Overview: Communications Tactics

"There is a danger in asking the wrong question ... you’ll probably get the right answer for the question you’re asking, but it’s not going to be the right answer for the question you really needed to ask. " - A Beginner's Guide to Social Media Analytics | Amy Vernon | Ochen

Good overview of Circa's approach: "A new model for online journalism is emerging, focusing on the atomization of news stories into “bite-sized chunks” of information aimed at mobile audiences."

"By news homepage, I mean any way for a user to first encounter content. A push notification could very well be the new news homepage. ... An article or a newsletter ... Overcast or Soundcloud or iTunes may be your homepage.... Homepage, to me, is simply a shorthand version for any of these things. " Neat overview. Just remember, however you desi…

"This paper shares ‘how’ to bring an Enterprise Gamification approach to your organization, building on ‘what’ is Enterprise Gamification, outlined in our earlier paper, ‘Let the games begin: Using game techniques to drive digital transformation’, and demonstrates the tangible benefits of gamification technique to empower employees" - Enterprise …

" online comments can be worth having, if the publisher puts the work in." Excellent case study. Found this stat particularly interesting: "Users who log in, which is required if you want to comment, view seven pages per session on average, while non-registered users make it to only 1.7" I'd suggest that users who both view 4 times as much conte…

"There’s a common misconception out there that user centered design means being led by the user... In some instances, being user centered means ignoring or even going against explicit user wishes in order to better serve the user. Sound confusing? " Then read: - Be user centered, not user led - MindTheProduct

"What astonished him was the level of intimacy inherent in the form. After spending a decade in radio he had assumed that it was the most intimate medium, but he found podcasting to be one step deeper, in that listeners actively subscribe to a show and in doing so feel like they’re joining a club. " - Why Slate went all-in on podcasts while other…

"content marketing is hard... We pour energy and resources into minute gains, instead of focusing our attention on the simple changes that make a huge difference. Today, I’d like to talk about 7 content marketing tips that will get you so much more with so much less. It’s about working smarter, not harder." - 7 Content Marketing Tips: Your Audie…

~"Sleek and graphics-focused, the re-skinned Fusion will feature coverage of pop culture and tech, while also highlighting social-justice causes through verticals like “Justice” and “Voices.”... Part of our overall mission is to be a lab for experimentation and innovation for our parent company. Univision and ABC ... to reach this incredibly dyna…

"build[ing] our brand in the places [the audience] is spending time”—as opposed to publishing everything on a single website and hoping it spreads from there—is not strange in the context of television companies. They’re used to filling channels that they don’t totally control. ... Vox is now publishing directly to social networks and apps; BuzzF…

"Guardian digital editor Aron Pilhofer say killing off comments is a “monumental mistake.”... ... many traditional newsrooms are failing to take full advantage of the web’s ability to create a two-way relationship with readers, and that this is a crucial element of what journalism has become in a digital age... ... "You see site after site movin…

"an inspiring design experiment... Earth: A Primer, a new interactive book for the iPad... instead of simply telling you about geological processes, it actually lets you control them. Each topic’s page pairs text and a simulation... Like a deity in training, you can sculpt mountains, summon rain storms, and move tectonic plates with your fingertip…

Sets out "... the five characteristics of an innovation that determine its use... how well an innovation addresses these characteristics will determine people's long-term adoption of an innovation." and, for good measure, sets out the implications for design teams of each characteristic, because "Design teams can address many components of thes…

Sound familiar? "All it takes is the retirement of one blogger ... and the social web explodes with a mixture of praise, recriminations, eulogies for the death of blogging..." Good piece on how blogging has evolved, in the process pushing forward the evolution of the online world. "bloggers stopped thinking as much about being part of a larger …

With a very nice longform, multimedia html5 presentation to boot. "In this bustling environment, there is less news and more noise. ..." More news but even more noise, rather.

"Twitter video allows users to post up to 30-seconds of video clips directly to Twitter... expect to see videos from live events and breaking news coverage ... also presents an opportunity for marketers to create unique content in a variety of ways..." Most intriguing suggestion: "Crowd-Sourcing Video Content" - Twitter Launching Video and Grou…

Interesting study of "whether having a video go viral leads to long-term success [defined as] increased activity with the brand on the whole.... After 15 days from the creation of a viral video, these brand YouTube channels receive virtually the same amount of attention ... before the viral video was posted... Our data does not support that vira…

"This video would have cost peanuts. Although it’s not something that can be directly applied to most of what we do, it’s here because of what it reminds us: there’s no better comms than filming people loving what you do. Unfortunately, you first need to give them something insanely great. The greatest communications can’t transform fish’n’chips…

"Starbucks’ first-ever brand campaign, Meet Me at Starbucks ... showcases stories of how people use Starbucks as a meeting point, with an emphasis on the idea that technology brings us together, but there’s nothing quite as authentic as an in-person cup of joe. ... an incredible job of striking an emotional connection with people by associating t…

"reach is an easy-to-see vanity metric and not what you should be focusing on.... Facebook Insights provides some handy numbers, but the most useful ones are somewhat hidden." - 6 tips on Facebook analytics and going beyond...

"Scheduling Technology Leaves Low-Income Parents With Hours of Chaos" Within 24 hours of this article's publication, Starbucks changed their scheduling policy. - Working Anything but 9 to 5 - NYTimes.com

"Uprising: Winner of the 2013 AAAS Kavli award for online science journalism." - The Environmental Scandal That's Happening Right Beneath Your Feet - The Matter Archive - Medium

"In 2014, we published a series of posts to help marketers get back to the basics of content marketing or to improve what they are doing. In case you missed some or all of the series, here is a quick primer." - A Blueprint to Jump-Start Your Content Marketing Strategy

"Since Taylor launched an earlier version of the site at The Boston Globe in 2007, In Focus has known for longform photo storytelling, featuring huge, high-quality images.... If you’re pandering to social media, if you’re going for clickbait, it cuts away at any sort of storytelling." - Q&A: How Alan Taylor, online photography pioneer, is rethin…

Came up with a winning communication strategy to promote worthy-but-heavy pdf reports from the European Commission.

Not just an interesting video about what neuroscience says about self-interest and compassion (and the lack of it amongst wealthy people!). Also a good example of how to maintain interest in a 'talking head' video interview through animation and video techniques. - We Are Built To Be Kind - YouTube

"One byproduct of all the recent articles about the growth of email newsletter that aim to “cut through the daily clutter” is an amazing amount of clutter about email newsletters. Here’s what you need to know today." Actually it's really just a bunch of stats, but this can be helpful when setting targets. - Email Newsletter Success Metrics: What…

"The best infographics are clear, easy to digest, and eye-catching. But the process of distilling data into a neat little chart, bar graph, or venn diagram usually requires pages and pages of messy preparatory sketches, which are rarely seen by the public. Infographic Designers’ Sketchbooks ... take readers behind the scenes of the creative proce…

"But in our Information Architecture courses, we invariably get asked about a few persistent questions that many designers from a variety of backgrounds seem to struggle with. Like most design problems, these questions rarely have an absolute, black-and-white answer. But there are specific considerations that can help you answer these questions a…

"Our hope with adaptive content is to tailor content to a customer’s experience, behavior, and desires... a culmination of ... experience maps, storyboarding, empathy maps — and what we’ve been saying for so long about creating an experience... ... we all believe that our experiences should be more interactive. Why? Smartphones." - 16 Stats That…