What is the difference between data, information and content.
At the recent Smart Content conference in New York, I realized that data can have a big impact on your content management practices, but it's often not living up to its potential.
Two weeks ago, I attended the Smart Conference: The Content Analytics Conference, a daylong conference in New York that focused on both the technological advancements in content delivery, as well as the emerging popularity of content strategy.
The Visionaries Panel discussed how they manage data, from analysis to delivery to clients, and how it affects both long and short-term business decisions.The panel was moderated by John Blossom, president of Shore Communications, Inc.They said in Content Strategy: How do we make our content smart.
We don't have a good schematic for how data impacts content managementIt is a good idea to define the critical pieces that affect content strategy before creating one.
The marketing department at a company will tell you 3.99 if you ask what 2+2 means.The engineering department will tell you 4.The accountants will tell you what you want it to be.
A list of questions about why patterns are emerging is required for analyzing data.We may never know for sure how to answer those questions.User behavior data can be used to point out areas where users are having success on a website or failing to use the website.Troubled transitions are giving our users a hard time, so we can fix them.
In the context of this conversation, understanding what the data is telling us is the most important thing.To understand how to make it easier for users to get the content they need, we need to know what is happening on the sites.
Data can't answer every question about our websites.We talk about triangulating data to form a conclusive point, so too, content strategists can use user behavior pattern, social media, and conversion analytics to draw some distinct ideas about why users are behaving the way they are.
Chunks of information are called content.Data gives us information about our users.Information tells us how to make our content better.We know how to manage it.If the data tells us that there is bad content, unclear content or content on the wrong page, we can better manage it.
We want our users to do something with our content.Act on, share, print, copy, understand, analyze, and so on.We have more raw material to understand user behavior patterns because of that action.
What do you do with the data in your organization?Do you have an efficient approach?Are you throwing things over the wall, hoping for the best, because you don't know what your users are doing?We might be able to give you practical suggestions on how to better use your user behavior data.