Content is more important than channel.

For all the discussion on campuses, at conferences and in corporate cubicles about which social media channels are reliable or “the next big thing,” one fact remains: Without good content, your channels are not useful.

This lesson jumped out while I worked on our web and social media analytics report for March. Usually Pinterest drives virtually no traffic to oswego.edu (less than 50 refers per month) yet suddenly, for March, we had 1,076 referrals. Does this mean Pinterest had suddenly broken through to undeniable relevancy?

Not exactly. Almost all of that traffic (1,067) went to one page — a piece by Norman Weiner, emeritus director of our honors program, called How to Do Really Well in College. This was not the first time this page brought out-of-left-field traffic from a social network, and it appeared from several boards across Pinterest offering college advice.

For several months straight, StumbleUpon was always our third-biggest social referrer (behind Facebook and Twitter), except this month when Pinterest pushed it to fourth. What drives almost all of that StumbleUpon? You guessed it, How to Do Really Well in College. Weiner said he hears often about other colleges using it, and stats show now it has spread into the social sphere.

So those two channels have been viable traffic providers only because of one piece of content. How to Do Really Well in College is our 39th most-visited page on oswego.edu, and almost all of its traffic involves straight entries from offsite, many from social media referrals. As if we needed proof that content drives channels and traffic, not vice versa.

So I’m amazed about people always running to the newest, shiniest social media platform without any content strategy … it’s like deciding you’re going to open a business without any idea what you plan to sell. Content that tells stories — in text, photo or video — is the building block of every channel. That’s what you should pay attention to, first and foremost.

launching a mobile site: content and users come first.

After much behind-the-scenes work, we finally just announced the launch of the SUNY Oswego mobile site. Our traffic via mobile device has climbed from 1.5 percent in October 2010 to 4 percent in October 2011, so clearly we’re seeing increased demand for something optimized for mobile.  Thanks in large part to tips from other colleges and conference presentations — and especially the skilled hands of our talented developer Rick Buck plus some trial and error — this lengthy and not-so-simple process taught us many lessons along the way.

It’s about content. I was pleased that presentations on mobile development at HighEdWeb11 emphasized thinking about content before the technology. Sessions like “On Your Mark, Get Set, Mobile!” from William & Mary and mStoner and the University of Central Florida’s “A Utility Belt Approach to Mobilizing Content” focused on existing content you can mobilize and optimize for your mobile platform. Knowing the content and building around it is made easier when you can employ a good framework and template like WVU’s Dave Olsen assembled through Mobile Web OSP. (Dave’s name always comes up when presenters mention mobile and higher ed, and we are among the many who owe him a debt of gratitude.)

It’s about users. We needed to think about how our users might interact with location-based content as well as the things they access the most on our website. As such, the mobile map was a given. The interactive directory that allows users to email or call a professor or staff member with a single click provides real convenience that takes use-care scenarios into consideration. News, an events calendar and emergency information provide timely and relevant information at (literally) the touch of a button.

Testing, testing. We did a soft rollout for New Student Orientation this summer, with an emphasis on the orientation schedule and locations. It went well and also taught us about user behavior at a (relatively) slow time before we did the main rollout. We’ve done spot testing from time to time, a practice we expect to continue.

Think mobile before apps. While all kinds of characters roam the fringes of academia trying to sell apps, anyone of any expertise emphasized how important it is to develop a mobile site first. The advantages are many — it works on all platforms and one need not negotiate with an Apple or Droid store, and wait for the process to play out for months so your users can access updates. This Cappex survey of parents of prospective students adds more support, as 79 percent of respondents preferred a mobile-friendly site to an app. While apps developers emphasize shiny objects and one-trick ponies, the mobile site is the big tent where you welcome all your users.

It’s a continuing process. We look at launching the mobile website as a beginning, not an ending. We’ve already made tweaks and upgrades in its first “official” week, and we have many other features in the pipeline. And of course we’ll keep an eye on analytics both for mobile and the regular sites to see what’s working/not working and what other features become relevant.

content + connectivity: analyzing the brand of @tsand.

For perhaps the first time in a college classroom, my #brc328 class Wednesday evening involved a lesson in branding using the most beloved higher-ed social media figure, the University of Wisconsin-Green Bay’s Todd Sanders, aka @tsand. If you work in social media or would like to, you simply must follow @tsand on Twitter. He’s entertaining, authentic, engaging and sneaky brilliant.

