Implementing User-Centric Content Platforms

Tactic 2 for influencing stakeholders from Jules Walter: Frame your message from their POV (not yours) It’s more effective to speak their language and demonstrate how your proposal will help them reach their goals, not yours. Stakeholders are focused on their own problems and are more receptive to proposals that address what’s already top of mind for them. A few years ago, when I was leading Monetization at Slack, we began to encounter diminishing returns in our product iterations, and we needed to take a bigger swing to re-ignite revenue growth. To do that, I spearheaded a controversial project to experiment with a new approach to free-to-paid conversion. The CEO, Stewart Butterfield, had strong reservations about the project. I knew from his previous statements that he didn’t want the company to be thinking about ways to extract value from users, but rather ways to create value for them. We had scheduled a review with the CEO and a few of his VPs to discuss the proposal. Since he was intensely user-driven, I framed the entire proposal around the benefits it would have for users (the CEO’s POV) rather than emphasizing the revenue impact of the project (our team’s goal). I started the meeting by anchoring the proposal on user-centric insights that we shared in a deck: - “About 10% of purchases of Slack’s paid version happen from users in their first day on Slack.” - “Paid users find more value and retain better. Yet we make it hard for people to discover that Slack has a paid version that’s more helpful.” - “How do we help new teams experience the full version of Slack from the start?” Once we framed the issue with this user-centric lens, the CEO was more open to our proposal and let us try a couple of experiments in this new direction. This user-centric framing also got the cross-functional team more excited and set an aspirational North Star with clear guardrails, which then enabled various teammates to contribute productively to the project. After we tested two iterations of our monetization experiment, we landed on a version that resulted in a significant increase in revenue for Slack (a 20% increase in teams paying for Slack) and we used what we learned to shift Slack’s monetization strategy into a new, more successful direction. Full set of tactics here: https://lnkd.in/gezP2EDw

I consult businesses for $3K/hour on how to double or triple their organic traffic. Here’s 5 of my best, non-obvious advice for 2025: 1. Start optimising for AI chatbot visibility Over 71.5% of consumers now use LLMs for search to complement Google. • Structure content clearly. Use bullet points, concise intros, and proper H2s so AI can summarize your info easily. • Publish original stats, examples, and expert perspectives. AI prioritizes unique, first-hand insights. • Add schema markup. Use FAQ, How-To, and Product schema to boost AI readability. • Build domain authority with consistent mentions and authoritative backlinks. Chatbots prioritize trustworthy sources. • Monitor citations. Use tools like AlsoAsked, Bing Chat, or Perplexity to see where your brand shows up, and reverse-engineer what works. 2. Create topical clusters Google’s moving from keyword-based indexing to topic-based indexing. That means: • Build pillar pages and surround them with 10–20+ related articles. (depending on topic size) • Cover every question and angle around your niche. (Use ChatGPT or Ahrefs to come up with content ideas) • Link internally in a way that mimics expert knowledge architecture. • Update older pages with new stats, examples, and links to new content to keep your topical coverage fresh. 3. Focus on user-centric SEO Google prioritizes user experience signals now more than ever. • “Last-click satisfaction” tells Google your site ended the search. If users pogo-stick back to the SERP, your rankings are toast. • Format pages to be scannable and easy to read. Use short paragraphs, strong subheadings, and clean layouts that guide the reader's attention. • Prioritize user intent, not just search terms. Understand what the searcher really wants and deliver it fast. 4. Double down on video and visual content 60% of users say they prefer video over text when learning something online. Google knows it. And they’re adjusting the SERPs. To stay competitive: • Embed short-form videos that summarize your content to boost dwell time and increase value for skimmers. • Use VideoObject schema to help search engines index and feature your videos properly. • Add custom visuals, charts, or infographics. They make your content more engaging, reduce bounce, and boost backlinks. • Repurpose blog topics into YouTube videos targeting the same keywords. This doubles your chances of appearing in both search and AI-generated results. 5. Focus on bottom-of-funnel keywords and CRO Informational queries now trigger AIOs 59% of the time. To stay profitable: • Focus on commercial intent keywords like "[product] vs [product]" and "best [product] for [specific need]" (these trigger AIOs only 3-5% of the time) • Maximise revenue from your traffic by testing different headlines, CTAs, and page layouts to improve conversion rates. • Install heat map tools (like Hotjar/Mouseflow) to get invaluable data on user behavior and fix potential friction points.

