Intermedia

Measurement: Tracking the life of content

What good is a measurement tool that doesn't track the success of content at the article/content level? Probably not much. Think about it, how many times have you navigated to a website and then just sat there and stared at it? Right. Never. Because you're not there just to look at the pretty website, you're there to get a piece of information, to make a transaction, or to be entertained. Those are the things that have to be tracked.

Just looking at hits on the sitewide scale makes no sense -- it's too big a pot of stew to understand. The content, though, tells you a lot more about what they want, need, and are interested in -- and you can do it over time because content never dies (or at least it shouldn't), while the container (design) changes pretty rapidly.

The trick is getting this done. Google Analytics appears to be emerging as a tool of choice for many in higher ed. Makes sense -- it's free, it's easy to understand, and it works. Pretty much a winning combination every time. Some of the off-the-shelf tools are expensive, ridiculously hard to understand, and often bog down systems because of their massive log file demands. [Buzz] Not a good combination.

The problem with Analytics is that it tracks at the page level, not necessarily at the article/content level, which is pretty limiting. The bigger tools do handle such tracking, but refer to the whole expensive (which makes them not an option for many shops), hard to understand (which makes them not an option for shops without a programmer or stats guru), and big log file (which makes them not an option for shops without adequate/dedicated IT support) issue.

So what's a pro to do? This is actually another one of those volley posts, because I don't have an answer. Seriously, what are you doing?

Viral, awareness and alignment

Two days ago, I had no idea what (or where) William Woods University was. Today I know that it's a liberal arts institution in Fulton, Missouri. I also know that they have a marginally unhealthy obsession with ducks. Why do I know this? Because I stumbled upon their microsite GotDuck.com.

The site is creative, funny, and worth visiting more than once. It's also informative -- cast as a campus map with helpful "tour" tips that help visitors get to know the place. It's viral done right... I think.

Aside from the fact that I now know that WWU is a liberal arts u. in Mizzou, the site gave me some general "brand" impressions about the place. This is where I often have trouble with viral campaigns. It's great to get eyeballs -- and I think this one will -- but the experience has to be more than just plan cool, it has to be aligned with the institution's identity. So, if WWU is a place that pushes the borders, is bold and supportive of students' creative AND edgy ideas, has a great sense of humor, etc. than this site is spot on. Check out the site and you'll know what I mean. Ir those things aren't part of their core identity though, it misses the mark and the online and on-campus experiences won't be aligned. Not a good thing.

Their institutional site is pretty straightforward and doesn't reflect the edginess of the microsite. That's fine, but it does make me wonder a bit about alignment between the Ducks site and the institutional mojo.

All in all, I think they've done something bold and fun here and a bit outside the normal "safe" box for higher ed. Go ducks.

Integrating "big social" into an alumni site

This is a quick follow up post...

A while back, in a post about alumni and social networking, there was some discussion on this blog about iModules plans to pull Facebook into its alumni application. A post from a few weeks ago on the iModules blog (good for them for blogging, by the way), there was a post called "The Facebook Challenge," in which blogging VP Mike McCamon discusses their intended approach to integration with social networking sites such as Facebook. He writes,

"later this year we plan to make it easier for our users to include their Facebook badge inside their profile page of our community software.  We also plan in that same timeframe to integrate 'views' into many other social networking sites like flickr, YouTube and others.  The idea is to offer a variety of simple ways for our communities to link to content in those social networks without risking data integrity in our clients' systems."

So, that question is answered. It will be interesting to see how it works. Sounds like they're not going so far as to fully integrate any social apps into their product, but they will provide links. I wonder if it works on the flipside -- will they create Facebook, Flickr, YouTube and other apps that allow alumni to post from their social accounts into their alumni accounts? Could be useful.

The speed of information

I've been thinking a lot about various media and how the speed of new media is forcing good conversations about what is appropriate in print and on the web, based on currency. It's gotten to the point that "breaking news" and "newspaper" are a laughable pair.

Shel Israel's Global Neighbourhoods is a great blog and a recent post of his adds "visionary" and "book" to the oil and water list. All the buzz about Twitter and the California wildfires has actually added the web to the list of media that are slower than the speed of information.

It seems that there has to be a stratification of the kinds of information -- e.g. crisis-related, breaking news, infotainment, current issues, perspective pieces, roundtables, etc. -- that aligns with various media -- e.g. instant (IM/SMS), blogs, RSS, websites, newspapers, magazines, etc. From there, you can slot in pieces of information -- or pieces of pieces of information.

I would say that it's also important to keep in mind the people who need to receive the messages and how they use new media, but I'm not as adamant about that today as I was in an earlier post, where I mentioned that it's important to keep in mind that adoption rates for many new media tools are still low, particularly in some older demographics (and by "older" I mean beyond their early 20s). I kind of take that back though. Information -- particularly in times of crisis -- isn't compartmentalized, it's viral. If I see that there is a fire on my street and IM my neighbor, she isn't going to take in the information and then go about her business. She'll use really old media -- the phone, her mouth -- to tell others and the information spreads from there.

It's all about looking at the whole picture.