Why your content should have ‘purpose’

All marketers know that it isn’t enough to simply push any old content out into the ether and hope for the best. All content that represents your brand or company needs to have something to resonate with your customer base; and that something is ‘purpose’.

At the recent Together We’re Better (TWB) Conference in London, Bea Karol Burks, CDO of Tinder Foundation, spoke about generating content with purpose, drawing on her experience from working with Citizens Advice as well as in her current role.

At Citizens Advice, Burks was faced with a high volume of people who came to the site looking for information. They could be stressed, concerned or highly emotional so making content accessible and informative was crucial.

“People ask for help with work at 3pm, and divorce at 3am,” said Burks. “Keeping your content focused and simple is key.”

We can all get caught up with making things look sleeker and using all the technology available to us, however this exercise proves how vital content still is

Understanding the language of your users is pivotal, “for all of us in this room,” she continued, as “going online is part of our lives. We feel comfortable finding the information we need, however it’s important not to make any assumptions about what’s obvious or not to users.”

At Tinder Foundation (the digital inclusion charity), Burks deals with people of all ages with a limited digital vocabulary, which means that learning what they need and what content they respond to is extremely important.

Content is ‘vital’

“We recently ran a focus group with novice web users, who moved past web page prompts, such as the tool bar, to read the content in order to understand how to navigate the page,” she explained.

“We can all get caught up with making things look sleeker and using all the technology available to us, however this exercise proves how vital content still is.”

Creating great content is a team game; it takes content designers, copy writers, subject matter experts, developers, researchers, users and having the right governance and workflows in place.

“By involving all these elements, charities can focus their digital content, ensuring that every element has a purpose. This user driven approach can dramatically change the impact that charities have.”

TWB Conference

The TWB Conference brought together speakers from Google, Buzzfeed, charity: water, The Guardian, Breast Cancer Care, Charities Aid Foundation and Tinder Foundation to talk about how technology had shaped their strategy – including on topics such as marketing.

According to Lauren Lennard, TWB Conference director: “We’re always looking at ways we can enhance our community and make it work better,” continues Lauren. “Alongside our events programme and resources on our website we’ll soon be introducing a mentor scheme, where we’ll be inviting members to guide others within the community on how they can influence organisational change, drive innovation and benefit society through design and technology.”

Together We’re Better currently run four events per year and will launch a more ambitious events programme for 2017 in line with the new brands.