In our last post, we introduced the concept of “clout”, which we boiled down to “getting people to believe your brand”. This is easier said than done, particularly in higher ed where messaging is highly decentralized. Universities struggle with finding ways to present an authentic, honest view of the institution while influencing prospective students and the general public to believe they are what they say they are. I recently talked with Colleen Jones to discuss how her book, Clout: The Art and Science of Influential Web Content, can help colleges and universities who are struggling with these very issues.
Todd and Colleen at the Clout book release party
Todd: Hi, Colleen. Thanks for taking the time to chat with us about your book. I had the pleasure of reading it over the holidays and it was fantastic!
Colleen: Thanks! I’m glad to be here.
Todd: Tell me a little bit about the book and how you came up with the name: Clout: The Art and Science of Influential Web Content.
Colleen: Well, I wanted the book to stand out from smarmy books about persuasion and influence. Many of them focus only on manipulative tricks and not on the big picture or long term consequences. I felt “clout” best suggested my approach.
I also am convinced that influencing through content requires combining art and science. The art comprises rhetorical principles and qualitative research. The science encompasses psychological principles and quantitative research. My goal with this focus was to move the conversation about content strategy forward from process to principles and evaluation.
Todd: Clout is full of detailed how-to tips, case studies and examples. What types of organizations are represented in the book?
Colleen: Every organization who is trying to achieve a result online needs influential web content. It’s a myth that organizations who aren’t big companies don’t need or can’t achieve clout. The book has a chapter talking about the elements of context to help readers quickly understand the situation they need to influence. And, to drive the point home, I featured examples from higher ed, startups such as Grasshopper.com, government institutions such as CDC.gov and WhiteHouse.gov, Fortune 500 companies such as InterContinental Hotels Group and more.
Higher education institutions will benefit from thinking about the decisions they need students, parents, and faculty to make. For example, as more and more of the application and admission process happens online, how can your web content best encourage ideal prospective students to enroll? And, how can your web content guide prospective students through the enrollment process?
Todd: Your book is about practice, but I really liked that it is rooted in theory, making it ideal for the academic enterprise. Would you say the book has application in the classroom as well as the boardroom?
Colleen: Yes, absolutely. Many of the academic books about rhetoric have little practical application beyond analyzing political speeches. Rhetoric has become such a lost art, especially in the U.S., but it’s SO practical. I see this book being an excellent bridge from academia into practice for communication, media, information technology and similar programs. But, don’t take my word for it. A sample chapter that explains rhetorical principles is available on my website.
Todd: Many people in higher education, particularly faculty, tend to shy away from any talk of marketing or branding (but they are coming around to it). I attribute this in part to some of the negative practices, the “snake oil” as you call it in the book, employed by a few slimy sales people or dishonest PR folks. Likewise, there may be people who feel uncomfortable with the idea of “influential web content”, thinking it is code for some sort of manipulation. What would you say to them?
Colleen: I certainly understand that concern. But, influence is at the heart of most academic learning. Professors and students have to write papers that not only report facts but also persuasively argue how to interpret them. Class discussions are not just about answering trivia but about presenting different viewpoints convincingly. Even in the sciences, as Thomas Kuhn pointed out in his work about paradigm shifts, if you do not present knowledge in an influential way to a community, the community will not accept it, and the knowledge will be lost. (Malcom Gladwell revisits this idea more recently in Outliers.) Because influencing is at the heart of learning and knowledge, it’s perfectly appropriate for a higher education institution to be influential. And, in our digital age, they have to be influential through web content.
Ethics help ensure influence does not cross the line into manipulation. The most important way to stay ethical is to stay truthful. If your case is grounded in facts, long term results, and respect for the people you are influencing, then you will stay on the right side of the line.
Todd: You wrote a great chapter on planning. In our practice we see a lot of institutions jumping into the web and social media without first thinking about their business objectives. How do you address that?
