Confab Session Wrap: Inside the Groupon Content Machine
Frank Marquardt
Director of Content Strategy : San Francisco
topics:
filed under: Content Strategy
http://tbg.cm/iS6B5q
Groupon (dubbed the “fastest growing company . . . ever by Forbes) offers 500 deals a day in North America in 175 markets. Its editorial voice is well defined, marked by humor. How do they do it? Brandon Copple, Groupon’s managing editor, explains it: Clear goals.
Groupon’s Goals
Groupon’s Goals
- Protect the customer experience
- Protect the Groupon brand
- Ensure deals are fair, transparent, and awesome
Everybody on the editorial team is responsible for making sure deals meet the criteria, and the editorial organization backs them up.
Content for each deal has two objectives:
- Describe the deal
- Entertain (with humor)
Groupon’s Use of Humor
Groupon has broken their editorial model down to something that maybe isn’t science, but aspires to be. The first sentence is humorous; there’s a humor moment in the second graph; there are a couple of more humor moments in the final graph. But: “We carefully limit the humor. It should never be more than 20% of content for a feature.” Why is the humor so memorable? Because it’s so “aggressively weird.”
Groupon has broken their editorial model down to something that maybe isn’t science, but aspires to be. The first sentence is humorous; there’s a humor moment in the second graph; there are a couple of more humor moments in the final graph. But: “We carefully limit the humor. It should never be more than 20% of content for a feature.” Why is the humor so memorable? Because it’s so “aggressively weird.”
They’ve also tried to reverse engineer the humor, seeking common constructs and a write-up anatomy with defined approaches for humor, defining a reproducible formula leaning on techniques that include:
- Personification
- Unusual contexts and consequences
- Absurd misinformation
- Unusual contexts and consequences
- Literalized figures of speech
The Elements of Groupon Style
Hew to web-writing best practices and audience-relevant perspective:
Hew to web-writing best practices and audience-relevant perspective:
- Active, creative language
- 3rd person point of view, minimizing the 2nd
- Show, don’t tell
- Research
Editorial Process Supports Product
Groupon uses an eight-stage process to deliver quality, consistent content, but I missed the description of the first three stages:
Groupon uses an eight-stage process to deliver quality, consistent content, but I missed the description of the first three stages:
- Deal creation
- Image review
- Reviews
- Details—supplement online research, looking for details, condensing those to a brief, informative writeup with sales highlights, humorous lede, something that demonstrates value
- Fact check—verify accuracy
- Voice edit—veteran writer makes sure the voice upholds language, changing out vague language, adding details the writer missed
- Copy edit
- QA
Writing flows one way, weekly emails show productivity, and writers are scored with their average score and how it compares to the group.
Observations
Groupon has the scale that lets them really look closely at the best way to do something. Because they’re churning out content that follows the same basic template, everyday, in so many markets, they’re in a position to really refine their process. Their workflow keeps content moving forward, never back (unlike most print and many online publishers), facilitating speed as well as quality. It’s a great case for how to match editorial process to need. That Groupon’s CEO evangelizes content both within and without provides a foundation for doing content well.
Groupon has the scale that lets them really look closely at the best way to do something. Because they’re churning out content that follows the same basic template, everyday, in so many markets, they’re in a position to really refine their process. Their workflow keeps content moving forward, never back (unlike most print and many online publishers), facilitating speed as well as quality. It’s a great case for how to match editorial process to need. That Groupon’s CEO evangelizes content both within and without provides a foundation for doing content well.
Perhaps the most impressive part of this session, however, was Copple’s transparency about Groupon’s content process.
(Based on a session at Confab 2011: The Content Strategy Conference, held in Minneapolis, MN May 9 – 11.)
