Best content strategy links of the week, December 20

This week: Could silos be good for your business? improving your IA, content after Hummingbird and the best branded Vines of 2013. The 15 best branded Vines of 2013 ‘Tis the season of end of year reviews and this one by Econsultancy is pretty good. Got to love the ‘Ian McKellen meets Gandalf’ one below. Mckellen is having a lot of fun on social media these days so expect more great gaffs soon!

And here’s another superb Vine…

How I Got My First 250 Google+ Followers Honest account by Rick on how he ramped up his followers on Google+. Well worth reading for the tips here…

Radio Times launches new iPad app Worth checking out if you haven’t already. Interesting use of the navigational wheel on the right hand side. A few improvements needed but I think they’ll be able to tweak these very quickly.

Meanwhile…

Here’s how @MailOnline and @Guardian perform against @BuzzFeedUK and @UsVsTh3m on Twitter: http://t.co/Z3Xg60ZwVS pic.twitter.com/g0LdKJIqBT — TheMediaBriefing.com (@mediabrief) December 17, 2013

What Actually Makes Things Go Viral Will Blow Your Mind. (Hint: It’s Not Headlines Like This.) Choice quote of the year….

“Clickbait” — overselling content with outrageous headlines in order to get people onto a website — is a totally viable (if totally annoying) way to get a bunch of initial views. But it doesn’t create viral content. By far the most important factor in getting people to share a post is the actual quality of the content in the eyes of the community. To share, they have to love what they see.

And that’s the reason we focus on quality over quantity. We gauge quality on three things:

1. Is the content substantive, engaging, and maybe even entertaining?

2. If 1 million people saw it, would the world be a better place?

3. Does the content actually deliver on the promise of the headline?

Avoid Category Names That Suck Hoa Loranger reminds us: “Categories and hypertext act as signs and should give people a strong indication of what will happen even before they click on the link. People avoid clicking on unknown items or, even worse, ignore them all together.”

Content marketing the Google Hummingbird way Michelle Hill gives us an excellent overview with some really easy to get demos. Nice discussion kicking off in the comments as well…

How ‘Vertical Silos’ Can Lead to Better Content Marketing Strategies Nice article by Patrick Hayslett presenting a spin on this common discussion in content strategy.

I’d love to hear your views on any of the content strategy links above so please get involved in the comments below!

#contentmarketing #seo #google #socialmedia #ia #video #vine #mobile #hummingbird