We commonly associate web analytics (including Google Analytics) with web governance and measurement, using it to evaluate content performance and user interaction post website launch. But web analytics can do more than report progress: it can inform process. A lot of content work happens before we have a governance plan in place, including content research and discovery. We need to understand business objectives and website goals, who our users … [Read more...]
A Content Strategy Approach to Online Crisis Communications (Part Two)
August 31, 2011 by
Last week, we began discussing how to approach crisis communications planning from a content strategy mindset, ensuring that we will be able to effectively publish our most "useful, usable content" when it is needed most. I outlined core communications principles that apply during a crisis and addressed how to plan roles and resources and how to structure messaging. Today, let's dig deeper into our channels and how to manage them during a … [Read more...]
A Content Strategy Approach to Online Crisis Communications (Part One)
August 24, 2011 by
The most important communications plans at our universities are the ones we hope we never have to use. These are our plans for crisis communications, to be activated when a threat is posed to the health and safety of our campus community. Nowadays, these plans revolve heavily around electronic communications. Many universities shifted their crisis communications planning into high gear following the fatal shootings at Virginia Tech in 2007. … [Read more...]
Content Strategy Aid for Financial Aid
August 23, 2011 by
For students and their families, financial aid is potentially one of the biggest sources of stress and concern. If we can make any aspect of this complex process easier, we should -- and that includes the web experience. At this year's eduWeb conference, J. Todd Bennett and Adam Forrand of decimal152 broke down the process they went through to overhaul the Ithaca College Student Financial Services Website. They took the website down to the … [Read more...]
Save the Date
August 5, 2011 by
An editorial calendar is invaluable in ensuring up-to-date, well-organized, on-task content. But to make it work, you can't just use an Excel template you found via Google and call it a day. An effective editorial calendar, says Brain Traffic's Melissa Rach, has to be customized to match both the purpose and the prioritized particulars of your content. While it requires a bit of work up front -- and, as we wrote about earlier, an editorial … [Read more...]