Re: Request to take survey

[Daniel Friedman <daniel -dot- friedman42 -at- gmail -dot- com>]

I've done in previous jobs social media posts that augmented technical
writing. End users would go to the Facebook page, which was mostly a
promotional channel, posting technical issues / seeking technical support.
This is just how people search for information in this day and age.

While the policy was to refer people to technical support / customer
service channels for support questions, I would provide support alerts
(product updates or notices) that we were posting to the marketing
department to post on Facebook. Usually it would be a brief description
linking back to a more detailed support article on the website, which was
easier to edit, maintain, etc. This helped be proactive about issues that
were coming up in the field without expecting users to actively go to the
website for information.

On Thu, Aug 11, 2016 at 8:20 AM, <mbaker -at- analecta -dot- com> wrote:

> I agree with Chris completely on this. I think there is a broad
> misconception about what "social media" means. Social media is not defined
> by its subject matter. It is a description of media, not content. Social
> media are those media that are conversational in nature. Books and
> traditional websites are not social. They are one way communications. I
> publish, you read. But media like Facebook, Google Plus, Stack Overflow,
> and Twitter are social because I publish and you publish back and we create
> a published conversation.
>
> This is a genuinely new media form of the Internet age. We had
> conversations before, and we had publications, but the nearest we can to
> published conversations was the occasional publication of collections of
> letters. But such publications usually happened long after the letters were
> written and were often one sided -- the letters of the famous person were
> published, but not those of their correspondents. The published
> conversation, then, is a transformative media of our age, and it had
> transformed technical communication as much as any other field. A
> significant proportion of all technical questions that people ask today are
> answered by reference to published conversations in web forums and sites
> like Stack Exchange. Social media is redefining how technical communication
> takes place.
>
> It is true that it is marketing departments who tend to advertise for
> "social media writers". Marketing via social media is arguably a more
> difficult skill than doing tech comm via social media given the potential
> for anything promotional in nature to blow up in your face if people feel
> it is inappropriate or insensitive. Social media writing on technical
> subjects is much less likely to cause scandal, so you are less likely to
> worry about special training or education for tech writers who post about
> how to mangle left handed widgets on stack exchange.
>
> So, "social media writing" should not be taken to mean marketing on
> FaceBook, it should be taken to mean communicating in a conversational
> media about any topic. And by that definition, technical communication has
> a longer history on social media than marketing does, since technical
> communication was the second largest activity on Usenet.
>
> Mark
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: techwr-l-bounces+mbaker=analecta -dot- com -at- lists -dot- techwr-l -dot- com [mailto:
> techwr-l-bounces+mbaker=analecta -dot- com -at- lists -dot- techwr-l -dot- com] On Behalf Of
> Chris Despopoulos
> Sent: Thursday, August 11, 2016 7:37 AM
> To: techwr-l -at- lists -dot- techwr-l -dot- com
> Subject: Re: Request to take survey
>
> Helen asks:In response to what's below, could you explain how "social
> media writing"
> qualifies as technical communications?
> In fact, my company faces quite precisely the issue of "technical writing"
> in a social site.  The community exists to share technical details around
> the use of our product.  There's a life cycle for this writing/information,
> and there's some threshold across which it becomes "curated technical
> writing".  I see something like this:* Discovery -- Customers discover and
> write up usage or issues we couldn't predict* Dependency -- Discovery
> topics reveal dependencies among each other* Generalization -- Dependent
> topics reveal a pattern that can be generalized* Curation -- Generalized
> articles pass through review and are marked as official There are lots of
> issues with technical content on a social site.  Versioning, deprecation,
> accuracy, validation...  At what point can you log a bug against social
> content?  Should you ever log bugs, or will reputation take care of that
> (my thinking is that reputation is inadequate...  Tyranny of the
> majority...  Everybody might think something i
>  s correct when it's actually quite wrong.) At some point, true technical
> writing has to intervene if you want to rely fully on the content.  This is
> my idea of how social media writing can qualify as technical communication.
> ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
> Visit TechWhirl for the latest on content technology, content strategy and
> content development | http://techwhirl.com
>
> ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
>
> You are currently subscribed to TECHWR-L as mbaker -at- analecta -dot- com -dot- 
>
> To unsubscribe send a blank email to
> techwr-l-leave -at- lists -dot- techwr-l -dot- com
>
>
> Send administrative questions to admin -at- techwr-l -dot- com -dot-  Visit
> http://www.techwhirl.com/email-discussion-groups/ for more resources and
> info.
>
> Looking for articles on Technical Communications?  Head over to our online
> magazine at http://techwhirl.com
>
> Looking for the archived Techwr-l email discussions?  Search our public
> email archives @ http://techwr-l.com/archives
>
> ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
> Visit TechWhirl for the latest on content technology, content strategy and
> content development | http://techwhirl.com
>
> ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
>
> You are currently subscribed to TECHWR-L as daniel -dot- friedman42 -at- gmail -dot- com -dot- 
>
> To unsubscribe send a blank email to
> techwr-l-leave -at- lists -dot- techwr-l -dot- com
>
>
> Send administrative questions to admin -at- techwr-l -dot- com -dot-  Visit
> http://www.techwhirl.com/email-discussion-groups/ for more resources and
> info.
>
> Looking for articles on Technical Communications?  Head over to our online
> magazine at http://techwhirl.com
>
> Looking for the archived Techwr-l email discussions?  Search our public
> email archives @ http://techwr-l.com/archives
>



-- 
*Daniel Friedman*
*friedmantechpublications.com* <http://friedmantechpublications.com>
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
Visit TechWhirl for the latest on content technology, content strategy and content development | http://techwhirl.com

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

You are currently subscribed to TECHWR-L as archive -at- web -dot- techwr-l -dot- com -dot- 

To unsubscribe send a blank email to
techwr-l-leave -at- lists -dot- techwr-l -dot- com


Send administrative questions to admin -at- techwr-l -dot- com -dot-  Visit
http://www.techwhirl.com/email-discussion-groups/ for more resources and info.

Looking for articles on Technical Communications?  Head over to our online magazine at http://techwhirl.com

Looking for the archived Techwr-l email discussions?  Search our public email archives @ http://techwr-l.com/archives