Content: how to make it work for you

Madeleine SugdenContent Managerwww.knowhownonprofit.org

What is web content for?

• Proof of existence – ‘about us’• Help people do / learn something• Encourage action / change behaviour

5 questions

Five things to think about to help you make the most out of your content….

1. Audience

• Who are you talking to?• Are you using the right language?• How do you know what they want?

Eg1 Spinal Research

• Who is this information for?• Audience unclear

Eg2 Alzheimer Scotland

• Written very precisely for particular audience

• Information presented clearly, not alarmist or patronising.

Eg3 Working with Men

• Online questionnaire to find out opinions on the website from the users

Eg4 Friends of the Earth

• Sharing the results of a previous survey• Keeping audience informed of views

and changed that will be made• Really good content – clearly in touch

with audience (eg Pub Ammo)

2. Presentation

• Are you helping skim reading?• Are you writing for the web?• Are you giving too much information?• How are you using images?• Is it accessible?• Are you encouraging people to read on?

Eg5 Birmingham Settlement

• Lots of information here• Not easy to skim read• Simple to improve by adding headings

to each section

Eg6 British Heart Foundation

• Really well presented• Good, clear headings• Short bulleted lists• Images to bring to life• Written for the audience

Eg7 Arthritis Research Campaign

• Very detailed information of their activities

• Good to have pie chart but what does it all mean (£1.2m spent on education)?

• Paragraphs are complicated and long• What was the impact on people?

Eg8 Break

• Shows the impact on people• Bullet points make it easier to read• Could have enhanced further with

stories about real people

Eg9 WISH

• Homepage of website• Too much text!• Confusing image• Big story from 2007

Eg10 Kids Company

• Very strong image

3. Medium

• Content isn’t just printed words• Are you using the best format?• Are you using audio / video? • Is it interesting / fun?

Eg11 Sight Saver

• Lovely story of Kelvin presented as text• Great picture• But told from the perspective of Sight

Savers• What could be added to make it more

personal?

Eg12 Macmillan

• Karen telling her own story• Quite a long clip but very engaging

Eg13 Action for Prisoners’ Families• Audio story• Do the words introducing Nancy’s story

make you want to listen?• Have to work to listen to it as the play

button is somewhere else on the page• You have to work to bring people in and

not expect them to work to engage

Eg14 World Service Trust

• Series of podcasts• Uses good words and images to draw

you in

Eg15 Food4Thought

• British Heart Foundation – healthy eating game

• Its fun and engaging!• Gets the message across without being

patronising

Eg16 Stuff4Sam

• Hi Sam messages sent from across the world

• Fun way of connecting with audience / S4S community

4. Marketing

• Help people find your site• Search engines • Use all channels• Integrate on and offline activities

Eg17 Google search for depression• Search finds no charities in top 10• Mental health charities could take steps

to change this (eg pay for keywords, use the word depression more clearly on their sites, include the word in metadata, encourage people to link to them in connection with this word)

Eg18 Dogs Trust

• We’re on Facebook!• Keeping supporters connected in ways

that work for them

Eg19 Action for Children

• Great online material (images, blog, video) matching strength of print campaign

• Campaign hard to find though – search for Nicola finds nothing related

• Big spend on campaign but make sure people can find it online

5. Influence

• From passive users to active users to super active users…

• Make it easy to interact / take action• Influence windows

Eg20 Islamic Relief

• This is what we do - bullet points / case studies

• At the bottom of the page, click button to donate now

• Make it easy! People are caring enough to read, help them to take action – don’t make them have to search for next steps.

Eg21 RSPB – Bird watch

• Engaging text explaining why you should get involved

• It’s fun!

Eg22 Breast Cancer Care

• Excellent connection between content and discussions

• Saying that we don’t have all the answers – talk to other people / read what they have to say

Eg23 Save Darfur

• Lots of ways to get involved• Making it easy to do something

Eg24 Plane Stupid

• People want to engage – don’t apologise for it!

• Once they have engaged (in this case signed up for newsletter) tell them about other things they can do. Make them feel part of your work

Eg25 Oxfam

• Add a donation included in shop• More likely to add donation at this point• Oxfam are making it easy

5 questions - PAMMI

PresentationAudienceMediumMarketingInfluence

Madeleine SugdenContent ManagerKnowHow NonProfitwww.knowhownonprofit.org