• 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!

• The Twitter demographic is middle-aged professionals. Why wouldn’t you want to reach that audience? Teens may be Facebooking and text-messaging, but business adults are using Twitter.

• Think of Twitter followers as an opt-in list, and think of each Tweet as a direct mail piece. A short, quick, free message to a group of followers who, so long as you cultivate them and provide value for them in your Tweets, will most likely click through on whatever shortened URL you include in your Tweet.

• Now, think of what that shortened URL could point to (think of the direct mail analogy). Contests, web content, registration pages for downloads, event notices, rsvp buttons, thought leadership, cool product “tryout” signups (read: beta users), and on and on. In every rich media format that the Web offers. Bottom line, Twitter is a platform for engaging your audience.

The catch, as with all social media, is that what you’re delivering has to be of value to that audience. You can’t over-promote or over-sell. Your content has to resonate, which is what Tendo is all about.

What do you think? Follow my Tweets @cziems. Promise I won’t spam you!

The answer is in Twitter’s booming growth. According to Web measurement firm Nielsen, Twitter’s number of users grew 1,382 percent from February 2008 to February 2009, a rate that easily dwarfs the competition’s growth.

Here at Tendo, we’re curious not so much about whether Twitter is doing something right (they are) or whether all of its recent attention is warranted (who knows?), but rather, is Twitter relevant to business? As the audience engagement experts, would we advise our clients to embrace tweeting as a viable tool for connecting with their audience? Or do we tell them to run the other way?

Bill Golden, managing editor, and David Vespremi, director of client services, square off:

Bill: Twitter is arguably the most efficient tool right now for firing off quick sound bites and updates throughout the day. With a 140-character limit, nothing else comes close. I recall reports that the US Airways Hudson River plane crash story broke on Twitter well before any mainstream media outlets caught wind of it. People were actually tweeting from the scene. And in terms of a business application, it’s also hard to beat. It gives companies a conduit for immediate and personalized contact with customers and the broader Twitter audience.

David: I’ll agree, but point out that Twitter’s inherent speed and efficiency are also what make it such a dicey proposition for business. These days, most companies treat their Facebook and MySpace pages as extensions of their core corporate identity. There is very little that ends up on those platforms that escape at least some level of the “is this good for business?” filter. The fact that Twitter is so new that few companies have adopted guidelines around its use at work–even while they may have policies in place around the use of personal blogs during work hours–makes Twitter the Wild West of the business world. One would generally think twice about updating a personal blog on an iPhone under the boardroom table to make a catty comment about a colleague’s lame idea or personal hygiene issue. But Twitter is rife with these kinds of personal observations and the “edit” filter is set low, if not off, when most people submit tweets.

Bill: You bring up a valid point. Twitter does make it incredibly easy for an employee tweeting on behalf of his or her company to say something stupid and have it potentially reach an enormous audience. But this begs a policy question–who in a business environment should use Twitter and to what end? Companies can only do so much to control what their employees say and to whom. At the end of the day, it doesn’t require a whole lot of plotting for an employee to denigrate his or her company. Twitter just makes it super easy.

David: Or business twits! The problem isn’t just limiting access, it is also about voice. When you think of a brand–Apple, Ford, IKEA–you think of a unified brand persona. Apple is a great example. Everything Apple says and does, no matter when or where, looks and feels like Apple. If you start adding in a disparate mix of voices from Steve Jobs all the way down to Jim in the mailroom, aren’t you undermining the brand? Suddenly a cohesive brand identity and voice begin to seem a bit disjointed and schizophrenic. . .

Bill: Yes, but many companies could benefit from adopting a more casual and approachable connection with customers. Twitter does that by making a company more accessible to its audience. As a customer following a company on Twitter, I suddenly have a voice and channel to connect directly with a company. Granted, it would be smart for companies to have standards for what is and isn’t appropriate for employees to say. As far as disparate voices go, are you out of your tree? Do you really think an employee will undermine a company’s brand with a 140-character message?

David: But this begs the question, does any of that good will last? It seems like the Holy Grail for many businesses is all about SEO and page rank. That being the case, is spending time on Twitter the best use of social media when other platforms have the proven ability to drive traffic?

Bill: Yes and no. Twitter by itself won’t necessarily push people to a company Web page or blog. But Twitter can be an effective means to draw more visitors to a company’s website or blog. Since Twitter updates constantly, there will always be fresh content for the search engine spiders to pull. And the more social network sites you link to, the better your all-around page rank will be.

David: Which is all well and good, provided that the content is relevant. If employees are engrossed in fascinating tweet exchanges about everyday minutia (“Hey, did you catch Idol last night?!”) and that ends up on the home page, and in fact, drives more traffic since “Idol” is more searched than a company’s core offering, that’s not so great. Still, I agree, that Twitter can effectively be tied in to other social platforms as another feed source to a corporate site.

Bill: OK, then I suppose it’s a matter of a company’s appetite for risk and how closely it wants to police its brand. I agree that relevant tweets are important, both in terms of value to your customer and how a search engine indexes Web pages. But I think this goes back to setting up the right standards for how employees tweet on behalf of their company and making some effort to monitor the behavior. Because in real life, if an employee of a business I’m patronizing offends me with something they say, I’ll definitely think twice about giving them my business.

Bill and David: So, it looks like the verdict is a definite maybe on Twitter. It is certainly not a one-size-fits-all marketing tool, but for the right company and in the right setting, it can be a great resource for connecting with your audience. Twitter isn’t always relevant, but it certainly can be.