How Corona changes the reality of life & thus the work of content teams

– Reading Time: 3 minutes –

How is the corona pandemic changing the way content teams work? How is user behavior changing and how do content teams react to it? I have asked these questions to some editorial teams. Answers were given by hmmh, K-Mail-Order (Klingel), News.de and uNaice.

Home office is no challenge for content teams

Andreas Wenninger from uNaice has been working for years with employees throughout Germany, all of whom work from their home offices. “This is nothing new for us and with AX Semantics we rely on a SAAS solution for our work”.

Philipp Kruse from hmmh says after a phase of getting used to it: “Due to our independent working method and the consistent use of collaborative communication methods, we have already digitalized many processes anyway. This allows us to work decentralized without any problems and to be approachable for our customers as usual. What’s new for us is that it’s no longer just a few colleagues working in the home office, but everyone.

Klingel started with a two-day experiment in the home office model and made the experiment the new standard, according to Sascha Fritsch, K-Mail-Order. There are also new rules: “For communication within the team and also for dealing with each other as a team, we have defined a few simple rules. Things as simple as ‘Good morning together’ or ‘Goodbye’ are written in Slack by everyone – analogous to entering / leaving the office. We do a 30-minute daily at least once a day to pick each other up on the latest topics.”

Dominik Liebsch from the News.de editorial team relies on several tools in the home office: “My colleague and I are in the home office and do a daily at 9 a.m. every morning, either by phone or via Google Hangout as a video conference. It’s good to see each other in between and not just to hear. In between, we exchange information about slack and e-mail, and we have a shared JIRA board as a backlog for our workload. This works great, since everything is web-based. Now we just have to hope that the internet won’t break down.

Events digitalized at short notice

hmmh has transformed the AX Meetup in Munich, planned for April, into a zoom conference. Kruse: “There are only two possibilities. Either we cancel the event or we consistently rely on digitalisation. We have decided to let the Meetup take place virtually via Zoom. This is also a new experience for us, but we are open to it. In the time after Corona, this can be a promising format for us.

Corona changes user behaviour

At News.de the corona content does not yet really play a role, Fritsch: ” Concerning user behaviour, we benefit less from the high search interest to everything that has to do with Corona, since we have a completely different focus at News.de. But of course, Corona is also bringing us good traffic at the moment and the editors are trying to benefit from it as much as possible. For our Robo-Texts the topic is not (yet) relevant, if so, then perhaps rather in a negative way, since football matches are currently suspended and we generate automated football content.”

Companies start adapting their content

uNaice adapts the text concepts to the corona pandemic. Wenninger: “We have developed strategies for addressing users for our customers. With adapted texts we respond to the changing information needs of our customers. We have achieved initial success with three existing customers.

In Metro’s restaurant website, users are informed in the restaurant texts about the delivery service and the obligation of drivers to wear gloves and protective masks. Wenninger: “With text automation, this can be done in a few days.”

For Otto and Schäfer-Shop the product texts are supplemented by the following facts:

• All products completely available
• No delays
• No skin contact of employees with products or repackaging of orders

Klingel is also focusing on explanation in the product descriptions with the help of text automation and wants to better inform buyers and meet the needs of users with adapted texts.

Adapting the offer to the current life situation of the users

• Create a home office product category to equip users according to their current situation.
• Draw attention to comfortable homeoffice outfits.
• Create a product category for gardening or the house interior design. Finally the users have time to take care of it.
• Sell all kinds of leisure products for the home, such as DIY activities, reading, puzzles and games.
• Send an inspirational newsletter with ideas for the time at home in combination with products.
• If special promotions such as discounts or free delivery are implemented, it is important to respond to them with text.

All in all, this means: It is important that content teams write their texts now in relation to the current realities of their readers’ lives in order to pick them up fully. This can be done particularly quickly with automated content writing.