According to Wikipedia a mantra is ‘a sound, syllable, word, or group of words that is considered capable of creating transformation’.
Here are the ten most useful mantras I have heard recently, from people working at the sharp end of digital:
1. Put users and their needs first
2. Go to where your audience are
3. Listen, then engage
4. Measure engagement, not traffic
5. Content is king
6. Only start digital activity that you can sustain…
7. …and have a plan for leaving
8. JFDI
9. Fail fast
10. No I can’t make a PDF, you need the IT help desk
Capable of creating transformation, or contradictory cliches? Taken collectively and applied consistently, I reckon they could transform our approach to digital engagement (including number ten).
What do you think?
Image courtesy of http://www.flickr.com/photos/hugovk/
Re #4 Measure engagement, not traffic. Agree traffic is not the key measure and engagement is more important, but if you don’t look at users’ behaviour and how they arrive at your web estate, then you can’t besure of putting user needs first.
Posted by Peter Jordan (@peterbjordan) | June 8, 2012, 23:38Good point, Peter. I guess #1 and #4 overlap a little. The point with #4 is that we can’t celebrate success on the basis of lots of visits lasting a matter of seconds. But, as you say, if the traffic tells us something about where visitors arrive from and where they go, that is useful.
Posted by Tim Lloyd | June 9, 2012, 13:06One suggested addition from me…
Align your work to agreed business objectives.
E.g. Don’t work furiously on mental health content if your organisation’s objective is to increase cancer awareness, diagnosis and treatment. They are hard decisions, especially when you have personal favourites, but they make it possible to show you and your teams’ worth to the board and enable you to use your finite capacity to help the business as much as possible. QIPP your heart out.
Posted by Alex Talbott | September 23, 2012, 13:39Reblogged this on attdigital and commented:
Here’s a post from Tim Lloyd that I keep coming back to. I find it extremely useful to remember these when starting a new digital project or even just when deciding on what to tweet.
Number 7 is always the one I need reminding. Number 9 is often entirely alien to the NHS.
I’ve printed the list out and have it on my desk at all times. I’d recommend you do the same.
Posted by Alex Talbott | September 23, 2012, 13:41