Category Archives: Reader engagement
Is #JJJRH Worth the Money?
A Web Content Insider reader wrote in with a good question. One I thought more of readers might be wondering. Here’s his thoughts.
Too often I find these kinds authors recycle much of their material in subsequent books. How much of this material is original?
“Jab, Jab, Jab, Right Hook” is different from @Garyvee’s “The Thank You Economy” and “Crush it!” Those books try to convince readers that marketing has changed and that they have to evolve. #JJJRH is a how-to book for social media
marketers that’s filled with examples from every major platform (just like the one’s I outlined in my Cliff’s Notes, but in even greater detail). Want to see, feel, and sniff the stuff? #JJJRH shows you what to do and what not to do and why. It’s worth the $18.
by Ed Carpenter — He’s a bad mutha … shut yer mouth.
3 ways to love your blog and get others to love it too: branding, design, social
Building a better, stronger, faster Web Content Insider blog.
Welcome to Web Content Insider, my revamped blog about, you guessed it, web content best practices. It’s been overhauled for better branding and SEO, and easier sharing via social media. I first rolled out the blog seven months ago, making good on a promise to myself. It was an experiment.
Since then, I’ve connected with dozens of bloggers and industry experts. I hope that’s just the beginning. And every week I learn something new about content marketing, blogging, the use of images and design, and tactics for building readership. It’s exciting. It’s re-energizing. So, in that respect, the blog has been a success.
A blog by any other name
1. The new iteration improves on branding with a more memorable name and imagery carried across multiple platforms.
2. It takes advantage of a simple yet eye-catching and elegant design.
3. It directly links with Google + and Pinterest, expanding on previous connections with Twitter and LinkedIn, for better SEO. That’s in addition to better SEO from a new url and name.
All-in-all, some substantive improvements. Don’t you think? Next up, I plan to devote more energy to recruiting guest contributors from among my industry connections. Ideas include someone in public relations and branding, a graphic designer, a videographer, and, perhaps, a certified Mac expert. What web content topics do you want to know more about? Contact me via the form on the About page or just tweet me.
See you online—
by Ed Carpenter — He’s a bad mutha … shut yer mouth.
Your web content dreams come true
One of the best websites of 2012 was created by the folks at CounterSpill. It has an interactive map of coal, gas, nuclear, and oil spills, tons of videos, up-to-date news stories, a community blogs feed, and an updating Twitter feed.
The centerpiece of this site is the interactive map. Readers can click on a specific spill and be taken to a landing page with video, a timeline of events, photos, and facts about the spill.
From interactive to engaged
In contrast to the Pine Ridge Sioux site, which is an interactive and interesting site, Counterspill goes the extra mile to engage its readers. Right up at the top the homepage, readers are invited to become part of CounterSpill’s social media community. There is a rotating feed of the latest Tweets about various spills. Bloggers’ and activists’ videos feature prominently on the site, below the fold. And news stories, also below the fold, show the number of engagements, e.g. Facebook likes and re-Tweets.
This is a beautiful site. I especially enjoy the way the Tweets, news, and community feed rotate horizontally as well as vertically, offering readers twice as much information without scrolling. Genius!
by Ed Carpenter — He’s a bad mutha … shut yer mouth.
Does your site “close the sale”?
There’s more to the story (Vol. 4)
If you read as many online marketing blogs and follow as many web content experts as I do on Twitter, you already know that everyone is buzzing. It’s all about “engaging” readers rather than click-through rates these days. If they’re right, then websites that invite readers to explore must be sitting back smugly at the moment.
In my experience, the sites that do this really well — that create an online sense of “place” are few and far between. That’s probably for good reason. Readers who want to renew their driver’s license online aren’t looking for a sense of place. They want to complete a transaction and get back to re-runs of Arrested Development.
What we can learn
But sites that invest the time, money, and creativity into creating an experience of place have something to teach the rest of us. Everything about the Pine Ridge Sioux site is engaging. The images dazzle. The navigation is elegant. The text is brief and impactful. It’s harder to not engage with this site than to engage with it. Feast your eyes; enjoy. That’s the good news.
Unfortunately, site falls short on the actual engagement. Engagement being encouraging social sharing, measuring content ROI, and capturing leads on readers who might be drawn to the Sioux cause. How can visitors to the reservation share their experiences? How can readers see what pages attract other visitors? These problems might be solved with something as simple as Digg Digg. But after the content and design did so much heavy lifting, they’re left hanging waiting, wanting for a high five.
by Ed Carpenter — He’s a bad mutha … shut yer mouth.
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