I was reading Small is the New Big by Seth Godin, and I came up wit the following question, “how easy do you make it to consume your content”?
When you build your websites, and publish you content chances are you are pushing out HTML (php, asp and all that other jazz are pushing out HTML), and your probably do some cross browser and platform checking to make sure it renders reasonably similar, or at least degrades gracefully across these platforms, but are you taking it to the next level?
Have you ever tried to view your website on a cell phone? Sure the screen sizes are all different and render a little differently, but have you even tried to look? There are enough Blackberries on the market that you should be checking to see what your website looks like on it. I’ve been with a crackberry addict and had this go wrong, and can tell you it’s important. Want to really be leading edge go XML with device dependant style sheets and you’ll be a few steps ahead of everyone else.
Do you let people get updates via email, how about email updates for comments, despite my initial protests I’m very happy with the results. We live in a world that’s more and more RSS friendly do you give people that format, or are you like a “big” company, who should know better, do you ignore it, more than once? Stop worrying about who’s going to take advantage of you, and be more concerned about who’s going to notice you’re doing something right.
How about video are you giving people an option to subscribe to your videos? With universal search, I’m already seeing results. How about audio, you know there are programs that strip video down to audio with no skill level required and in less than 5 minutes of time invested? Maybe your instructional videos don’t translate into audio only, is there some other content you can provide in that format that does? Remember no one can subscribe to a podcast you aren’t putting out.
For almost every field there isn’t a clearly established leader yet for every medium, you can still make a move and make something happen and create a name for yourself. Stop living in fear of what can go wrong, and just do it.
The easier you make it to consume the data you are publishing by offering it in multiple formats, the more people you are going to have looking to you content in whatever way is convenient for them. In short the more content distribution options you offer the larger audience you can reach.
