Social Media, Social Networking, and Social Relevance in Tech Comm
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Conversation and Community Social Media, Social Networking, and Social Relevance in Tech Comm Anne Gentle [email protected] Technical Communicators Association of New Zealand October 2012
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Presented at the Technical Communicator's Association of New Zealand in October 2012.
Transcript of Social Media, Social Networking, and Social Relevance in Tech Comm
Conversation and Community
Social Media, Social Networking, and Social Relevance in Tech Comm
Anne [email protected]
Technical Communicators Association
of New ZealandOctober 2012
I believe in community
Flickr: seier+seier
I am… a Content Stacker
OpenStack – Open Source Cloud Computing
Rackspace – Fanatical Support in all we do
Our hero
Not always a technical writer
Wanting to make an impact▪ 72% of companies
use social technologies
▪ Writers are user advocates
▪ Need a plan and execution
Welcome to now
Never before have we had tools for media, networking, and relevance that help us meet our goals
How do we harness the power of the social web for documentation?
Flickr: thegentles
Guess what? I have ideas.
Definitions in context
Social media
Social networking
Social relevance
Sharing content, feedback loops, discussions, and destinations
Gather information by interacting with your audience and users
Collaboration, resource sharing, sharing goals
Meeting the challengesFlickr: marc_smith
Social media: lessons learned
Comments and workflows
Close the loop Track doc bugs
that are reported in the comments
Flickr: myklroventine
Commenting tools
Personas Commenters Readers Moderators Administrators
Comments and experience
Why not mobile first or mobile only?
Consider immersive experiences
Consider when and where you search – from your phone?
Responsive web design examples: http://mediaqueri.es/
Comments and translation
Comment in their language
Build communities locally
Think: is English the “source” or another language?
Categories of comments
Many comments at once to gain further understanding
Pointing out typos or small errors in code
Want specific examples and specific help
Request for a particular feature
Flickr: theilr
Social networking: lessons learned
BE HELPFUL, SHARE LISTEN, MONITOR
INFORM RESPOND
Networking and data
Listen where users are; select channels
Mine data gold Daily/weekly blog
searches Career- and job-
related searches Get to know
community content members Anne Gentle
Social relevance: lessons learned
Slogging through the slushpile
Think like an acquisition editor
Everyone’s a writer (but not all of them have a coach)
Files as the basis are key to treading docs like code
Flickr: gruntzooki
Timing and cadence
Originally had three month release cycles
Design Summit in-person meeting April and October
Now six month release cycles with milestone releases
Flickr: plenty
Contributors and newbies
Devs write for devs Admins write for
admins This is a complete
turnaround for me Some people can
only review (and it’s not worthwhile to convince them to write)
Flickr: kholkute
Marathon, not a sprint
• 66% Site visitors stay instead of leaving
• 100 Doc patches and reviews a month
• 10,000 unique visitors a week
• 6 months before commenters answered each other
Flickr: dno1967b
Amazing stories
• Logged doc bug in afternoon, came in to a fix the next day• Glossary out of “nowhere” from a wiki page starting point
Analytics: readers
Bam. Site Launch.
Analytics: contributors
Doh. Release date.
Hey! Release date!
Play a role
Acquisition editor Web stats analyst Writing coach Project manager Bug
tracker/triager Editor Advocate Writer
Summary
Media: Encourage conversation Networking: Listen and learn Relevance: Build a team and
community Iterate repeatedly
Questions?
Anne [email protected]
@annegentle
www.facebook.com/conversationandcommunity
www.linkedin.com/in/annegentleFlickr: candelabrumelabrumdanse
