Quoted in PR Week about content strategy for screenless tech

It’s all about context for your content.

PR Week: Content has a new voice :

As well as enabling content to be consumed in new ways, screenless tech also allows it to be created differently. Weber Shandwick recently created a WordPress plug-in for Google Glass that enables users to create visual content using voice commands, which uploads to blogs.

“Because this is a text-based world, we are accustomed to seeking content through set structures and having it returned the same way,” says Greg Swan, SVP of brand innovation and digital strategy at Weber. “If I want to know where to get a cup of coffee in Rochester, NY, I will search, ‘coffee, Rochester, NY,’ and assume I can find my answer in the first few results.”

“However, screenless tech creates a different interplay,” he adds. “Interacting with Siri, for example, requires a different taxonomy for organizing and creating content.”

Swan says this doesn’t mean text-based content will disappear, but the adoption of screenless tech will mean it will be amplified by context, just as video and images have complemented text-based content in recent times. Many content creators have attempted to meet the surge in smartphone usage by making mobile-first content or repurposing existing material for smaller screens. However, they should be mindful of the time spent producing content for a specific channel or device, only to find that a new one comes out.

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While these technologies have kinks to iron out and current adoption rate is still low, keeping on top of innovation means content creators will not have to play catch-up nor see the masses of content they produce now ending up on the scrap heap.

But they should embrace change, rather than fear it. As Weber’s Swan puts it: “The skill is lifelong learning, because everything that changed will change again.”