With 2012 nearly wrapped up, we’re looking ahead. Whether you enjoy creating New Year’s resolutions or not, here are some content goals we hope are on your list for 2013. De-Silo Social Media We may feel like we’ve got this social thing down. We’ve built large communities via Facebook and Twitter, creating great content that spurs tons of engagement. Our student bloggers are going like gangbusters. And we’ve successfully experimented with … [Read more...]
Tracking Content Goals With Web Analytics
November 27, 2012 by
Okay, now that you're up to speed on a goal-driven approach to web analytics for content analysis, let's look under the hood of Google Analytics to see how you can track those killer success metrics (KPIs) you defined. There are many important steps involved in configuring Google Analytics — or any other web analytics tool — to properly record, organize and label data. However, defining your analytics goals is probably the single most important … [Read more...]
Planning for Homepage Content
November 26, 2012 by
If there’s one thing that the infamous XKCD university homepage comic reminded us, it’s that we need to strike a better balance between tasks and messaging on our homepages. And if there’s one thing that the commentary stemming from that comic reminded us, it’s that our homepage is one of the most political entities we will ever manage, and the solutions don’t come easy. But if you think about, there really is no separate homepage strategy, is … [Read more...]
Case in Point: Content Culture at Vanderbilt
November 14, 2012 by
One of the biggest challenges we face in higher ed getting people to buy into the value of content strategy and build support for content across our organization. At Vanderbilt University in Nashville, Tenn., executive director of integrated communications Melanie Moran has rung up a string of successes doing just that. Whether it’s their news site, the 365@VU photo project, the alumni magazine or a recent reorganization, Moran and her team at … [Read more...]
A Web Analytics Framework for Content Analysis
November 8, 2012 by
Last month we kicked off a series of posts on web analytics by discussing the value of web analytics for content measurement. So, now that you're on board with adding web analytics to your content measurement toolkit (right?), let's talk about making use of it. Author Lou Rosenfeld describes two approaches to using web analytics: top-down and bottom-up. Top-down analytics is when you start with a narrow set of goals to identify a larger set … [Read more...]