Inclusivity in Content: Lessons From Airbnb’s Content Strategy Manager, Holly Hetherington
Quick takeaways from Holly on how to make content that earns the trust of users when engaging them in sensitive topics including mental health and beliefs around their personal safety.
A few weeks ago, I wrote about the content strategy insights that stuck with me from Nicole Fenton after her talk at a Content Strategy Meetup.
Two weeks later, Huge hosted another content meetup featuring Holly Hetherington of Airbnb to share her unique content insights. In an effort to improve content strategy at my own company and to connect with others who produce great content, I’m summarizing my most notable takeaways from her talk on creating inclusive and thoughtful experiences.
Before we dive in, we’ll take a look at Holly’s background.
The Speaker: Holly Hetherington
Previously at Facebook, Holly worked on suicide prevention, where she helped shape Facebook’s communications to those who signaled a possibility of ending their lives (you can learn more about her project here).
At Airbnb she worked on the Community Commitment experience, in which users were asked to make a commitment to not discriminate against accepting home-stay offers. The initiative was created to help prevent discrimination, and also supports their tagline, “belong anywhere,” (you can learn about this project here).
Her learnings from both of these projects acted as the foundation for her talk at the Content Strategy Meetup hosted at Huge’s offices in New York. Here’s what I found most interesting.
How to Make Content More Inclusive
- Don’t let go of the people who have shown interest in your product but are not taking action. Find out why. (“Know your edge cases.”)
A portion of Airbnb users did not sign the community commitment — an agreement that means users will not discriminate against any visitors. While it could’ve been easy to neglect the experience of the group that did not sign the agreement and only focus on those who did, Holly explored who was not signing and why.
To do so, she used non-judgmental language to learn more about why some declined the agreement. Those who weren’t signing didn’t all have an intention to discriminate; in some cases, single female hosts expressed they felt unsafe accepting any males to stay in their Airbnb accommodations. Airbnb has made some exceptions for these hosts and others, Holly says, which demonstrates the importance of her last point on this topic; leave the door open at the end of the day, because it’s not about shame, but about hope and change of opportunity.
2. Listen without agenda.
Don’t listen with judgment. Listen and ask more questions.
3. Avoid labels.
This might have been my favorite insight of the night.
“Avoiding labeling is one thing you can do immediately to make your experience more thoughtful and inclusive,” Holly said.
This was important particularly for copy that pertains to sensitive topics. For example, she learned that people who were struggling with an eating disorder can be in denial, so instead of using language that explicitly talks about seeking help for eating disorders, using language that asks if someone is hurting, or that simply addresses underlying suffering, can be more effective.
4. More sensitive, more context.
The more sensitive the issue, the more need for context. This means more words are okay in web copy around topics or information that can cause stress.
5. It’s okay to remove your brand from the center of the story.
Airbnb put up a new banner with a header for their campaign around social good that said, “join us.” Seemingly harmless, right? It acts as a “call to action,” — that’s drilled into every marketer — but it also puts Airbnb at the center of the story. They eventually removed the phrase and instead used the space to focus more on the community they were serving. By giving their community a louder voice, they established more trust and respect.
That’s all for now! Want to talk content for fun? Leave a comment or get in touch! @JessicaSchimm.
