#tasktabbit

Recently, we had the pleasure of hosting a meetup at Scoop.it HQ in San Francisco about a new concept we are developing in tandem with the community called #leancontent. Roughly, #leancontent is an evolution of content development and content marketing strategies. Lean Content focuses on developing value-adding, modern web media around a central thematic element as defined by a content strategy. What is produced can be translated across media types (ex. A blog can turn into an infographic, into a podcast) and distributed effectively and efficiently with specific focus on the social web and strategic communications.

The Scoop.it Director of Content, Clair, gave a short talk about impact versus time spent developing the concept (the examples used were the Qualcomm keynote at CES versus the US Government’s response to a silly petition, both are viral, one good.. one bad) and the fundamentals of what #leancontent should be:

Fat vs Lean: Avoid “fat” content by avoiding more traditional marketing materials, like whitepapers, etc. The newest research shows that a video or an infographic can be more effective for converting audience members to leads.

Value-adding: Every piece of content developed by a brand should have a purpose outside of “Buy my thing.” There should be an inherent value an audience member can draw from the content itself, which will draw people to your content (and your brand) over and over. For example: a blog post about your newest feature could include material on how to leverage the feature, or perhaps principles for using the concept of your feature.

Flexible: One-hit-wonders are not cool. Think about how to repurpose each piece of content you are planning before you build it. If you can’t repurpose it in at least 1 way, don’t spend your time developing it.

Thematic: Every brand has a “big message.” For Scoop.it, it’s about “expressing your unique perspective.” Each piece of content developed for our brand should support that big idea in some way. Our pieces often feature strong opinions or education resources about learning and edifying knowledge bases.

Strategic: Always develop the “why” in your content. Each piece of content should have a reason beyond direct advertising -- ask yourself “how does this piece of content support my greater content and business goals?”

We also had the Head of Content at TaskRabbit in house, K. Tighe, and she gave an incredible presentation about stealing content development ideas from other industries. Most notably from Lighting and Set Design, Politics, and Journalism.

From Lighting and Set Design:

Feel your light: Any performer can “feel” their light -- they know when they are lit and when they are not. Use your audience’s reaction to your content and how they engage with it to dictate what you continue to produce. It’s okay to not produce every type of content about every topic in your industry.

Don’t Make White: When you combine colors of light on a stage, they make white. Choose lights (or pieces of content to develop) that best augment your brand and the big picture you are trying to illuminate.

From Politics:

Surrogates: Use your peers to help forward your brand. The Obama campaign (whether you voted for them or not) had an incredible list of external speaking on behalf of their campaign from vastly different areas of expertise, including Eva Longoria and Bill Clinton. These well-respected external personal brands only elevate your own.

Preach to the Choir: Preaching to the choir is how to make them sing. You want your audience to proactively share your message, so feed them content they will want to share.

From Journalism:

Word count, word count, word count: Know the appropriate industry word counts for each piece of editorial content you produce. Waxing poetic in 3000 words in a blog post is not acceptable and will not help you reach your goals. An exercise: write a typical 500 word executive summary. Then cut it in half. Then cut it in half again. Then make it a 140-character tweet. This will force you to focus on the things that are actually important.

Evergreens: Otherwise known as the “rainy day” repository. Develop a few pieces of content that you can pull out of your back pocket when something falls through the cracks.

Deadlines: Public shame is the only way to get people to produce on time. Create a public editorial calendar and make it very obvious when people are late on their deadlines. Don’t be afraid to crack the whip, content development is an engine and it needs gasoline.

The bigger message is that many concepts in other industries can be applied to your content generation effectively, if you look outside your box. Think about what types of marketing have been most effective personally for you, and then see how you can leverage the reasoning behind those tactics for your own brand and content generation. Feel empowered to experiment and see what works and what doesn’t with your real audience, and don’t feel stuck inside the “best practices” paradigm. You never know what is going to resonate with your audience, so ask them!