Preview version of talk for #LavaCon 2013
How ReelGrrls.com Recovered a Content Initiative Gone Astray: Case Study of Content Audit in the Classroom. Content strategy students partner with nonprofit organize to better understand and improve their digital communications.
14. Reasons to love a competitive audit
@meaningmeasure @LavaCon
15. Choosing your competitors
1 Similar Programs
http://www.spyhop.org/
http://theveraproject.org/
http://www.raincityrockcamp.org/
http://baycat.org/index.php
http://www.bavc.org/
2 Similar Programs Larger Scale
http://ghettofilm.org/
http://williemaerockcamp.org/
http://www.powerfulvoices.org/
http://global-action.org/
http://www.tvbygirls.tv/the_site/home.htm
3 Media
http://wideanglemedia.org/
http://www.feministfrequency.com/
http://mediaandwomen.org/
http://www.wimnonline.org/
http://www.guerrillagirls.com/
4 Not assigned by client, could be interesting
to surprise them
http://girlsinc.org
http://girlscouts.org
http://womanmade.org
http://bethestaryouare.org
http://911media.org
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19. User Journeys
Fund a Filmmaker
Donate
http://www.slideshare.net/mdawnweaver/lavacon-multichannel-content-audit-preview-weaver
@meaningmeasure @LavaCon
52. Thank you, I am Misty Weaver
@meaningmeasure
@content_insight
www.linkedin.com/in/mistymelissaweaver
http://www.meaningandmeasure.com/
http://www.content-insight.com/
Virtual Coffees arranged via
Skype
Google+
@meaningmeasure @LavaCon
Hinweis der Redaktion
Overlap. Let’s run through this case study and leave as much time as possible questions. My main question in this case study is if people new to auditing can produce up with actionable findings. What can an audit do for an organization with low resources.
Case Study What I teach – What the client did with the results. Effective way to teach auditing to 10 weeks, main purpose of my course is graduate students who have experience auditing. “Who should conduct a content audit?” The more people qualified to audit, the merrier.
Multi-channel content auditsGA version, sexy version – you’re here because your content professionals so I figure you want to see the screenshots of spreadsheets. You are in the right room.
Course is CS for IA, undergrad and grad Information School. Library & Information Science. Partner with a nonprofit active channels, content, content problems. Budget, Staff. Feminist Gender Gap 90s
Why I created the class Graduate students who could get out and audit 2 meetings, 2 hours. 1 hour review work through activity, 1 hour cover task ahead.Meetings with client – one-on-ones, interviews, observations, follow-up.
Guerilla Content Strategy. I want to stress that they’ve met stakeholders and determined project goals. They’ve interviewed users and made personas Their next focus is inventory and audit – also, what they can learn about the client and audience from the INTERWEBS. Meaning every channel that we can find. I treat them as interns, Most coverage, most eyeballs but in real-world setting, I would split the work and that takes some strategic thinking.
First have to teach the inventory. JeffreyVeen in 2002. Tedious. Throw you head first into the deep end. Something you have to experience to truly learn. You have to conduct inventories in order to read them and attach many to the spreadsheet columns and data inside. I give them instructions, specific about how the inventory is organized, how their supposed to conduct it (copy and paste), and how much they should include. Sections replicate navigation. Notice the changes in yellow. This inventory was used to identify quick win changes to the website navigation labeling. Notice the numbering system Find orphans and unused channels Size of page Media attached Last updated Crawler
I don’t tell them about Crawlers until they’re done with inventories. Problems with crawlersThere are levels to quantitative inventories : Enhanced quantitative element that crawlers can give you – CAT I also give students an SEO audit of one page template made by Jonathan Colman – 300 categories. I tell them they’d have to collect all this and put it in the right order for every page.
What they look for in quantitative inventory How much Where is it Duplicates Dead Unused Obvious Errors The client never tellsyou everything How will you find ALL the THINGS not linked from the website? They can’t help some auditing, keep notes but to set a timer. Hard deadline, no exceptions, look at how getting behind now would impact the entire project timeline. Late inventory, late final grade. Big incentive to keep it quantitative.
Domain Knowledge Industry Language – JARGON Benchmarking, industry standards, best practices Doing wellNot doing well, not doing at all DifferentiateGoals Audiences
Not doing well, not doing at all DifferentiateWho decides what the competition is?
Audits are contextualGoalsAudiences What’s missingErrorsFinding gaps, quality of content Readability, plain english Listing, overkillROTKeywords that users prefer over jargon, code, size Not looking at features, optimization
Agreeing on criteria. Numbering system. Collaboration.
Social Usage Analytics Goals Audiences Links to other channels, direct actions Guidelines Voice and tone Topics, trends New content ideas – what’s doing well on social, what your audience likes. What times they are online, demographics
In the whole discovery process not just in the inventory and audit, they learned what Daniel Erwin demonstrates, you got a structure or a design that doesn’t match the contents because no one advocated for the content. Trapped into Design Volunteer built, no attention to content, labeling, goals or users Migrated, deal with content after
Skeletons in the Closet Staff hate website and won’t mention itNot in print, not in words Sending people to youtube, linking to vimeo on the global nav
Preferred Social Media always – Scandal. They didn’t tell us, a student found it. One tweet can get executives fired.
Social media guidelines Goals Audience Audience wasn’t aware of them or their channels = opportunity New Staff – wouldn’t be throwing out anyone’s babies with the bathwater.
Interns – make to do anything. Margot Bloomstein Interns ideal for content audits Being able to react, inform, delegate
What we told them in presentation.
Explaining the audit process and scope, putting it into a master inventory with face to face presentations. TOP 5 THINGS they should do.
Low hanging fruit Buttons don’t workBrokenlinksUnclear language – especially actions Font sizes, colors, readability Addressed with inventory or to do list
Dead channels are one-way user journeys bad for SEO. Client knew those terms.
ContentInterns GoalsDefined audience, outreach
Showed up and brought their interns Eschewed documentation Fixed low hanging fruit immediately Payment processing
Intern training and guidelines
Started an internal content audit Website staff can be proud of
Added to social media guidelines
Understand in house need, workflow In a better position to work with volunteer, intern and staff Can’t get more staff without money, so horse meet cart.
What I learned. Round 4 and 13 years in nonprofits web management. In this case, it was because they didn’t have any content that feel under their definition of performance. They could have a lot of content but none of the right content. Almost no content, community or traffic – in which case user research and competitive audits are necessary. Can’t evaluate without an audit that tells me patterns, shows me gaps, shows me the distance to goals and targets.
Jose Sermeno
When you’re starting at zero, there are no dollar signs yet
Demographics can be meaningful to shareholders/donors Get you into a conversation but you still have to build the relationship Establish relationship with humans and robots
Between broadcasting and conversation. Move from one to many to many to many communication. Looking for quick, automated answers. Content = I exist, therefore, donate. I have a button, therefore, they should buy. For certain sectors, traditional interpersonal or what works in real-life is still important and they may put that effort before investing more time and money in web or technology. And that’s ok, as long as they understand. Broadcasting requires time & money, we’re competing with big brands and budgets. The Internet didn’t change the rules tit’s just like an infinite expansion pack.
I will call competitors or partners and ask them about their CMS. Or meet people at conferences