Content is king

‘Content is king’, how many times have you heard that? Well when it comes to websites, in my experience, it is pretty much a universal truth. The worrying thing is how few businesses seem to realise this, and even if they claim to, how many of them act on it?

This follows on, in some respect, from my earlier post about “design for design’s sake“. There I mused about the appropriateness of design vs what the client/designer ‘thought was best’. The idea of having good, strong, useful and appropriate content follows on from that. Too many businesses seem to think that their web presence starts and ends with simply having a web site or twitter account or facebook page or blog. But this simply isn’t enough, in fact I’d go so far as to argue that having a presence on these platforms (or indeed any presence on the web) and then not using them is worse, and more damaging to your brand, that not having one at all.

People need to realise that having any one of the presences i’ve mentioned above (and all the others I haven’t) requires a commitment in time and thought. Simply registering a facebook fan page for your company, filling it with little or useless information, inviting all your friends to become a fan and then promptly never updating it displays a lack of understanding of the medium and has little or no positive outcome. Content is king, and never updating your content renders it useful to practically no-one.

I’ve encountered this a couple of times recently, with clients enthusiastically asking for bespoke blogging solutions and help with their facebook presence. I am all in favour of this, if done right. Whenever a client asks me about social media I provide them with a bit of a ‘how-to’ guide for each of the main channels/platforms, this outlines the type of content that would be appropriate (and some examples), how much time the particular platform requires (e.g. twitter=at least daily), how these platforms can be managed, examples of the types of interactions that can take place and an idea of the likely outcomes for their business.

All too often you see people painfully trying to shoehorn completely unsuitable content into an equally unsuitable platform. You need to, as mentioned in the post linked to above, consider your audience, consider what they want to find out and why they came to you via whatever platform you’re addressing them on. You must produce useful, regular, engaging content or quite simply – don’t bother.

Nimes, Markets, stuff

Had a fairly productive Sunday that involved getting the earliest train to Skipton to take photos at the Skipton Farmers Market. Unfortunately despite the glorious weather it was bloody freezing, the train was late and I had a bit of trouble finding the market so ended up wandering around the entireity of Skipton town centre. Skipton is a bit of an odd place, part- nice, Dales, market town, part- horrible, scummy, crap-shopping-centre-filled- hole.

Anyways, I managed to get a few decent shots, the light was an absolute nightmare to work with – a really low, really bright, winter sun that had everyone squinting.

On Wednesday I’m off on m’holidays, we’re going to Nimes (which is in the South of France), have just tested my schoolboy French to the absolute limit trying to work out if and how we could get trains from Nimes to Avignon and Arles, which are both supposed to be nice. I just want to see the Pont du Gard in all it’s giant, double-aquaduct glory (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pont_du_Gard). To be honest it’ll just be nice to have a bit of a break away from things, work on all fronts has been absolutely manic lately. I’ve not been to that part of France either so it should be interesting on all fronts.

One thing that won’t stop is the marathon training, although it’s annoying (so I’m told) how much space a pair of size 12 running shoes takes up in a suitcase. It’ll be fun to run around somewhere new, although I need to try not to a)get lost or b)forget that traffic is all…on the opposite sides of the road and stuff.

Am currently doing work for; Aisling Swindells (e-portfolio), Ben Cotton (e-portfolio/life stream), Nothern Dales Farmers Markets (complete site redesign and content development), Pickles & Potter (site development), Run For All (site redesign and digital marketing campaign) and have a couple more things in the pipeline.

Oo, also, i made a cheesecake yesterday, was really easy, has about a billion calories in and enough saturated fat to take out an elephant but tastes amazing, will pop up the recipe when i get a chance.

Time flies

I’m getting a bit crap at this blogging malarky, time to buck my ideas up methinks.
The last few weeks have been incredibly busy with Big Things & little things work, I’ve been doing work for Run For All, The Sunshine Bakery, The Jane Tomlinson Appeal, TwoDucksDisco and Tristan Mann. I’ve also been discussing possible work with a few more really interesting clients. Hence the lack of blogging.

I’ve finally started to delve properly into the world of JQuery, which thus far seems very useful and I’ve also almost (ish) perfected bread-making, now to try and work out how to make jam.

My marathon training suffered a bit with the return of the cold weather but I’m battling on (even managed to convince myself to get out for a pre-dawn 5 miles yesterday), and with the marathon now only something like 2 months and 13 days away I really need to carry on putting in the miles. I’m having a bit of a mini trainer crisis (not a crisis about mini trainers). I need new trainers, do I get them now or closer to the day of the marathon – don’t want to leave it too long though as I imagine newish shoes+26.2 miles isn’t a happy combination.

Have also started taking cod liver oil to try and sooth my aching joints, everything starts falling apart when you hit 24 obviously.

Anyways, am off doon sooth to see the folks this evening, then have got a holiday in the south of France to look forward to in March. Aces

Mid-season stumble

Righty dokie doke, an update, in diary form. I hope to post something of worth later in the week.

Marathon-training has been going especially badly this year, I’ll blame it partly on the snow but I’ve not been getting out and about on a regular enough basis. Although the runs I have been doing have all been 8+ miles I really need to get back into the swing of things, haven’t cycled to work since December…lazy bastard.

I had a brilliantly productive week last week, took time off from work (at Leeds Met) and did my very best to get my house ship-shape again. Luckily my limited flirting with DIY was a resounding success and not a disaster-causing catastrophy.

I also managed to put some serious hours into web work (with my ‘big things and little things’ hat on www.bigthingsandlittlethings.co.uk) and as a result have pretty much finished the redesign of the Jane Tomlinson Appeal site (hopefully it will go live this week or next), finished the site for the brilliant Sunshine Bakery (www.sunshinebakeryleeds.co.uk), wrote a preposal for the redesign and development of the Northern Dales Farmers Markets website and have also been working with Run For All on their digital marketing campaign.

If you are, or know anyone, who needs some web work doing then I am undertaking work at reduced rates until the summer to build my personal portfolio. Hopefully I’ll also be doing some work with/for the fab people at Oxygen (www.oxygenate.net).

I plan to write a bit of a post on my bread-making experiments (vastly improved thanks to a paving slab) and my plans for foraging. I bet you can’t wait…

Words and Pictures and Work

So as you may or may not I do an occasional podcast (www.tapes-online.co.uk) with a chap called Cameron who also happens to be an exceptionally good illustrator/designer/drawer of ace things (http://twoducksdisco.blogspot.com/).

As you also may or may not know I also do web design outside of the 9-5 (under the title of ‘big things and little things’) and am currently doing Cam a website, I’m also working on a new site for the Jane Tomlinson Appeal (you may remember a mention from an earlier post, but probably not so here it is http://ashmannblogs.wordpress.com/2009/01/19/bike-rides-and-vans/) and a site for my brother who does things like talk about sport (http://tristanmann.wordpress.com).

If anyone else wants a web site doing then drop me a line, i’m an (x)html/css/php chap really.

Oh I am also going to try to keep up my music recommending, today it’s mirador by efterklang from their album ‘parades’ http://hypem.com/track/968772/Efterklang+-+Mirador+Live+ which is bloody lovely, it’s joyful, orchestral, beautiful and generally ace.