Monday, March 10, 2014

7 Weeks to a Better Social Media You

After three days in bed with the flu, I was up and running this afternoon and tonight and was able to get my thoughts together for my Storify collection.

Please review my post -- 7 Weeks to a Better Social Media You -- and post your comments, either here or on Storify.

Particularly, let me know if you think I've explained enough the promotional efforts made on behalf of Liebling Realized.

Thanks to one and all in advance for your assistance.

Tuesday, March 4, 2014

What's My Storify? Read on to find out what's in store

As we enter the closing stages of COMI610, I am working through my Storify project.  As a complete newbie to Storify, I am (slowly) creating my digital paper for future consumption.  In the interim, please find here the outline I am following as I complete this project.

Background

Here I will give a brief overview of the course in which we are engaged and the culminating project that follows. 

Introduction

In this  section I will use to provide background on myself, my career and the inspiration for my blog. See my sample text below:


Early and mid-20th century American journalist A.J. Liebling famously said “Freedom of the press is limited to those who own one.”  While he was speaking about the power of those who in his time published the nation’s largest newspapers, I believe his comment rings even more true in the age of social media, as we all now have the potential to publish our interests, ideals and opinions.  My name is Michael Kinane and I named the blog created in support of this coursework Liebling Realized to celebrate the linkage between past forms of information distribution and contemporary ones.  I am an older student, in my mid-40s.  I love journalism, particularly the serious sober kind. I gravitated to communications as a passion early in life, and continue with that passion today.I am in the midst of what has become a 25-year career in public relations, marketing and higher education.  Along with being a graduate student currently enrolled in Marist College’s Integrated Marketing Communications program, I lead the public relations, marketing, fund-raising and government relations activities for SUNY College at Old Westbury, a small, public liberal arts college on New York’s Long Island.  Liebling Realized is my latest attempt to engage the digital world in conversation, building upon my active Twitter and LinkedIn efforts that precede it.  I greatly enjoy the passage of information through the written word, reading as frequently as I can in my free time, which led me to the bookcase-laden design theme of Liebling Realized.

Question -- Is the above entry too long?  In all those words, is there enough of an "introduction" of myself and my project?


Plans & Policies

The Plans & Policies section of my Storify project will focus on the quantifiable and measurable objectives and goals of LieblingRealized. Among the items included here will be the site strategy, site policy, goals and objectives. Below are some points I expect to cover and explore in greater detail:

Qualitative objectives


  • Be mindful of my readers needs by publishing no later than Tuesday evening each week, 
  • Use more frequently and with greater efficiency SEO-friendly content and keywords, and
  • Experience social interaction via social media in response to both my and my peers' content.


Quantitative objectives


  •  Earn an average of 20 comments per post,
  • Attract at least 25 class users as followers of my IMC Twitter and Pinterest accounts,
  •  Accrue 12-15 followers to my blog  by the close of the class to my blog, and
  •  Average 25 comments for each class-related blog post.

Activities 

In this section I will outline in detail the efforts I’ve taken related to content development and promotion of the blog.  Here I will review some specific examples from my posts, along with information from the supporting evidence linked to the posts as well as samples from the Twitter and Pinterest efforts made to drive traffic to Liebling Realized. The information illustrated will include: 

Content Development:

  •  Examples of anecdotes used that I believe my readers can relate to and using those anecdotes as the prism through which the weekly content is viewed, 
  • A review of what I hope were my creative headlines and how those were received by my readers, and 
  • Samples of the imagery used on the site that links to the headlines and content.

Blog Promotion:

  • A discussion with samples of from the social media accounts used to introduce readers each week to each new post, and
  • Samples of mid- and late-week Tweets and Pins used to seek a continuance of discussion and comment. 

Analysis

Through the information available via Blogger statistics, I will use this section to outline the growth and development of the blog, including information that defines whether I was successful in achieving the goals originally developed for the project.  Screen shots from the graphs on Blogger stats as well as other illustrations will be used to present some of this information. 

Included among the data I expect to analyze are:
  • Number of registered followers of the blog.
  • Number of visitors making comments per blog post,
  • Number of comments per blog post,
  • Weekly pageviews for the site as a whole,
  • Weekly page views per post,
  • Geographic (by country) points of contact by week,

Conclusion

Here I will summarize the large picture messages of what I’ve learned through this experience, focusing on the practices I’ve learned, the outcomes those practices have produced, and the meaning I’ve derived from both.