Don’t Break Your Content Promises

When your organization generates blog posts, email marketing, RSS feeds and other opt-in content, you essentially make a promise to your audience. You tell them what they’ll receive (and give them a preview, if possible), how often they’ll receive it and why they should trust you.

As in life, broken content promises can ruin relationships. Here’s an example:

It’s no secret that Sundog’s hometown has a love/hate relationship with our temperamental friend, the Red River. During the stressful 2009 “flood event” (as local leaders like to call it), one city unveiled a flood blog on its website.

Although most posts were recycled press releases, I subscribed to the RSS feed. If nothing else, it meant I didn’t have to rely on local media to get the latest alerts and information.

After the flood ended, I assumed the blog would be used to deliver updates on cleanup, long-term flood mitigation and related topics. While the blog has met that expectation, I have also received:

• Construction updates
• Mosquito spraying dates (another reality in our world)
• Police reports
• Fireworks law reminders
• Street closures

And that’s where the content promise was broken. Am I interested in the other topics? In some instances, yes. But it isn’t what I signed up for, and the content source has lost credibility and focus.

The city likely wanted to maintain the blog following that was built during the flood. That’s a worthy objective. But even a small tweak to the content promise can weaken your following and create frustration.