I got rejected after this Interview answer 💔 Not proud of it. But this one still lives rent-free in my head. Company: One of the top product companies Round: Product Design Challenge Question: Design a feature to help users discover relevant content in our app? What I did: I jumped straight into wireframes. Added a "Recommended for You" section on the homepage, designed some cards with thumbnails and CTAs, picked nice colors, and called it a day. Result: A polite rejection email the next week. Here's what I should have actually done: Before jumping to solutions and wireframes, a good answer starts with thinking. 𝗜 𝘀𝗵𝗼𝘂𝗹𝗱'𝘃𝗲 𝘀𝘁𝗮𝗿𝘁𝗲𝗱 𝗯𝘆 𝗮𝘀𝗸𝗶𝗻𝗴:  - Who are the users? (new users? power users? different personas?)  - What kind of content? (articles, videos, products, connections?)  - What does "relevant" mean? (based on past behavior? trending? personalized?)  - What's the current discovery problem we're solving?  - What are the business goals? (engagement? retention? revenue?) 𝗔 𝗳𝗹𝗼𝘄 𝗹𝗶𝗸𝗲 𝘁𝗵𝗶𝘀: 𝟭. 𝗥𝗲𝘀𝗲𝗮𝗿𝗰𝗵 & 𝗖𝗼𝗻𝘁𝗲𝘅𝘁  - Understand user pain points through data/interviews  - Map the current user journey  - Identify where discovery fails today 𝟮. 𝗗𝗲𝗳𝗶𝗻𝗲 𝗦𝘂𝗰𝗰𝗲𝘀𝘀 𝗠𝗲𝘁𝗿𝗶𝗰𝘀  - What does success look like? (time spent? click-through rate? return visits?)  - How do we measure relevance? 𝟯. 𝗘𝘅𝗽𝗹𝗼𝗿𝗲 𝗦𝗼𝗹𝘂𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻𝘀  - Consider multiple approaches (algorithmic, social, editorial, hybrid)  - Weigh trade-offs of each  - Don't marry one solution too early 𝟰. 𝗗𝗲𝘀𝗶𝗴𝗻 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗘𝘅𝗽𝗲𝗿𝗶𝗲𝗻𝗰𝗲  - Information architecture first, visuals later  - Think about empty states, loading states, error states  - Consider personalization vs. serendipity  - Design for accessibility and inclusion 𝟱. 𝗩𝗮𝗹𝗶𝗱𝗮𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻 & 𝗜𝘁𝗲𝗿𝗮𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻  - How would we test this? (A/B test? prototype testing?)  - What could go wrong?  - How do we handle edge cases? 𝟲. 𝗛𝗮𝗻𝗱𝗼𝗳𝗳 & 𝗜𝗺𝗽𝗮𝗰𝘁  - How does this scale across platforms?  - What's the technical feasibility?  - What's the rollout plan? This way, the solution is user-centered, strategic, and actually solves a real problem.

Many SEO professionals obsess over algorithm changes, & constantly chasing the next update..... This leads to short-term tactics and a never-ending cycle of adjustments. We're so focused on pleasing algorithms that we forget who we're really serving: “The users”. Shift your focus from algorithm-chasing to user-centric content creation. Here's how: 1). Understand your audience: - Analyze search queries - Study user behavior on your site - Engage with your community directly 2). Create content that solves real problems: - Address specific pain points - Provide actionable solutions - Offer unique insights based on your expertise 3). Optimize for readability and user experience: - Use clear, concise language - Structure content for easy scanning - Ensure fast loading times and mobile-friendliness 4). Monitor and adapt based on user signals: - Track engagement metrics  (time on page, bounce rate) - Analyze user feedback and comments - Continuously refine based on what resonates Remember: When you truly serve your audience, the algorithms will follow. It's not about gaming the system, it's about creating value that the system can't ignore. - - - - - - - - – - - - - - - - - – - - - - – - What's your experience?  Have you seen success by prioritizing users over algorithms? Share your thoughts in the comments! 👇 #SEO #ContentStrategy #UserExperience #DigitalMarketing #umelaila