I asked my class to tweet (with #brc328 hashtag) what they thought was a good brand, and why, the results running the gamut from Apple to Bose to Converse to (interestingly) author James Patterson. Then I introduced them to the brand of @tsand, via his successful video submission to participate in the Mercedes-Benz Tweet Race to the Super Bowl™.

I looked at @tsand in the context of the definition of a brand which, according to Luke Sullivan’s book Hey Whipple! Squeeze This!, is “the sum total of all the emotions, thoughts, images, history, possibilities and gossip that exist in the marketplace about a certain company.” As an innovative web communicator now involved in a high-profile social-media contest that could win his #MBTeamS a Mercedes-Benz and raise a lot of money for St. Jude’s Hospital, @tsand presents three traits I think successful brands share:

1. Established identity. Those who know @tsand would describe him with words like funny, creative, crazy, unpredictable and genius. His secret to success, as noted in the video, is to create great content that wins friends and influences people. That content, coupled with his larger-than-life personality, has established broad and supportive connections across the social-media community.

2. Positive association. In the video, he notes being followed back by selective accounts like the Today Show and Ellen DeGeneres, plus more than 100,000 hits to his Flickr account and 200,000 to his YouTube channel. He’s a nice guy to boot, never above responding to those who tweet him. But the biggest indication of his popularity? The loudest ovation at #heweb10 went to keynote speaker and Don’t Make Me Think author Steve Krug, but the second-loudest may have come when the absent @tsand made a surprise appearance in the video introducing Krug.

3. Ability to create action. Many of us aren’t big supporters of social-media contests, requested retweets or hashtag bombing. But we’re doing all that — apologies for all the #MBTeamS tweets that give he and co-driver @ijohnpederson “fuel” and points — for Todd, and for his ability to win this contest and support St. Jude’s. I can’t think of another person in the higher-ed Twitterverse who could rally so many people … and it’s all because of what I would term brand loyalty to @tsand.

Win or lose, the contest is proving quite the social-media promotional experience. And, unexpectedly, showing us how a person who creates great content and makes authentic connections can represent a powerful brand.

review: content strategy for the web = must-read!

Finding yourself wishing you’d read a book a few years earlier often indicates how useful it could be to your work, your life, your knowledge. Since Kristina Halvorson’s Content Strategy for the Web only came out last year this wouldn’t have been possible, but if your work involves web content in any way, my advice is simple: Read this book!

Have you ever been part of a web project where people talk about design and multimedia and shiny objects, but when you ask “who’s providing the content?” they stare at you or say “we’ll worry about that later”? Here is a book to back up the importance of content, who creates it and why a content strategy should be part of any major web decision.

It’s a quick read, providing, in her words, “a high-level overview of the benefits, roles, activities and deliverables associated with content strategy.” It isn’t, she stressed, a be-all-end-all book on the web (she offers great reading suggestions), about choosing a CMS (which is merely a delivery system) or a marketing manual. It’s divided into four sessions: Learn (broken into Solution, Problem and Discipline), Plan (Audit, Analysis, Strategy), Create (Workflow, Writing, Delivery) and Govern (Measurement, Maintenance, Paradigm). The writing is crisp, non-technical and compelling.

Among the key points, which many of us often feel like we’re preaching in a wilderness:

• Less, not more. Adding more and more pages without strategy just creates a confusing user experience and makes the website unwieldy and hard to maintain from the inside. I’ve seen sites that add new pages while abandoning old ones because they weren’t perfect, and the result is a veritable graveyard of content of no use to anyone.
• Have a plan. Why is content created at your workplace? Where does that information come from? Do you have quality control? For more dynamic sites, do you have an editorial calendar of how often new content is generated, who’s generating it and how it is organized? Unfortunately, these questions don’t have good answers for way too many sites.
• Ask “why” and “who”? If departments want to plug a new shiny tool into their website, or add a Facebook page or YouTube Channel, two great questions to ask are “why do you need it?” and “who’s going to keep it current?” Especially in higher education, buyers get easily excited about a new product or social media platform, but after the novelty wears off they have no plan — and maybe no idea — how to maintain it at a baseline level, let alone how to keep it fresh and engaging.

Would I have liked to have this book a redesign or two ago? Absolutely. But since I can’t go back in time, I can say this book has already positively influenced planning and discussions going forward. And just mentioning it around campus around trainings and meetings has made several people interested in reading it. In my experience most people WANT to make their content better, but aren’t sure how and welcome any help. From a big-picture standpoint, this book is not just helpful but essential for those aiming to make their websites great.

a video i love and why: vancouver 2010′s with glowing hearts

Consider this an invitation to join me in the blogosphere for a conversation titled A Video I Love And Why, where anyone is welcome to blog about or discuss great web video. My choice would be Vancouver 2010′s With Glowing Hearts.

