Marketing trend: Adaptive content is king
Date: January 25, 2014Category: Author: Jennifer
I loved Danielle’s post last week on our multi-device future, so I want to expound on that and talk about how we can prepare for that future. I don’t know if the idea of all these crazy gadgets excites me or scares me, but I do know that it drives me to stay current on the ever-evolving technology of web development. Yet midst all this change, one thing will remain true -” content is king.” This was true well before Bill Gates popularized the statement back in 1996 and remains true today. What are all these devices good for if they don’t deliver us useful (or at least entertaining) content?
While content may be king, what is a king without his power? Even great content is powerless if it isn’t able to adapt to various situations and scenarios. Okay, so how do we make sure our content is adaptive? Karen McGrane is a specialist in content strategy. She preaches 5 elements of adaptive content:
- Reusable content — Content that can be used across various platforms and formats.
- Structured content — Chunks of content that can be arranged and rearranged for multiple devices and situations
- Presentation-independent content — Content that is independent of formatting and extra bells and whistles.
- Meaningful metadata — Behind the scenes data that describes the content for interpretation from outside applications, such as search engines.
- Usable CMS interfaces — Content Management Systems (like WordPress) keep content separate from design, allowing all of the above.
If you’ve been following website trends at all, you’ve surely heard of responsive design. Well, at the heart of it, this is exactly what responsive design aims to do – keep content effective and valuable across multiple devices and screen sizes (thus hitting the first three elements of adaptive content). It’s one of the best ways to ensure great content remain king. Here at Infinity Dental Web, we’ve been putting great effort into going responsive, both for ourselves and our clients. Additionally, all our responsive sites are built upon the popular content management system, WordPress (see the last element of adaptive content).
Social media is another essential way to give content more power – spreading its reach like wildfire to friends and family and neighbors. How many of us check our phones first thing in the morning and last thing at night (not to mention all the times in between)? Most the time, we aren’t necessarily doing searches. We’re checking in what’s the latest with our friends, what’s in the news, what’s trending. Sharing content through blogs, facebook, google+, twitter, and the like, ensures it reaches its full potential. So truly adaptive content not only has to adapt across all devices, but also all outlets and platforms.
The take-away here is we must not only focus on great content, but on adaptive content that can be relevant, reused, and re-purposed across a multi-device future. Long live the king!
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