Personas affect content!

I wrote a post today on the importance of defining personas — it’s on our strategy blog at Viget.com — but didn’t really explain the particulars of this process and its affect on content.

Of course, when you understand your audience, you’re better prepared to WRITE for them. Maybe this is common sense. But what’s unfortunate is when, for example, bloggers at big companies try to leverage a new (informal) social media tool but use the same, stiff, informational voice observed throughout their traditional marketing sites.

When we define a persona at Viget, we think about how that user wants to interact with the site. Inherently, we have to consider the content — how does that user literally want to be spoken to with words in addition to the design and development features that marry for a pleasant user experience.

I’ve talked about a couple ways to stand out from the crowds by capitalizing on some crucial real estate — the about page, error pages, for example — and understanding your audiences is still a part of being able to craft really smart copy for these areas.

Anyway, check out the post in its entirety (with a pretty example, too) for more specifics.