A few days ago I tweeted a link to an article by Brian Solis and received a response from @abbyannette regarding the visual appeal of his site PR 2.0. In the interest of full disclosure: 1) I know Abby, she was a student of mine and I have the highest level of respect for her and her opinion. 2) I don’t necessarily disagree with her statement as I have often thought the same. 3) I have had the pleasure of conversing with Mr. Solis via email and twitter and used is blog as required reading for the social media class I teach.
As mentioned, I didn’t necessarily disagree with Abby but my comment back to her was simply that content and context is king over all else, aesthetics included. She disagreed, @mattgalloway got in the discussion and even a quick tweet from @caleboller was made. I am sure if you look you can find the twitter stream. This, by the way, isn’t what I want to talk about. I want to talk about the impetus of my comment, “content and context wins.”
There is history to this statement and the anger you are about to witness. First of all, I am a content guy. My whole PR career has been about moving people with words. Some days I am good, other days it rains. I have added a variety of tactics to enhance the reception of my words: imagery and design, gestures (some may argue the correct term is gesticulation), even saying nothing until the right moment. I like to think all my tactical efforts are the impetus of a sound strategy.
But there is deeper, more recent history to this statement. I recently met with a prospective client, a nonprofit with a limited budget and an awesome mission. They have a very cool, very aesthetically pleasing, website which is wholly ineffective due to lack of content (not to mention difficulty to navigate). Estimated cost for the website, about $15,000. I hate the people who created this site and I don’t even know who they are. In my opinion, they stole money from this organization. The non-profit didn’t need a cool, pretty site, they needed to create awareness, generate action, provide resources and offer a place where members could share their knowledge. They would have been better off creating a Ning site and simply pay the hosting fees. Take the money they save and invest it in the individuals who will ultimately create the community.
Any PR strategist knows what I am about to say, but most tech teams don’t – words/messages create awareness and actions and, with the exception of a half dollar on the street, most shiny things don’t. Before you jump me saying the issue is navigational, it isn’t. There simply isn’t any content – content to inspire, motivate, solve a problem, etc. and it will be difficult to build it in the current site’s structure.
So let’s get back to content vs. aesthetics. Does a site need content? Yes, without it there is no site. Does a site need to be aesthetically pleasing? Beauty is in the eye of the beholder so that is a difficult one to answer. In my opinion, aesthetics might be important, might even add to the message, but aren’t necessary. Additionally, when it comes to blogs, most of the non-content content (for an example, look to the right of this article) really is about selling ads or selling more of me by way of links to other articles, badges, etc.
A few other thoughts regarding content:
How pretty does a stop sign need to be to convey a message?
How pretty does Wikipedia need to be to solve a person’s query?
How aesthetically pleasing is a page of a paperback book?
What kind of aesthetics does the Kindle offer? Would it be better if it did offer a more aesthetic interface? (wouldn’t it just be a pc then?)
Which would you be more willing to give up on the internet: words or color/design?
How aesthetically pleasing is email? Would it be better if a person’s note offered an “experience”?
Would the content on Brian’s website any less persuasive if it were handwritten with black ink on a white background?
I think you get the idea….
One final point: I’m not saying a website shouldn’t be pleasing to look at. In fact, once content is there, once you have set the stage to achieve all your objectives, with the money you have left over, pretty up the place. There may be value to it. If there isn’t enough money for both, then put your money on content. As my friend @mattgalloway said, “in a bar fight, content will win.”
Let the comments, or should it be called content, begin.
I liked the point you made here.
“They would have been better off creating a Ning site and simply pay the hosting fees. Take the money they save and invest it in the individuals who will ultimately create the community.”
Now more than ever – even good quality content can get lost unless there is some efforts to engage with the people around that subject matter – especially in a two way conversation.
People forget that when a studio makes a movie they invest a huge amount of effort and $ in promotion in the hope that their project will crease some kind of medai buzz and “catch fire” with the public.
Sometimes that investment is more than the cost of making the movie. I always recommend people to allocate an ongoing time & $ budget each week / month to keep engaging with the “strangers, prospects, customers and advocates” trwaling past their website each week.
Designers can add value to the communication process and there are many reasons why this doesn’t happen. It could be lack of strategic direction from the client, lack of budget and many other reasons.
When a designer gets it right it should be part of everything that is good about that content rather than being a distraction or something separate. It should almost become invisible to the extent that it enhances content and strategic elements.
A website should be a snapshot of work in progress not a pretty picture in the middle of a forest where no one goes.
Thanks again for a great read.
Bill: As a PR person, I agree with you — content is king. There has always been tension between writers and designers. The ideal situation is one in which both sides ‘get it’, i.e., the role each plays in creating the most effective message. The key is for the PR/marketing person to drive the train — outlining what the organization wants and needs to achieve, write it out and let the design enhance it. Just because the content is already there doesn’t mean the designer can’t come up with a way cool look. The designers I know like to have the words first so they know where to head. Graphically designing a Web site shouldn’t be any different than a print piece (magazine, brochure, catalog.)
David, we all agree that optimally a site should have with best content with the best possible presentation. The point of the bar fight analogy – and ultimately the point of Bill’s post I think – is that content is always essential while quality aesthetic design design may not be. People will continue to struggle with the worst navigation scheme and the most ghastly font and color selections if the content they need is only available on a single, horribly designed web site.
