Categories
content strategy

Publishers, Know Thy Content

Having someone in the content publishing process or workflow familiar with the content itself is more important than many realize.

Content creation: roles to fill

Lots of roles need to be filled to create useful, usable content. Business and customer needs must be assessed. An audit of current content should be completed to avoid unnecessary duplication. Capacities and resources need to be gauged. Firm decisions are required on questions like:

  • Do we need to outsource its creation?
  • Who will review it?
  • Who will format and publish it?
  • Who will look after it once it has been published?

This list is far from comprehensive. But, a gap in any one of these can have catastrophic effects. Redundancies. Overstretched budgets and staff. Ultimately, poor quality content.

One question in the process often gets overlooked: Are there people that know the content filling roles in the content creation workflow? Or are are they merely capable of completing the physical tasks of publishing?

This became abundantly clear to me just the other day.

Drumroll please: an example

I recently purchased a CD [yes, I am still buying CDs] by the jazz tenor sax titan Sonny Rollins, titled “The Freedom Suite.”

This is an important, landmark album.

In the late 00s, the company that owns the rights to “The Freedom Suite” changed hands again. As is often the case, new ownership brings new strategy.  The new company decided to re-master and re-release the 1958 masterpiece.

Some new packaging was created, and it was unleashed onto the marketplace. I bought it. For full retail price. In 2010.

I was excited, until I saw this:

WHAT? Max Roach on TRUMPET? OH NO YOU DIDN’T.

I don’t wish bore you with hyperbole, but Max Roach was only one of the most important drummers of the 20th century.

The company with the business rights to sell the recording did not put a person familiar with the content in their content workflow.

The aftermath

A misspelling of Max Roach’s name might be a more pardonable crime. But playing the trumpet? The product has become the laughing stock of the community that purchases the product. And, the company has lost credibility and consumer confidence as a result.

Oversights with online content are just as easy, if not easier to make. Your content is important. Treat it with care. Give it priority. At the very least, doing so will help you avoid turning into the laughing stock of the community you serve.

Oh, and here is a clip of Max Roach TOTALLY NOT PLAYING THE TRUMPET:

Categories
content strategy

Maintaining Your Non-Text Content

I’m all for enhancing the user experience with non-text content, but only if it makes strategic sense. And only if there’s a solid maintenance plan in place. Because publishing non-text content comes with a set of unique challenges.

Be proactive about non-text content maintenance

In an ideal world, all website maintenance decisions happen as a result of your own company’s preferences, and on a reasonable timeline. But even if you’re not living in that ideal world you can still protect yourself. Here’s how:

  • Retain source and working files from content partners
  • Consider hosting options carefully, and make a contingency plan
  • Build a third-party content revision path into your content workflows

Retain source and working files from content partners

Anyone with a computer can edit a text file, regardless of its source. By contrast, editing audio, video, and Flash-based elements requires access to the original files and the sophisticated software used to create them.

It’s harder to guarantee that access if you’ve outsourced the content. Unless you make sure to get a complete hand-off of all original source files you can get stuck editing these elements in other programs, to the detriment of file quality. (For example, video and graphics are best edited at the highest resolution, then rendered/exported/converted to the resolution at which people will ultimately use it.)

Consider hosting options carefully and make a contingency plan

To complicate matters, content producers often choose to host their content on third-party platforms. Third-party video hosting services (e.g., YouTube) attract content producers by offering APIs, advanced embedding features, HD quality, and free bandwidth.

Using such providers may streamline your process initially, but also requires handing over a certain amount of control. (Companies get acquired, business plans evolve, etc.) If a change is made to the initial agreement, the API, or even the display/delivery of your content, you may be forced to take your content elsewhere.

Disruptions resulting from external partners take time and resources away from your day-to-day business functions. They also affect the user experience. (Think of a video-centric page missing its videos. Yikes!)

Concerns about hosting problems can be easily mitigated by retaining those high-resolution versions and their attendant metadata. With those in hand, upload to other suitable hosting services will be a snap.

Build a third-party content revision path into your content workflows

Content workflows need to take into account the complexities of editing non-text content.  This flowchart illustrates the steps involved in successfully making both pre- and post-publishing changes to non-text content:

Incorporating these guidelines into your site maintenance plan will help ensure your non-text content is working as hard as it can to keep users engaged and coming back for more.