Moderators
Krista Halvorson, CEO Brain Traffic
Melanie Moran, Vanderbilt
Before this session, I was convinced that other schools had the answers to the social media and Web content quandries. Turns out that most of those in the meeting, including Vanderbilt, struggle with similar issues: information and work silos, media team players focusing on many responsibilities and too many communication outlets without focus.
Tips from this session:
Metrics: Pick the metrics you want to track before someone else picks them for you. Present those metrics on a one page sheet, once a week. These might include the top 5 stories on our site for the week, number of twitter followers, FB likes, engagement stats -- pick those things that are most helpful. For example, Vanderbiilt's campaign focus for the Web is positioning itself as a top research institution. They choose metrics that help them see how and where this message is reaching the audience by seeing who is reading the stories and clicking the links.
Content: Vanderbilt is creating its content based on its key message goals and pushing the same content out to sites with different looks based on audience - alumni, parents, faculty/staff, admissions
Field of Dreams: If you build it, they will not necessarily come. Be strategic, stay focused, use resources wisely and include other people outside the news group in discussions
Tags: Tag stories with the name of research funding organizations to make it easy to search, ie, NSF etc.
Create your own identity as an office: Referring to departments as clients helps clarify that the communications office is a content adviser not content producer. Consider the role of content therapist...listen to find out what's working for clients and what's not. The news office is not a store.
Identify issues: Is it a people problem (one that requires the content therapist role) or a tools problem
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