Does this mean that you should ignore design? Of course not. In fact, when your content has competition, good design may be the difference between success and failure. But without competitive content, no amount of design can make a site successful.
So hypothetically, if a website with great content but lousy design running atop NING got into a bar fight with a $15,000 aesthetically beautiful but content void website, who would win?
Sometimes, 140 just ain’t enough. Thanks for posting Bill.
-Matt
Here’s the problem with the analogy, in my opinion: content and design aren’t in a bar fight against each other–they’re on the same team. If either lacks, it’s a drain on the other.
We agree that solid content is essential. But poor site design can easily get in the way of allowing that content to shine.
Good site design doesn’t mean flashy. It means a design that allows the content to do what it was created to do. That “very cool” site isn’t a good design if it’s not presenting the content effectively.
With so much competition for attention, why create an extra barrier?
As a reader, I have lots of content to choose from, so I can afford to choose the best content that doesn’t make me contend with a bad design to get it.
I guess that post can be filed under “If it should go unsaid, someone should say it”.
People who know your site has good content are going to not only keep coming back themselves, but are going to share what they found using their Twitter, Facebook, etc.
No news with that statement.
I don’t know why people don’t grasp the idea that content is king. Organizations who are doing it right share a lot of the same characteristics: a clear message, content that is updated on a consistent basis and people who understand the overall strategy of the org.
All three are equally important and a breakdown in one means a breakdown in all. With these three in place, traffic will come but when one stops working it can doom the entire campaign.
A clear message comes from understanding your audience and the goals of the organization. Find out what you want to say and who you’re saying it to BEFORE you open your mouth (generate content).
Don’t be a flash in the pan start-up site. Sites like Mashable and Engadget have a stable traffic stream because people know that they will update everyday. The day people go to the site and don’t see new information they’ll stop coming. It’s that simple. One of the most difficult things to get clients to understand is that steady content is required. Too often people don’t want the onus of having to produce content every day and the site or idea dies. (eg. Bill Handy’s utterli page)
Finally, you have to have people who understand the goals of the organization and are willing to work everyday to achieve those goals.
Many of the organizations who are failing in their Social Media goals are doing one if not all of these things wrong. It’s up to a new crop of SM Strategists to learn from the mistakes of the past.
I feel it is only appropriate that I should add to this long awaited content rich blog post.
I will start by saying that I have full respect for the opinion and content that Bill Handy produces (and he is one great teacher, btw). I also highly respect Brian Solis (although I do not know him personally) and his ideas on social media, but it is true, I commented that I was surprised such a social media guru would have a blog (http://www.briansolis.com/) that lacks, in my opinion, quality aesthetics.
I think I may have found myself taking the unpopular side of the coin and dog paddling along to defend my personal love (and the value I see) in aesthetics. I am also sad that because my blog is still in the works you beat me to the post (no content, no aesthetics – abby fail). I digress. As a disclaimer, it should be noted that I am NOT a graphic designer. At all.
1) Content wins. I never said it didn’t and I believe it does. What kind of a pr person would I be!?
2) It’s difficult for some people, especially gen yer’s or those of us who love aesthetics, to get into content when a site is hideous. I am not talking about books, or the way a person dresses, or a stop sign, I am talking about Web only. I recently helped a friend who is designing a Web site for his computer repair company. I will be nice enough to not post that site here, but as a technology company, at first glance there is a sense of quality that should emanate from a Web site – especially if you are touting your skills in the Web world (read includes social media), needless to say his site did not. In it’s archaic and 90s style, I thought to myself, I would not trust this person who touts themselves as any type of a computer expert to fix my computer (especially my MAC!). Any of you computer geeks know that programming and the technical side of computers has little to do with graphics, but many people lump all computer related things together. Ironically, the same day @billhandy @mattgalloway and others began this conversation.
3)Budget does and does not matter. Bill, I am angry with you for that non-profit. My own father fell prey to an overpriced, poorly put together Web site despite my best attempts to steer him elsewhere. Money can buy you a great site, but ultimately if the designers do not know what they are doing and you do not guide them well it will still fail.
4) Simple does not mean not aesthetic. As I mentioned to @mattgalloway, simple is a style itself as google and mac have shown. Throwing pictures on a page (www.cornerbakery.com) that look cool, does NOT necessarily make for an effective Web site aesthetically or in terms of content. Do your research, look around and get other’s opinions who you trust in terms of content, look and ability to navigate. My friends at eyegate media are capable of big flashy sites (see http://5dollarwater.com/ that they created), yet their own is simple, clean and gets the job done (www.eyegatemedia.com – ironically it’s temporarily down, but do take a look when it gets back up soon!).
I will not argue against all the “simple” sites you listed. There are exceptions to every rule. I will say that the old phrase, “don’t judge a book by its cover” applies to this. Yet as we all know, books get judged by their cover before they are ever judged by their content. So why not have a FANTASTIC book with an equally fantastic cover? That is my point. Why would you ever just hope that people can get over your poorly designed cover to take a peek inside when you can lure them in and then further astound them?
As always Bill, great content.