Overview: Communications Tactics

The EC set up Drop’pin to help young people find training, apprenticeship and intern opportunities across Europe. I did some content marketing (blogging, enewsletter, social media support) and developed a global CRM strategy.

for an actual brand, developer or publisher wondering if they should do an app or a website, I generally answer that the calculation is much simpler and less technical: Do people want to put your icon on their home screen? ... If you don't have that relationship, then all the clever things ... are irrelevant and your strategy should focus on the w…

By 2016, most content will be consumed ... on other people’s platforms... Snapchat Discover, Facebook Instant Articles, and Apple News... Google AMP is coming soon, and it will provide an Instant-like experience for not only Google users but also those using Twitter, Pinterest, and other platforms

In recent years, a core group of commenters have helped to transform The New York Times for the digital era. Their voices have enhanced our journalism, offering new information, insight and analysis on many of the day’s most pressing issues.These frequent commenters have also become a community, one that has its own luminaries.But who are they? We…

for anyone outside Facebook’s Partner Publisher network, the new feature can be somewhat confusing.

I went back and looked at all the stats of past UX Design Weekly issues ... and pulled out the most popular user experience design articles, tools, resources and media from the past year based on clicks and shares

it’s now perfectly clear that mobile is the future of technology and of the internet. But within that, there's a huge range of different themes and issues, many of which are still pretty unsettled.  I outline what I think are the 16 topics to think about within the current generation, and then link to the things I’ve written about them.

we’ve developed mobile apps and online platforms for over half a decade... After working on over 300 such projects, we’ve learned a ton of lessons. Now we’d like to share 6 important insights to help you take your user experience to the next level.

We are a growing community of tens of thousands of creators with tens of millions of readers. Among us are world-class publications like The Daily Dot and The California Sunday Magazine, professionals, educators, and people with stories or ideas worth shaping. We believe digital storytelling is a craft. The ability to design and share your idea yo…

My prediction for 2016 is that distributed platforms and native environments will be more valuable than the traditional homepage.... Apple News and Apple TV, Facebook Instant Articles, Google AMP, Twitter Moments, Snapchat Discover, 360º video and VR, over-the-top TV, chat apps — these are all products, platforms, and programs developed (ish — G…

Our first attempt devoted much of the homepage to a continually updated news briefing. We are dispensing with that briefing today to try something else. Homepages, it turns out, aren’t dead so much as reborn.

The development of the VR industry is not solely based on wearable devices launched by major hardware vendors... growth drive also comes from independent developers ... making apps does not have a high entry barrier

blogs and Twitter drive two-thirds of content flow. Mainstream media has become a catalyst that blogs and Twitter drive. Responsive Experience Tops Responsive Design: ... preparing for 10 types of customers ... you know who they are via their search terms ... content changes to meet their needs. We must know who they are and start building…

the notion of functionality lifting itself out of app silos and being made available as services.... pieces of micro-content and micro-functionality surfacing as cards... a constellation of screens, regardless of whether it’s a desktop, laptop, tablet, phone, watch, or whatever ... an app-based channel for cards... your conversations and the f…

On Thursday night, as part of its ongoing coverage of the shootings in San Bernardino, Calif., The New York Times highlighted reader comments in one of its most prominent digital spaces: The top of its homepage... While Times journalists interact with readers on social platforms, the paper also makes an effort to bring the conversation back to …

While the platform has long been a bastion of visual storytelling, it has also been historically lax with its limitations on gratuitous writing and hashtagging. That all changed today... An epidemic of hashtag fatigue is coming... The first step was de-prioritizing the hashtag in discovery feeds. The next step is burying it in yours... To e…

Imagine taking a team of highly creative people and sticking them in sterile, lowest-cost-per-square-foot spaces, and expecting them to achieve the best work of their lives?... we've been focussing heavily on the design of our work spaces... Chaining people to their desks (or cubicles) is a sure-fire way to kill great ideas and creativity. -…

The GDS was set up to improve online public services but disagreements with the top brass over its ambitions have seen four leaders abruptly resign - Why are senior staff fleeing the Government Digital Service? | Public Leaders Network | The Guardian

Making ‘a net positive contribution to people’s lives’ doesn’t necessarily satisfy investors... it’s possible to imagine regulation that actually expands users’ choices. It doesn’t need to be especially invasive or dramatic, and it would be designed to give users more control over their experiences online... Here are three things we could do…

NYTimes' “verified commenters.”... few hundred people whose comments are posted without moderation can end up dominating the reader commenting system... causes quite understandable resentment among thousands of others...Because they go up first, their comments are almost guaranteed to get the most exposure, “and hence rise to the top and be seen …

Silver is a combination of an iOS app, a Mac app, and a Sketch Plugin that seamlessly communicate with each other to make your mobile design process as smooth as possible - Introducing Silver : Lightweight Mobile Prototyping in Sketch 3 — Startups, Wanderlust, and Life Hacking — Medium

the Instagram experience, with its constant flow of images and text boxes, presented an alternative story geometry that demanded from me new things. Shorter stories... a deeper consideration of photographs and the rich, nuanced ways that words and pictures work together. ... a powerful, unexpected, and mostly underutilized storytelling tool...…

focusing less on how audiences interact with content on the screen but more about how, because of stories, we engage with each other as a community. Less transaction, more relation; less on audience, more on community... in 2003 I launched the initial version of Interactive Narratives ... Finding inspiring multimedia work was one benefit. But f…

Customers today can spot a phony from a mile away, and brand success will require that companies foster real, authentic connections that mirror human relationships... The live streaming revolution will be awkward. It will be messy. It will be funny, and it will be sad. And all of that is exactly what customers want... there’s something pure an…

Things that happen in an instant are mostly bad ... this earthquake or that horrible murder. ... But once you turn to statistics it gets much harder to have a pessimistic story... The kind of maths that people are taught at school focuses on algebra and calculus, which they hardly ever use later in life... You use statistics all the time - T…

Take a look at any successful sales pitch, investor pitch, or marketing message, and you’ll nearly always find the Move... can make your website messaging more engaging, your positioning more powerful, and your product collateral more effective. - Want a Better Pitch? Master the “Move.” — Firm Narrative — Medium

Twitter has an amazing, yet somewhat little-known Advanced Search tool to help you find exactly what we’re looking for. Looking to find your next customers? ... Want to measure the happiness of your current customers? Advanced Search is what you need... some top tips and tricks to help your business win with Twitter Advanced Search. - The Su…

BBC journalists have been told to follow youth-friendly media such as Buzzfeed and Vice by making more “dynamic” and “informal” short videos in which the reporter acts as “a friend” to the viewer... “snappy, energetic” films of between 60 and 90 seconds that will be more popular with viewers watching on mobile phones... 60 per cent of its digit…

People who advocate for comments on social media ... often argue that Twitter and Facebook engender higher-quality discussion in part because commenters are (usually) attached to real names ... [but] Twitter trolls are rampant, too. And a retweet or quick comment isn’t exactly the same as a thoughtful response. So recently we’ve seen a couple o…