I came across this story on a podcast recently and I really liked its implications for today. Back in the 80s, Ritz-Carlton gave every employee the authority to spend up to $2,000 to solve a guest problem on the spot. It wasn’t about the money. It was about building a system that trusted the people closest to the guest to act. That for me is the prerequisite for true user-centric innovation. So naturally, it made me think: what would that look like in digital product development? UX/Product debt piles up because fixes sit in a backlog waiting for air-time. Teams see the problems firsthand, but the system doesn’t empower them to act. We all notice things that would make a real difference, but then have to burn extra energy lobbying for them to be addressed. So here’s a thought: what if digital product companies built a structured mechanism for it? It can be something along the lines of: • A standing “tiger team” with bandwidth dedicated to tackling UX debt and low-hanging usability wins each sprint • An empowerment budget, not in dollars, but in time & resources, for engineers, designers, and researchers to act when they see an issue • A facilitation loop so friction gets surfaced directly, and the tiger team has the mandate to move fast instead of waiting for quarterly prioritization • Recognition and incentives for those who catch and resolve issues that protect or improve the user experience. This isn’t chaos. It’s designing for agility alongside the long-term product roadmap. This isn‘t a system that just allows fixes. It actively makes space for them and takes it a step further in creating an incentivised system around it. That’s how you combine the power of the entire org and empowering every user-facing node within to reduce UX debt, keep products sharp, and drive user-centric innovation. And funny enough, I was thinking of all of this while looking at the Istanbul skyline and the Ritz-Carlton from a balcony. It‘s a gargantuan block of glass and concrete that completely taints the city’s skyline in one of its most beautiful spots. That might be a good spot for the immediate customers, but definitely not responsible or user-centric in the broader sense. It made me wish we applied the same mindset not just to our own users, but to the broader ecosystem we operate in, whether that’s a city, a community, or an industry. Because sometimes the silhouette you damage isn’t just a product, it’s the whole skyline, see for yourselves in the photo.

Discover the Unexpected Strategy to Elevate B2B Content Marketing: Agile Project Development Through User Stories. 🚀 When companies contemplate incorporating agile principles into marketing, it’s often speed that captures their attention—“Our blogs take too long to publish; let’s implement sprints to publish faster.” 🏃♂️💨 However, the cornerstone they frequently overlook is the basic building block of the agile process—user stories. 📖 User stories maintain an essential focus on the user: Who are they? What are their objectives and motivations? What does their success look like? With these insights, you can tailor development to turn these narratives into reality. ✨ Most B2B content planning neglects the user perspective—why they seek out content, what challenge they aim to overcome. Instead, the starting point is often the company/product/writer’s desire to discuss a topic, such as promoting a new feature or targeting a specific keyword for SEO purposes. 🎯 While there is a place for such content, your core bottom-funnel material will significantly benefit from addressing a user's issue rather than merely filling a content calendar. 📅 And here’s the kicker: often, even if a user story was central to the product team’s development process for a new feature, it doesn’t get passed on to the product marketing team post-launch. As a result, the content defaults to promoting ‘our new feature’ instead of addressing the problem it aims to solve. 🔍 Your Action Points: 1. Educate yourself on crafting compelling user stories in agile. 📘 2. Pinpoint user-content-problems. What is the user seeking to understand, and why doesn’t the existing content address their issue? 🤔 3. Draft some initial user stories and prioritize the most pressing one to tackle first. 🥇 #ContentMarketing #AgileMarketing #UserStories #B2BMarketing #MarketingStrategy #b2bsaas #DigitalMarketing

A new report from FT Strategies and smartocto reveals how newsrooms are increasing relevance, engagement and revenue by focusing on why readers consume news rather than what journalists think is important If you are looking to implement the user needs model, here are the 4 key steps: 🧱 Set the foundations Training staff to understand user needs helps them view content creation from the audience’s perspective. Implementing analytics tools allows you to track how content meets specific user needs. Ongoing monitoring of metrics like page views, attention time and article reads provides valuable feedback for adjusting your strategy. 💎 Define your most relevant user needs Select the needs that align with your brand and audience profile to create content that resonates more deeply. For example, lifestyle publications might focus on inspiring readers, while business publications might prioritise providing perspective. Establishing clear key performance indicators ensures you can measure impact in alignment with your overall goals. 📊 Track and monitor article performance Create a structured tagging system aligned with user needs to assess which content types resonate most with your audience. Use dashboards and notifications to maintain a broad view of content performance across different categories. Generate comprehensive reports that track improvements over time rather than focusing solely on standalone metrics. 🧪 Develop data-driven experiments Form hypotheses about which combinations of user needs, topics and formats work best for your specific audience. Test adjustments to your content mix based on engagement data to refine your approach. Set monthly goals for content output aligned with your key performance indicators to track progress consistently. Read the full piece here: https://lnkd.in/emqbeE8h