Colleen: One element of context is the result (or objective) you want. The first step in planning is to ask why your web or social media effort will move you closer to that result. That question will help you sort out promising ideas from distracting ones. Now, if you don’t have a clear vision of the result you want, you’ll have a tougher time with planning.
Todd: In the book, we learn that a big part of achieving clout as an organization is gaining people’s trust, which is done in part by presenting evidence to support what you’re saying. The more clout you have, the less evidence is required to prove yourself. In many ways, these concepts are applicable not just to web content, but your overall branding efforts. Would you agree?
Colleen: Yes, that concept of clout applies to all your branding efforts, from your brochures to your emails to your website. What’s really challenging is, online, there are many channels where a higher education organization could have a presence, from Facebook to mobile. Meaningful content across those channels will make your brand consistent and, therefore, easier to remember. When I worked on customer experience for Cingular Wireless for several years, I touched every channel– the IVR (phone system), the website, the point of sale system, and the store. I can assure you people notice when you say one thing in one channel and something different, or even conflicting, in another. I worked hard to bring consistency to the content and, as a result, the Cingular Wireless brand.
Todd: Two of my favorite chapters in the book focus on evaluation. There’s an overwhelming amount of data available to evaluate the web quantitatively and many great qualitative techniques as well. While you detail the “how and when” for using these methods, one tip really hit home with me personally—“don’t get lost in the weeds.” What did you mean by that?
Colleen: I meant that the point of evaluation is to figure out whether you are achieving the results you want. The point is not to use every capability of every evaluation tool or research method out there or to analyze every tiny bit of evaluation data you have—to get lost in those types of weeds. Focus on questions about whether you’re achieving results. Then, use the right methods to answer those questions.
Now, sometimes some deeper, more exploratory evaluation is in order. The key is to assess when the time and effort is likely worth the insights you might gain from that evaluation. For example, if one of your content efforts was a huge success or a huge failure, it would be worth doing some deeper evaluation to figure out why.
Todd: As you know, most colleges and universities follow highly decentralized web publishing models. It’s not uncommon to find subject matter experts (SMEs)—faculty, administrators, staff—having sole responsibility for entire websites in their subject or office area. You address this in your final chapter. Can you briefly discuss what you call the “SME Syndrome”? How do you balance the tension between the “accurate” language your faculty are demanding and the “influential” language your marketers prefer?
Colleen: SME Syndrome is the overly detailed, often arrogant language that some SMEs try to insist upon in the name of accuracy. Style guides and governance policies that require the right balance between clarity and accuracy help tremendously. These guides also can specify any laws or regulatory guidelines that temper claims about the benefits of a product or service. For particularly stubborn cases of SME Syndrome, testing the content with real users will prove whether the affected content will work for users.
Now, it’s possible to go too far in the other extreme. If you talk about a subject in terms that are too terse or simple, people—especially people with some knowledge of the subject—might think you are being condescending or that your understanding is very basic. We know from research by psychologist B.J. Fogg that the more people know about a subject, the more critical they are of website content on that subject. If that is a risk for your situation, then consider whether you need some separate content targeted at different audience levels. For example, CDC offers basic content for anyone and more technical content for doctors and researchers.
Todd: This has been terrific insight, Colleen. I hope our readers will take as much away from your book as I did. Thank you!
Colleen: Thank YOU! I look forward to seeing you at the next Atlanta Content Strategy event!
Colleen Jones has led interactive strategy for Fortune 1000 companies such as InterContinental Hotels Group and Cingular Wireless (now AT&T) as well as for Centers for Disease Control, the most trusted government agency in the Unites States. As the principal of Content Science, Colleen consults with executives and practitioners about making their web content more influential. Colleen is a veteran of the interactive industry, a participant in the first ever Content Strategy Consortium and the founder of Atlanta Content Strategy. She has spoken about the value of influential web content at conferences everywhere from Phoenix, Arizona to Paris, France. Learn more about Colleen and her book at leenjones.com.
J. Todd Bennett, co-founder and managing partner of decimal152, helps colleges and universities understand the needs of their constituents and partners to develop strategies that meet those needs.
