Fuzzy Content

Reading this site and many other blogs, we certainly get enough daily bread of what to do with social networks. Over the past six months, we have seen SN (that’s what the cool kids call it) expand on integration. What’s next for these little bundles of joy is certainly unknown, but through this whole time, the SNs that have held their own are the ones providing the most value.

Web 1.0 didn’t necessarily fail, but it wasn’t built for communication. But more importantly, it wasn’t built for anarchy. The level of control a site owner had on the content in his or her domain was controlled. Webmaster doesn’t like content…webmaster takes down content.

Now, the Web is finally realizing its own name. It’s a web of communication, relevance, and user ownership. Page references are a thing of the past, where content containers have taken its place. Syndication and taxonomy define not only how content interacts on your domain, but now where it is seen by the user. Where do social networks come in?

They have become the communication vehicle for content relevance. Content relevance used to be a one-to-one relationship. I find information I desperately need…and it ends there. Now, relevance adds a third party: Me, the information, and all my friends.  In the past, if I found something that I thought “johnny” would like, I emailed him the link. Now, he sees what I do on social sites and joins in (if it’s relevant).

That is why social networks work. Action has become communication, which is filtered by relevance. It just doesn’t get easier than that.

Many of you have heard of Blackboard’s social bookmarking initiative, Scholar. This new service allows the Blackboard portal to become one-to-many, rather than one-to-one. It connects all Blackboard institutions (or at least those with the latest upgrade), and gives faculty and students the ability to share academic resources with each other.

I attend several conferences a year and have seen the art of networking amongst peers and competitors. Now, the academic community has a tool to practice this activity as well.

Read their press release for more information.

For those in marketing (me being one of them), I hear many stories of frustration in building a visitor-centric Web site. You can control the message and presentation, but you will never be able to control where site readers enter the site, what sequence they move through pages, and when they decide to leave.
Web 2.0 (I know, I know) means that now I have even less control. Not only did I lose control over visitors on how they used my site. But now, I will see many visitors get information without even entering my domain. Syndication has allowed site content to become a collection of information that I, as a reader, review in the comfort of my own RSS aggregator (newsgator, myYahoo, etc).

As microformats continue to take hold of consistent content, this will even become more of the case. Sites and software are beginning to format their information (profiles, blog entries, events, and eventually course catalog information) following standard structures. This practice gives visitors an even wider platform to find information related to you.

The secret is to understand where people find information about you, then participate. In the “real” world, prospective students find information and build impressions of your institution without stepping foot in your admission office. But the more active you are in advertising, printed material, and high school visits, the better chance the information and impressions are accurate.

So, if you haven’t already, actively participate in Facebook groups. Submit your events on upcoming.org, and look for tools that help you gain exposure outside your .edu. You won’t have complete control over what your visitors are reading, seeing, and acting on, but you will better understand who and where people interact with you as an institution.

I’m talking to all the content authors out there.

Colleges are getting so much better at testing their sites by watching visitors. A simple view of how students, alumni, and other audiences move through your site on a daily basis can surprise administrators that spent months drowning in navigation labels and content placement. Remember to do this on a regular basis.

These tests, in too many cases, are done by central administration and only affect the top level of the site. For your institutional presence to be effective as a whole, this practice must trickle down to content owners in individual departments. [by the way, if you aren't allowing people across campus to develop and manage content, what are you waiting for?]

Site success for the visitor comes with ease of use and being able to find information on a regular basis. Site success for the institution (and I don’t think I’m being selfish here) is the drive to whatever action your department wants visitors to complete.

The right side of a Web page has conventionally become a location for “related” information. Related links, campus events, and the latest news have populated this area to give more eyeballs to dynamic content. Your job is not done. I’ve always proposed drives to action for this area as well. It’s also time to drive them to next step information.

For example, you know that handy directions to campus page. Add campus visit information, open-house events, and alumni events. Supply parking permit information, local hotels, and printable campus maps.

Every page has a focus to it. As the owner of a portion of the site, your job is to understand what site readers will do with the information they have found. Here are some questions to ask for every, and I mean every page in your Web presence.

• Why do site visitors come to this page (what’s the focus)?
• At what point in the relationship are most visitors coming to this page?
• What questions will the readers ask after reading the information?
• What do I want them to do after they read this information?

Doyle Brunson, the legendary poker player, once said, “The key to No-Limit Texas Hold ‘Em is to put my opponent to a decision for all his chips.”

Usability testing is not about getting them to the page…it’s about moving them through the relationship.