mobile content talk by tom hewitson

MASTERING MOBILE CONTENT

MOBILE ACADEMY MAY 2014

CONTENT IS EVERYWHERE AND EVERYTHING

WHAT IS THE USER TRYING TO DO?

“Context”

IT IS NOT OK TO JUST REUSE CONTENTFROM THE WEB

• Give the user an actionable answer to their need without having to scroll.

• Think about download speeds. Let the user choose to the high bandwidth option if they want, don’t force it on them. BBC app is good at this.

• 600 word SEO articles are for suckers. Go for 200 or less or 1000 and over.

THE INVERTED PYRAMID

• Assume no-one is going to read the full story.

• Say the most important things first

• Leave quotes, opinions and nice-to-haves until after the essential facts are covered.

Lede

Body

Tail

Link

TIPS FOR WRITING GREAT CONTENT(PART 1)

• Write and edit in an iterative cycle.

• Read it out loud (loud enough that someone else in the room could hear).

• Have someone else / preferably a few other people read it and feed back.

• Publish as soon as you can and then immediately start work on V2.

TIPS FOR WRITING GREAT CONTENT (PART 2)

• Quality over quantity. Many iterations, few pages.

• Optimise for search and social as much as possible but never to the detriment of the story.

• Be patient, be realistic. One person persuaded is worth ten thousand empty hits.

• Check your spelling, check your grammar. If don’t, how can I know you’ve checked your facts?

QUESTIONS?