Professional development at Stack

As a tech-oriented professional, one of the most efficient time-investments you can make is to join a community or two at Stack Exchange, a collection of topic-specific Q&A sites.

Joining a Stack community is one professional development activity that doesn’t require an expensive trip to Orlando (or wherever) to learn fundamental elements of your trade, whether you’re a web developer, a librarian, a project manager or a food blogger. You don’t even have to join the group to read the ongoing conversations.

At the moment, there are about 100 Stack communities. Each consists of experts (and wanna-be experts) willing to answer (and ask) very smart questions on very specific topics. Myself, I’m on the writers and English language Stack. Maybe I’ll see you there.

Switching SoMe loyalties? Here’s how it happens

I open the email.

“Marti, you have notifications pending on Facebook.” It’s a hushed, chipper, female voice, reminding me, a wayward user, of all the “activity” I’m missing.

“Hmm,” I think. “Maybe s’more Image of the Day link bait?” I pause. Then I hit the Trash icon.

I feel slightly guilty. I am not reading posts from real friends. I did not wish Tony happy birthday. I did not “Like” Teri’s funny photo. Even more guilt-inducing, I’m missing out on Robert Scoble‘s very tasty technology feeds. (Sigh.)

Still and tra-la! It’s just one of life’s organic processes — that I’m gradually switching social media brand loyalties, away from FB to more personally satisfying and professionally practical applications. I’ve got limited attention.

So, ahem: Here’s my new song:

Don’t cry for me, friends on Facebook!
The truth is that you’ll never miss me. 
Now I’m on Quora.
Or scanning Stack posts.
Yes, even Twitter.
Why don’t you join me?

Notes on the nature of curiosity

Photo:
Tomas Castelazo

Over the past several years I’ve been intrigued by the addictive power of curiosity. Following a question thread, especially one with complex little knots, must certainly release dopamine, pleasurable brain juices that, in turn, drive the curious to spend even more energy pursuing questions. (Mirenowicz and Schultz) On the internet, the pursuit and satisfaction of human curiosity, idle or profound, is magically simple.

Sometimes a question that seems casual and crass, like, “Why did LCD Soundsystem break up?” can lead to fascinating little discoveries that bring minutes of joy and enlightenment. James Murphy, a pop genius, will take you there in 4 minutes and 30 seconds. Interestingly, the satisfaction won by curiosity is not dependent on truth or accuracy or even utility.

Our curious brains are too easily satisfied. Just try to tear yourself a way from theuselessweb.com. Say what we will, the Internet may bloody well make us stupid.

Despite the fact that educational sites like Khan Academy do an admirable job harnessing the rat-and-pellet mentality inherent to Internet info-seeking, this kind of directed satisfaction may differ significantly from pleasure earned by organically generated questions. According to the 1994 primate research from Mirenowicz and Schulz cited above, unpredictable rewards stimulate dopamine neurons more reliably than predictable ones. Strange, no?

The biggest challenge for content marketers: time

For most content marketers, the most daunting challenge is time. Here are six ways we must learn to beat the clock.

• It takes months develop a library of content. Even with a blogger posting 2-4 times per week, you need content-mass (with coherent keywording) to build solid SEO. Ideally you’ll have several different content-creating teams working in parallel.
• Learning the best ways to pitch and broadcast content also takes time. You’ll make mistakes and have to rethink your approach. Simply gauging the effects of each new tactic — takes more time.
• Another time-eater: building symbiotic relationships with bloggers and publications who will reproduce and share your content. Add two months.
• Building a social media following takes at least six months. So you have lots of Likes and some Shares? You need a steadily greater number of reliable fans that click on and share your content week after week.
• It takes at least 10 hours per week to monitor and report on blog or website traffic. Not counting the time you take to develop tweaks and changes to your measurement tactics.
• Strategic planning aside, new market technologies present new challenges.  Currently, for example, you ought to be syndicating your content. Are you?

The ticking clock could drive anyone crazy, even a PR flack. What’s the answer? Focus under pressure. More on that topic to come.

Source:  Marti LaChance’s answer to Content Marketing: What are the challenges you face when it comes to content marketing? on Quora

Fun & fancy text formatting

An enjoyable new app I’ve discovered is Recite. I use it to create catchy, one-line, online posters. For instance:

Type in a quote or slogan. Choose a template. Download or share the resulting graphic. It’s quick-and-dirty and impossible to customize. Still, it’s an interesting way to get layout ideas. Plus, the results are pretty cool!

Google+ Communities: more fun than Facebook

What do you get when you cross Usenet newsgroups with G+ circles? Google+ communities.

Unlike G+ circles, which are free-form groups of loosely associated people and topics, communities are more structured, like those old Usenet forums. Communities have moderators, who can set up categories for posts and set rules. Moderators can limit membership, and even keep their community private, which has interesting and useful implications. (Spam has destroyed what’s left of public Usenet. Let’s hope Google can keep the automated adverts at bay.)

As of Dec 2012, there are hundreds of communities to join. Just click on the green “seedling” icon and peruse a few. You have to join a community to post, comment, +1 and share.

Myself, I thought I’d just tip-toe in, but next thing I knew I’d joined 10 communities, including “In the Kitchen,” “Surfing,” “The Art of Post Processing,” and “Earth.” I also joined some local communities, so I can meet and converse with people in my town.

For businesses, blogs, and other established groups, a G+ community might provide more visibility — and a closer connection with the intended audience — than a G+ page.

Still, although Google claims to have 400M users, Facebook gets more traffic from the hoi polloi. It’s not for nothing that a majority of G+ communities are tech-oriented. It attracts a certain class of geeks.

Sure, the Google Communities app isn’t perfect. By default you may start receiving email notifications every time someone posts. (Yes, you can turn that off!)

Community posts also infiltrate your G+ home feed, which will be a real heartbreak if you’ve spent time honing your feed. You can’t even tell which communities the new people and posts are coming from. [Update: the G+ stream now labels posts from communities.]

More disturbing for casual users, however, is that everything you post in public G+ communities, even a comment on a post, is immediately indexed and searchable on Google. So, as my Spanish teacher used to say, “¡Cuidado!”

Nevertheless, I am hooked. If you run into me, say “In the Kitchen,” be sure to say hello.

6 tips for content marketers

Content is (still) king.

On Quora, I recently answered the question, What are the most important analytics in deciding what content marketers should create?

Here’s an excerpt:

1. Assume you are 85% correct about the content your customers want. Use standard tools (like Google Analytics) to test your hypothesis on a weekly basis — for each type of content, e.g. the blog, FB posts, the new FAQ on the website. If possible, assign the testing task to a savvy, full-time employee.

2. Tap experts in your field. Don’t be afraid to get input and (raw) content from customer service reps, cooks, receptionists, a former professor or boss. Interview, take notes, even record them — and consider the angles.

3. If there is an ideal medium for getting content to your customers, use it. Seriously, it may be email, not Twitter.

4. Check out the competition. Do they have compelling content? If so, sign up for their alerts, follow them, and consider using a similar approach — with your own creative twist.

5. Research marketing trends and experiment. Follow a few digital marketing experts and read a lot. Stay current on content trends, especially in your field.

6. Be willing to retire old content. Sure, blog posts and podcasts have long tails. But this may not hold true for last year’s infographics.

Lastly, although it sounds like modern day blasphemy, try not to get too hung up on the data. Most of the variables are not even comparable, anyway.

For small marketing shops especially, trust your gut, and keep scanning the savanna for killer new content ideas.