Separating content from presentation – social media style

As a recovering web developer, I am very acutely aware of the best practices of separating content from presentation. The other night at the social part of the Mile High Social Media Club, I was talking with some folks about semantics and web standards, and it occurred to me that this same nuance extends to the social media space.

In a meeting the other day, I was asked about which social media channels a client should consider. I asked what their message was, what they wished to share.

Just as a developer would first determine the content, and then decide the optimal means of delivery, so too it is in social media. The most obvious example is if your content is text, a youtube channel is not an appropriate delivery channel.

As a developer at LexisNexis, we didn’t always know the specifics of the content. We had general types of content, say briefs, legislation, etc. Semantically, though, we could describe the content type and determine how to present it. This is the same magic that’s behind RSS and APIs.. it’s a contract between the content creator and the content ‘displayer’ so even without knowing the specific content, it can be presented in an appropriate fashion.

Beyond the specific content items themselves, we can also use this analogy to decide what social media channels to explore. Many folks think they need blogs. But is the content appropriate? Is it information that can be presented in a linear fashion, and updated on a regular basis? If not, your presentation and content may be in conflict. Pigs are fantastic, intelligent animals, but as we all learned from the Muppet Show, they get a little creepy when you try to make them pretty. Don’t bury your message by trying to present it in an conflicting fashion.

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