The Tendo View

I read a great blog post on ProBlogger a couple weeks ago that asked, “What is compelling content to you?” and was interested to look at the comments for how readers answered the question. To spare you from scrolling through them (but I do recommend taking a look), I compiled this list of adjectives from comments for what compelling content is:

• Funny
• Tells a story
• Uses images/visuals
• Has personality
• Inspires learning, thought, action, sharing, passion
• Solves a problem
• Teaches
• Is new or offers a unique perspective
• Makes the complex simple
• Easy to digest
• Resonates with reader—connects—personalized
• This acronym for compelling content seems to sum it all up: SUCCESs = simple-unexpected-concrete-credible-emotional-story

Almost universally, compelling content has these effects on readers:

• Makes them come back or subscribe
• Draws people in
• Makes people share or want to share the content
• Compels action
• Makes them read to the end

The comments—especially those defining compelling content as personable, passionate, resonating, something you want to share—made me think about the intersection of social media and more traditional content, and whether/how social media is shifting readers’ expectations of what they want from an article, or a blog post, or the newspaper or anything they read. I took a risk last week by writing about my new dog in a weekly “business” email, but I got more response from that than I usually get when I focus solely on business issues. Was it the photo? Or the subject? Or the fact that it was personal?

How can social media be integrated into your corporate Web articles so that readers respond in ways that social tools are encouraging—e.g., they can comment, they can share the article (via email, Digg, etc.), they can subscribe (RSS), they can be drawn in with visuals or polls or rich media or any element that invites a click so they can experience a different facet of the subject, they can take an action based on what the article has taught them by clicking on something that offers a next step, they can see how many other readers ranked it highly or shared it, etc.

I loved how some of our HP clients worked together this week to make sure blog posts teased the audience about the fiber channel over Ethernet story, and then tweeted about the article once it was launched. And the article’s most visually prominent call to action was an invitation to join the conversation on the blog itself.

I wonder, as Web articles support marketing campaigns that incorporate Facebook pages or Twitter accounts or a video series, how corporate marketers can effectively integrate those elements into the articles. And how the organizations might have to work differently to ensure articles and social media elements are well-coordinated.

Check out the follow-up post to the above, How to Get in Touch with your Readers Needs [and Produce Compelling Content], for the author’s principles (he focuses on blog content, but I think the concepts apply to other types). And let me know what you think!