CPU No.1: Short-term memory reboot
The Content Technologist
The Content Technologist is a newsletter and website for content professionals working in the age of algorithms.
BY DEBORAH CARVER –?16 FEB 2023
Hello, free subscribers of The Content Technologist! We created this secondary newsletter, the Content Professionals Update, to keep you posted on what we've published and what we're up to.
On the third Thursday of every month we'll send clips from every article we've published in the past month, upcoming news and events, some of our favorite links, and other super-special goodies TBD.
Paid subscribers receive The Content Technologist in their inbox every Thursday. Want to receive unparallelled insights from digital content experts that you won't find anywhere else?
Understand your website analytics...even if you were an English major
Our GA4 course redesigned for email delivery!
Web content measurement is challenging—especially if you've made your career as a "words person."
But knowing and understanding your content's performance can help you understand your audience and make your content more successful.
The Content Technologist's first-ever course aims to demystify web analytics for everyone, whether you've previously learned GA or you're a complete analytics newbie.
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Here's a rundown of all essays we published for paid members in the past few weeks
Why you need a brand voice style guide — and how to make it happen
by Lindsay Li
The way a brand sounds is as important as how it looks. At its simplest, a brand voice is a consistent way to convey your brand’s message to your audience. It’s how they know it’s “you” when they interact on social media or read an email. A defined voice is critical for those who rely on reader-assisted devices and can’t access your visual identity. More than a logo or a tagline, voice reflects your company in any physical or digital interaction.
When put into thoughtful practice, a brand voice establishes an “entity” for the company with which anyone interacting can have a conversation. The sound of the brand forms the basis of a trustworthy relationship between your company and your audience.
Without clear guidance, consistency and success is challenging. Defining brand voice with intangible concepts makes it impossible for content authors to deliver a consistent, seamless experience. If guidance is limited to vague terms like “bold, unique, really human,” each content creator may interpret differently. Instead of a unified approach, chaos ensues, with drastically different representations across a brand’s various channels.
Redefining search intent: Is a Google killer really in our midst?
by Thomas Frenkiel
Why is there such avid speculation about the end of Google search? Four reasons stand out:
Let's take this shift seriously and review TikTok and ChatGPT as search engines: Will these new tools kill Google Search?
Access the full articles!
The social media channel–brand fit questionnaire
by Emily Rochotte
领英推荐
1. What are your goals??Are you looking for direct product sales, promoting your or your employees’ charm, seeking to start a conversation with your audience, or just trying to keep users informed about what’s new?
2. How can you best portray your offering to your audience??Is it through visual displays, verbal explanations, or a combination of both? If you weren't there to explain it, how would your audience understand it?
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8. Consider further: If my ideal customer were here, would I be demonstrating or describing what I offer??Your answer will guide your decision: should you focus on more visual channels like Instagram, Pinterest and TikTok, or storytelling channels like LinkedIn, TikTok and YouTube?
Potential security and privacy threats in content operations
by Arikia Millikan
We all know by now that reusing passwords is bad, data brokers are real, and data is valuable, so the potential threats we’ll consider for your industry mostly revolve around:
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2. A third-party service you’ve signed up for misusing your audience data.?I guess you Didn’t read the Terms of Service? Too bad. In the Wild West world of third-party software and browser extensions, vendors may use your data far outside of expected scenarios, or what’s necessary for use of the app.
Remember: the tools you choose are vendor partnerships, which means their choices around your audience’s privacy are the responsibility of your brand. You didn’t know you agreed to content scraping of your company's IP or keystroke logging? Live and learn.
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4. A third-party vendor selling your email list to another company.?Selling lists or buying email lists remains a common practice in marketing, even though it?never gets results.
In case you missed it...
How to gracefully incorporate PhDs into a corporate UX research team
by Aimee Gonzalez-Cameron
At first glance, formal backgrounds in research ethics and training seem good! But consensus of what UX entails and expectations for research roles vary by company and team.
My PhD training and previous human research experience once got me into trouble during a large, high-profile project. I thought I had enthusiastic support but learned that my insistence on accurate research methods came across as “too slow” and “stubborn.” When a new manager?explained that academic scientific skills do not necessarily map to industry, I realized having PhD training is only a first step toward executing UX research at a large corporation.
UX managers and directors, especially those with more traditional corporate backgrounds,?should appreciate the differences between “industry” and “academic background” UX researchers before hiring both types into one team.
From the archive
The Content Technologist: Content Pros Update?is compiled by?Deborah Carver, an independent consultant based in Minneapolis.
Affiliate referrals:?Ghost publishing system?|?Bonsai contract/invoicing?|?The Sample newsletter exchange referral?|?Writer AI Writing Assistant
Cultural recommendations / personal social:?Spotify?|?Instagram?|?Letterboxd