social media, social networking, and social relevance in tech comm

Conversation and Community

Social Media, Social Networking, and Social Relevance in Tech Comm

Anne Gentleanne.gentle@rackspace.com

Technical Communicators Association

of New ZealandOctober 2012

I believe in community

Flickr: seier+seier

I am… a Content Stacker

OpenStack – Open Source Cloud Computing

Rackspace – Fanatical Support in all we do

Our hero

Not always a technical writer

Wanting to make an impact▪ 72% of companies

use social technologies

▪ Writers are user advocates

▪ Need a plan and execution

Welcome to now

Never before have we had tools for media, networking, and relevance that help us meet our goals

How do we harness the power of the social web for documentation?

Flickr: thegentles

Guess what? I have ideas.

Definitions in context

Social media

Social networking

Social relevance

Sharing content, feedback loops, discussions, and destinations

Gather information by interacting with your audience and users

Collaboration, resource sharing, sharing goals

Meeting the challengesFlickr: marc_smith

Social media: lessons learned

Comments and workflows

Close the loop Track doc bugs

that are reported in the comments

Flickr: myklroventine

Commenting tools

Personas Commenters Readers Moderators Administrators

Comments and experience

Why not mobile first or mobile only?

Consider immersive experiences

Consider when and where you search – from your phone?

Responsive web design examples: http://mediaqueri.es/

Comments and translation

Comment in their language

Build communities locally

Think: is English the “source” or another language?

Categories of comments

Many comments at once to gain further understanding

Pointing out typos or small errors in code

Want specific examples and specific help

Request for a particular feature

Flickr: theilr

Social networking: lessons learned

Twitter

BE HELPFUL, SHARE LISTEN, MONITOR

Facebook

INFORM RESPOND

Networking and data

Listen where users are; select channels

Mine data gold Daily/weekly blog

searches Career- and job-

related searches Get to know

community content members Anne Gentle

Social relevance: lessons learned

Slogging through the slushpile

Think like an acquisition editor

Everyone’s a writer (but not all of them have a coach)

Files as the basis are key to treading docs like code

Flickr: gruntzooki

Timing and cadence

Originally had three month release cycles

Design Summit in-person meeting April and October

Now six month release cycles with milestone releases

Flickr: plenty

Contributors and newbies

Devs write for devs Admins write for

admins This is a complete

turnaround for me Some people can

only review (and it’s not worthwhile to convince them to write)

Flickr: kholkute

Marathon, not a sprint

• 66% Site visitors stay instead of leaving

• 100 Doc patches and reviews a month

• 10,000 unique visitors a week

• 6 months before commenters answered each other

Flickr: dno1967b

Amazing stories

• Logged doc bug in afternoon, came in to a fix the next day• Glossary out of “nowhere” from a wiki page starting point

Analytics: readers

Bam. Site Launch.

Analytics: contributors

Doh. Release date.

Hey! Release date!

Play a role

Acquisition editor Web stats analyst Writing coach Project manager Bug

tracker/triager Editor Advocate Writer

Summary

Media: Encourage conversation Networking: Listen and learn Relevance: Build a team and

community Iterate repeatedly

Questions?

Anne Gentlewww.justwriteclick.comanne.gentle@rackspace.com

@annegentle

www.facebook.com/conversationandcommunity

www.linkedin.com/in/annegentleFlickr: candelabrumelabrumdanse