include site persona
Include guidelines for writing as that persona
Give examples of writing in that style
Allow flexibility for individual styles (e.g. newspapers)
Provide general guidance on writing for the web... 
HEADINGS
SCANABILITY
SHORT
SIMPLE
ACTION
conclude at the start
page level
section level
paragraph level
use formating
Paragraphs
breakout boxes
bullets and lists
numerals
descriptive links
highlighting
Descritpive
eye catching
How to's
Questions
Commands
10 ways
5 reasons why
what makes a good heading?
1. Lay the groundwork
2. offer an incentive
3. Have a small number of distinct actions
4. Use active urgent language
5. Get the position right
6. Use white space
7. Use an alternative colour
8. Make it big
9. Have a call to action on every page
10. Carry the call through
Skype clearly show the benefits of downloading their application
If you donated $30 or more to the Barack Obama election campaign you got a free t-shirt
The three calls to action on the pbwiki homepage are not clearly distinguished
Carsonified create a sense of urgency by offering a discount to those people who sign up early to their workshops
Picsengine focuses users on their call to action by placing it centrally on the page.
PlanHQ draws attention to their calls to action by surrounding them with empty space.
The Things website draws attention to its calls to action by using a constrasting colour
Mozilla uses size to draw attention to their call to action
Basecamp has a call to action at the foot of every page
Wordpress miminise the amount of information required to setup a blog.
"WHY SHOULD I DUMB IT DOWN?"
English is not their first language
They suffer from cognative disability
Simpler text makes information faster to process
TECHNIQUES FOR KEEPING COPY SIMPLE
Avoid jargon
Use images
Keep sentances short
Simplify punctuation
Use Verbs - e.g. John loves mary, rather than Mary is loved by John
WHAT ABOUT SEARCH ENGINES?
Use keyword phrases
Avoid keyword stuffing
Focus on titles and headings
CAUSES OF VERBOSE COPY
A FEAR OF MISSING SOMETHING
A FEAR USERS WILL NOT UNDERSTAND
A DESPERATE DESIRE TO CONVINCE
DEALING WITH VERBOSE COPY
Recognise some copy should not be online
Remove instructional text
Focus on information not sales
Remove, hide and shrink
WHY ENGAGE?
TOOLS OF ENGAGEMENT
HOW TO ENGAGE
FOSTERING COMMUNITY
IMPROVE YOUR OFFERING
CHANGE PERCEPTIONS
PROMOTE YOUR INSTITUTION
REDUCE COSTS
Lone blogger (Jeff Jarvis) created a groundswell of negative opinion about Dell after frustrations with their customer service. However, Dell acted to engage with the community and went (in the words of business week) from ‘worst to first.’
BROADCAST TOOLS
INTERACTIVE TOOLS
FEEDBACK TOOLS
Blogs
Podcasts
Email Newsletters
Email
Polls
Surveys and questionairres
Ratings
Mailing lists
Reviews
Comments
Forums
User generated content
Chat rooms
WHEN TO ENGAGE
OPENNESS & TRANSPARENCY
MAKE USERS FEEL VALUED
Regularly
In response to events
Honesty
Humbly
Encourage contribution
How interest
Reward participation
Listen
Respond
SURVIVING THE EARLY DAYS
DEMAND BASED GROWTH
FEEDING THE COMMUNITY
Start small
Seeding the discussion
Nurture the conversation
Set boundaries
Avoid moderation
The desire to associate
The desire to impress
The desire to reciprocate
The desire to express
Grow slowly
Wait for critical mass
Be willing to prune
Use community leaders
how can HE institutions use community?
Innocent smoothies have a vibrant community (or family as they refer to it) who are actively involved in the development of the product. The community even raises money for charity by hand knits 500,000 wooly hats to go on the bottles.
http://boagworld.com/site-content/10-ways-to-put-your-content-in-front-of-more-people
"What is more important - driving traffic to your site or encouraging as many people as possible to see your content? Believe it or not, they are not one in the same thing."
Going mobile
facebook
twitter
multimedia
streaming
create a group | create a page | create an application
mobile websites (context is king) | mobile applications | texting
HOW TO USE TWITTER EFFECTIVELY
Personal vs Corporate
Striking the balance in content
Monitoring results
Don't overthink it
sssshhhh...
Battling Beauocracy