Why do I love it? Let me count the ways.

1. Visual style. The editing of sweeping nature scenes (my favorite is the long shot of a solo pond hockey player) and intense closeups of speakers is stunning. The mix of these clips with archival footage and Olympic highlights strikes a very nice balance. The casting ranging from worldwide stars like Sarah MacLachlan and Steve Nash to those well-known in Canada to ordinary people also works.

2. Emotion. The thrill of victory and the agony of defeat always resonate as emotional moments, and represent enduring appeals of sport. The script’s inspirational tone helps. My eyes often get moist watching, old softie that I am. As great as the writing is, watching it without sound can have just as much emotional impact.

3. Universal message. It’s about the Olympics, but it’s not. It’s more about the human spirit and inspiration. I love the breakdown of urgings in the middle:

• Dream big things
• Find your voice
• Share your passion
• Don’t be left wondering: “What if?”

You don’t have to be a Canadian (or an hono[u]rary Canadian like me) or a sports fan for the message to hit home. I always think finding a means of universal connection raises content to the next level.

4. Great music. The Doves track “Pounding,” or a remixed version thereof, has just the right feel. Though it’s interesting to note some Canadian message boards filled with ire over the choice of a British band with so much Canadian talent. An arguable point, perhaps, but the results speak for themselves.

5. The unexpected. Vancouver 2010 organizers could have easily just gone with a big heroic rah-rah sports-highlight reel. But they choose to make it inclusive, especially with such a prominent role for athletes in the Paralympic Games that also unfolded in Vancouver. It speaks to the message of inspiration and universality all the more.

So what do you think? And would be willing to share a piece of web video you love and discuss why you love it?

users don’t want to “click here.” they want to take an action.

If you want to be reminded about good web writing and usability, sometimes a trip to the supermarket helps.

While browsing the aisles of Wegmans over the weekend, I saw that Pantene (the official shampoo of TimsHead) was on sale. Being a fan of convenience (and cheapness), I gravitate toward their combined shampoo/conditioner options. You can tell this clearly by a 2-for-1 logo on these offerings. And I thought about that differentiation in comparison to web content.

One of the most outdated, but alas persistent, web phrases is “click here.” It predates when researchers knew anything about how users employ the web and what motivates them. Remember that people don’t read as much as they scan, looking for actions they want to take. They’re scanning for actions or phrases of interest like “apply,” “course information,” “schedule a tour,” “financial aid” or “student organizations.” So a “click here” phrase is superfluous and countervenes their hunt for information. I prefer phrasing desired actions into a contextual link: “Apply to SUNY Oswego,” “Schedule a visit,” “Browse our majors and minors,” etc.

Back to the Wegmans example — could you imagine if, instead of pertinent information, all the bottles simply said “buy me!” Sure, that — like “click here!” — is the desired outcome, but it’s irrelevant to my selection process. And remember it’s less about what you (the web writer, the college, the supermarket) want a user to do; it’s ultimately about what the user wants to do, and cues you can offer to help.

Or consider that moderately successful website known as The Facebook. There’s no “click here!” polluting the content; it’s almost all about driving action. You’ll see phrased links saying “Add as Friend,” “View Photos of Tim,” “What’s on your mind?” Navigation is self-explanatory: Messages, Events, Friends, etc. Nary a “click here!” used — because the phrase is, quite simply, not necessary. Users have moved past being treated like Pavlovian dogs … they know, and look for, the actions they want.

the 5 Ws of web content usability.

Usability isn’t the most sexy subject. When pondering Web sites, people often get hung up on the look, bells and whistles, other shiny objects. But creating a good-looking Web site that doesn’t work for your users is like buying a beautiful sports car that doesn’t run.

On the Web, content itself is king. With that in mind, and working with our users, I’ve developed the following 5 Ws of content usability while reviewing existing pages:

Who? If you have contacts on your pages, are they accurate and updated? I found that an email address on one of our primary pages did not work because the department discontinued it without telling anyone. This also applies to the important consideration: Who is your audience? Are you writing for that audience, or for yourself?

