The limits of updating an eBook

This morning I received an email from Amazon, informing me that a recent book I have on my Kindle has an updated version. Apparently because the publication has had significant editorial changes made to it, I need to download a new version.

Fair enough, the ebook wasn't expensive (in fact it was free) and dipping back into my Kindle account doesn't take too long. But there is one issue... because the ebook has undergone significant changes, any bookmarks, notes, or highlights I have made will not transfer across to the new version. Now this wouldn't be so bad if this was a novel or other piece of fiction. However the book in question is actually the Amazon's Elastic Compute Cloud (EC2) User Guide.

This irony wasn't wasted on me and neither was the obvious point that I had two options:
1. Download the updated version of the electronic book and lose my page notes and tips
2. Stay using the old version of the digital guide and live with the discrepancies that predicated the major editorial changes in the first place.

This situation therefore begs the question....Why isn't there a clever way to retain the notes I've made on my Amazon Kindle, even if there are editorial changes?
It was after all one of the reasons I got the thing in the first place! Even if my comments were retained and presented back at the end of the paragraph or chapter... That would still be of some benefit to me.

Note:
Yes, I know that with a paper version of the publication I would have to purchase another updated copy of the book and would not be given the option to simply upgrade it at my own leisure... but that misses the point. We now have a number of ebook systems in use and to ignore my ability to make notes in the margin (as I used to do with a lot of my printed reference material) limits their flexibility and eventual use.

Presumably as more books are digitised and placed online, this situation will become a growing issue. I therefore hope that the vendors such as Amazon eventually find an elegant and workable solution to this problem.

Are you wasting your digital analytics?

It's pretty clear to me that a lot of organisations still haven't moved their website analytics beyond the collecting and reporting stage (and some haven't even done that very well).

What's the point of collecting data and getting it turned into pretty graphs? Especially when all it does is:

1. Get ignored or misunderstood
Have you ever had a report sent to stakeholders who really don't do anything about it? ("so this 90% average bounce rate is good?")

2. Not get sent to those who actually need it
Has anyone considered that your content / editorial / CMS team might find key metrics on site engagement useful?

3. Not get actioned
"Yes we know that users aren't finding content down at the 4th level of navigation, but it would take too long to change things now"

If you find this happens in your company, then you're missing out on the contribution of a valuable business resource. I'm not saying you need to send analytics reports to everyone all the time or that every single observation needs to be acted on immediately... But there is a role in:

• Educating specific staff and partners about what these figures and graphics mean.
• Making sure that you have the correct reporting structure
• Prioritising and escalating the changes required that could deliver meaningful improvements.

Are you going to do this or waste an opportunity?

7 reasons your content marketing is crap

There, I've said it and it's time to admit it. Basically a lot of the current hype around content marketing is crap and so are a load of blog posts about the subject.

Here's my thoughts on why a lot of efforts into the latest online marketing trend are going to be poor, very poor:

1. You have no content plan
Are you publishing content with no editorial calendar and therefore no schedule for seasonal changes? Good content begins with a good plan of what you're going to write and when you're going to publish it,

2. You have based everything around search engine optimisation
On-page optimisation of your content is one of the key focuses of SEO, however just writing content for the search engines (and not really for your readers) isn't the right way to get engaged readers

3. You're not encouraging sharing
So you're making it harder for your readers to post the URL to different social networks or to share content with their peers. Why exactly?

4. You're not linking off to other parts of your site
Part of your reason for writing content should be that it actually drives people around your site and triggers your other site KPI's. Have you got an eCommerce site and yet you're not linking off to products you feature in your blog?

5. You're not reading what you're writing.
The way to create a sustainable audience of any long term value is with the deployment of quality, original and engaging content. Like a chef who doesn't eat what they make, you need to write stuff that you believe in. which ultimately means you have to be the first consumer of your content.

6. You're not properly measuring what you're doing
How are you going to optimise your content if you don't actually collect data about what is working for you and what isn't? Ensure you have the right goals measured and that you get regular feedback on these.

7. You're not learning
Content marketing optimisation is a slow process of test and learn, where you not only have to spend effort producing content... you have to also gain insight into what is actually working. And then you have to actually tell yourself some home truths about what isn't!.

7 steps for creating a content marketing strategy

In my previous post, I mentioned that content marketing is easy. Well here's my thoughts on how to create and run a successful content marketing strategy:

1. Have a strategy

Yes, I know this I'd obvious. But if you set-off without knowing what you're doing, you stand a chance of going nowhere quickly (See my posts on agile digital strategy for my approach on doing this)

2. Have a strategy that can be measured

Yes... I've purposely made this a separate point and I think you need to be clear exactly what your KPI's are and what success looks like. These figures should also be stated within your business justification (e.g. for further resource to assist you or to explain why additional effort must be put in).

3. Create an editorial calender

Your content plan should not be a hand-to-mouth process of a weekly meeting to just plan the next few days of content production. Products are seasonal, demand is seasonal, budgets are seasonal and therefore content needs to be seasonal... or at least adapt to the changes needed over time.

4. Build an editorial team

Ok, not every organisation can have a full-time team of one, two or more people doing their content marketing. However this doesn't mean you don;t need to have the input of (offline) Marketing, Comms/PR, Product/Proposition and your own digital marketers (and/or agencies).

5. Don't just create content, share content!

It's simple enough to forget, but you're not just encouraging visitors to enter and read your content, you're hoping they share it via more traditional (email) as well as social channels. Therefore do what you can to encourage this via the use of social sharing functionality (usually via the typical array of social buttons) on your site.

6. Make it usable and beautiful

Ok, maybe not beautiful, but at least consider that your content isn't just for the search engines..... it has to be read by a human too!

You however notice that I've really not focused on Search Engine Optimisation in a post about content marketing. "Surely that was a slip?" you're thinking "SEO is key here, why not cover it?".... Well to tell you the absolute truth, we all should know that content marketing IS about SEO anyway and a lot of the points mentioned above should consider this all the time. I'm also keen not to promote a specific formula for search engine spamming within a content strategy.... or maybe I'm saving that for a later post?