The future is social. That’s what Scott Abel, The Content Wrangler, wrote about in a recent article for the STC titled “The Future of Technical Communication Is Socially Enabled: Understanding the Help 2.0 Revolution”. It addresses how social is revolutionizing and ever-changing the help space, what the future of the tech comm role looks like and how tech writers can embrace and shepherd the Help 2.0 revolution. Are you ready?
“The Future of Technical Communication Is Socially Enabled: Understanding the Help 2.0 Revolution” by Scott Abel, is a must read for technical writers, customer support agents, even community managers! You can read the full article on STC.org.
Below are some high level takeaways.
- The old school way of support, Help 1.0 is no longer the acceptable solution. Users are looking for a richer and more engaging experience – are you delivering that kind of experience?
- Help 2.0 is about creating experiences that meet (even exceed) customer expectations. The experience is what’s important here, not just the content.
- Help 2.0 sites are social enabled and differ significantly from traditional help sites. Some of these differences are collaboration, feedback mechanisms, SEO assistance, revenue and sales drivers.
- Socially enabled Help 2.0 support sites include features such as collaborative authoring, membership, user-generated content, content personalization, social incentives, content curation and analytics.
- Help 2.0 influenced support communities and exceptional product experiences are critical business tools which are driving top-line revenue, decreasing support costs and increasing customer satisfaction.
- The emergence of socially enabled support communities will provide technical communicators with a wealth of employment opportunities. Creating support communities that can provide meaningful metrics about content and those who use it will help link our content creation and customer support efforts directly to sales.
This is powerful stuff! Continue reading how you can socially enable your future.
What do you think? Are there any points he missed or you’d like to see elaborated on? Post your feedback in the comments below and I’ll be sure to share them with Scott. He’s in the midst of writing a follow-up article for STC.org next month!