What? Or Wha? Or Huh? As in: Does this make sense? Just because a page sort of made sense when you wrote it (especially in a hurry) doesn’t mean it will when viewed from a distance. Or perhaps what you wrote last year no longer applies. Which leads into …

When? Pet peeve: Web sites that talk about fall 2009 events in the future tense. This is sloppy, and makes you look lazy. Or clueless. If you’re doing something event-based as a major part of your site, note on whatever calendar you use (iCal, Google, Franklin Planner, crayon) to update that information after the specific event or semester.

Where? Where do your links go? Are those pages still valid? Or, even worse, are any links broken? How long does it take to check a link? A few seconds. How long will a user be ticked off if they click a broken link? Much much longer. And in terms of navigation, are you taking your audience where they want or need to go?

Why? At the risk of sounding philosophical, what’s the reason for this page’s existence? Is it for something that is no longer applicable? Does it duplicate another page? Does it merit its own page, or can it be succinctly spelled out on a higher-level page? Since we’re looking at migrating pages to a new content management system, this part is the equivalent of throwing away unused or unnecessary items in your attic before loading the moving van.

Admittedly, we’re all busy, so checking back on pages isn’t always the highest priority. But think of the cost of frustrating, outdated or hard-to-navigate pages — the prospective students, customers or potential clients who give up because you don’t have your act together — and you’ll find reviewing your pages and using the 5 Ws of Web content usability well worth it.

the joy (?) of using ustream/watershed for live video.

With the increasing popularity of live video streams for colleges, corporations and citizens alike, more and more people will look to offerings like UStream and/or its partner Watershed to share events with the world (wide Web). Since we recently survived our first project using Watershed, I thought I’d share some observations, pros and cons.

The project was our President’s Breakfast, which featured special guest speaker Stephen Joel Trachtenberg, president emeritus of George Washington University and author of Big Man on Campus. He’s an awesome speaker. But getting from concept to execution wasn’t always awe-inspiring … sometimes more like aww-@#$%-inspiring.

The technology behind the live stream.

Setup: If you’re just broadcasting something simple and low-tech from your laptop, UStream is pretty good. When it’s a major production involving a camera, audio and embedding into your own branded page, more difficult. We went with Watershed, UStream’s option if you don’t want ads and prefer to embed in your own site.  I worked with some outstanding video and audio technicians on the front end, involving a lot of trial and error and non-cooperation from Watershed’s interface. We also have a superb Web specialist who designed the page, embedded the code and — when it looked like the laborious code-intensive chat-moderation feature exceeded our personnel available — added a Twitter feed through Tweetizen where people could participate via a #sunyoswego tag.

Support: With UStream/Watershed, this is almost non-existent. The FAQ page, which is almost impossible to find, isn’t terribly helpful. Their live-chat feature relies on volunteers from the community to answer user questions. Judging from the log, these volunteers appear about as often as elves riding unicorns.

Cost: UStream is free, but limited in what it can deliver. If you go with Watershed, you can incur a monthly fee if you plan to use it often, or a pay-as-you-go service ($1 per viewer hour) if you’re still uncertain. You can’t go from monthly to pay-as-you-go without an additional large expense. Since this was a fairly modest experiment, we opened up a pay-as-you-go account.

Execution: Thanks to Herculean efforts by Rick our Web guru, we created a templated oswego.edu page which pulled in the feed and with a window syndicating comments that had a #sunyoswego hashtag. Audience was nice though not overwhelming — 140 views and 76 unique visitors from 20 states — often around 20 to 25 at any given time. But we didn’t do extensive promotion, in part because of uncertainly about how it would work. A lot of hits were driven by posts on Twitter and Facebook just before or during the event. We even had a few hashtag questions, including one I shared during our audience Q-and-A period.

Output: To its credit, Watershed rocks in terms of what it lets you do with recorded content: You can copy and paste an embed code for the recording, download a Flash file or both. The embed is good to put on your own Web site, while Flash file gives portability for YouTube and the like.

Analytics: UStream/Watershed offers pretty decent, albeit flawed, analytics. For instance, all of our hits from Oswego, NY were instead listed as being from Oswego, Kansas. Which is to say, I’m not sure how much I can trust any of its geographic data.

Doing a big production via UStream/Watershed, for the first time at least, can be … well, a big production. We burned a lot of hours and brain cells making it work, which it finally did thanks to expertise, teamwork and people dropping other things to seal the deal. The stream itself went wonderfully, a good frame rate, not too jumpy, consistent, etc. Plus we had great feedback from the audience — including at least one prominent alum asking to get more involved — and ultimately user experience is an important consideration.