Do you sometimes feel frustration, as you are building a product to get the management off your back, rather than address the users? Here are 6 ways to become user-centric again: 1) Prioritize in a transparent way This is a great place to start. If your backlog is prioritized based on data and potential opportunity, risk, and cost, it will be easier to put forth user-centric initiatives ahead of those that came from upstairs. At the very least, you will have a good basis for an educated discussion. 2) Utilize users' perspective using user stories and personas If your team understands the users and their problems, it will be easier to craft something great that will later appeal to the same users. Just keep up the empathy of creating something by people for other people, and not get some metric magically go up! 3) Understand user problems If everyone in the company can see the themes that come from user feedback, it will be way harder to ignore it in favor of some corporate nonsense. Let those voices be heard by everyone! What if there are 100,000s of voices? Here is where this post's partner comes in: Productboard , and their new release: Productboard Pulse. It's a powerful new tool you can use either as a standalone solution or to elevate your work within an existing Productboard product management suite. This new AI will help you make sense of all the feedback and comments, quickly transforming them into actionable, user-centric tasks. Check out the comments for more details :) Now, back to the post: 4) Have the NPS and user ratings at the forefront The same goes for a single metric representing the general product sentiment. If the number is low or, worse, is going down and everyone can see that, the responsible Product Manager has to react. 5) Focus on your product goals Now, upstairs mandates might not be the only distraction you face when trying to improve your product. To survive them all, focus on one thing: your product goals. This will allow you to demonstrate you are doing what you are asked for and you can use user feedback and points 1-4 to pursue those goals. Thus, it's like killing 2 birds with 1 stone. However, you can also simply: 6) Have the confidence to say "No" Not all company/legal/management requests can be ignored. Sometimes changing the law or a wider company initiative will require you to comply and that is OK! However, there will also be times when someone will try to force your compliance. This is where you need to be confident, and exercise your Product Manager's independence, especially when there is no data to support a specific request. There you go! My 6 ways you can become a user-centric Product Manager. Do you put your users first in your product? Sound off in the comments! #productmanagement #productmanager #usercentricity

While auditing content for an Entrepreneurship course at UNSW Arts, Design & Architecture I discovered a secret. The secret to enhanced user-centric innovation: We often get "stuck" with what we're taught, and this sometimes affects how we think. We all learn about Design Thinking as a standalone tool, but there's MUCH MORE to it. Integrating Design Thinking, Lean UX, and Agile methodologies creates a powerful framework for driving user-centric innovation. Here's how it works: → Design Thinking: for deep empathy and problem definition → Lean UX: for rapid prototyping and validation → Agile: for iterative development and delivery ... And what happens when each is missing? • Without Design Thinking = "Misunderstanding" • Without Lean UX = "Wasted Effort" • Without Agile = "Stagnation" Combining these methodologies offers a holistic approach. Concept Exploration + Iterative Experimentation = Needs-and-Pain-point Discovery The initial stages emphasize brainstorming and prioritizing insights, leading to hypothesis formation that guides subsequent experiments. Continuous experimentation allows for the revision of hypotheses based on real user feedback, creating a dynamic loop of learning and adaptation. Here's how to integrate them: 1/ Design Thinking: Start with empathy. Understand your users deeply before defining the problem. 2/ Lean UX: Prototype quickly. Validate your ideas with real users early and often. 3/ Agile: Iterate. Develop in short cycles and adapt based on feedback. As teams build and explore new ideas, they foster collaboration across disciplines, leveraging diverse perspectives to refine solutions. This integrated framework not only enhances the customer experience but also drives sustainable growth. This helps founders ensure they remain competitive and relevant in their respective industries. George Dr. Kelsey Burton Yenni 👀 LESSGO!

Your customers scroll past 500 posts a day. Boring corporate content isn't getting their attention. Human content is. People are being spammed to death. Cold emails, Cold calls, LinkedIn pitches from strangers. It's harder than ever to reach people. But content consumption is as high as ever. So give your customers what they actually want: Useful, interesting, fun content that brings your brand to life. B2C brands figured this out years ago. Duolingo's unhinged TikToks. Ryanair roasting customers. None of it looks perfect. All of it works. B2B companies are still stuck in 2019. Snoozefest product updates, unactionable whitepapers and webinars. Here's what to do instead: 1. Employee-Generated Content (EGC) Exec perspectives, your team filming day in the life videos, product demos on their phones. People trust employees/execs over impersonal content every time. How to implement: • Get your execs posting consistently (work with someone like me to help) • Recognise employees who post in all-hands meetings • Monthly incentives for team members getting the most reach Example: Zapier, beehiiv, ClickUp 2. Creator-Generated Content (CGC) Creators making branded content that doesn't feel like ads. Tutorials, breakdowns, recommendations that fit naturally into their feed. How to implement: • Partner with educators already talking about your space - they have more influence than entertainers • Let them create content that looks like their existing content Example: Zapier, Gamma 3. User-Generated Content (UGC) Real customers sharing real pain points and results. Think before-and-afters and "Here's how I actually use this" videos. This converts because it's proof, not corporate promises. How to implement: • Feature customer posts on your company page • Build program tiers that reward UGC with early access or perks • Make them look good when they share your content You don't need the biggest ad budget to win here. The ones who are winning are building content systems - around their team, creators and customers. 📌 Want help implementing this? Send me a DM ♻️ Repost to help your network win at marketing in 2026. ➕ Follow me (Will McTighe) for more like this.