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.

9 comments:

  1. Mike,

    Great start. I like that you tied your Liebling theme into your introduction, as it's been the theme of your blog and makes sense to include in your Storify. The introduction paragraph might be a bit long lengthwise, but all of the information fits. I'd recommend trying to make some sentences more concise; there may be some shorter sentences in there that you can cut entirely.

    (As an aside, I'd love to chat with you at some point about your career. Higher Education communications and public affairs is something I'm interested in pursuing!).

    The plan for the rest of your paper seems good so far. You have a nice list of goals and objectives, and a solid plan for analysis. Looking forward to seeing more as you update it.

    Kait

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    1. Thanks Kait.

      I'll take you up on your advice to shorten (and trim/delete/expunge) where possible.

      When the class is over, let's make time to speak about what I've experienced in my career and what you might consider doing/pursuing.

      Mike

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    2. Thanks, Mike! Looking forward to it.

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  2. Hi Mike,

    I think you have a well-organized outline and I look forward to reading the final product. Regarding your intro, I personally don't think it's too long because you captured your audience with a great opening quote - maybe just break up the paragraph a little to make it easier on the eyes to read.

    I also like how your broke down your Plans & Policies into Qualitative and Quantitative Objectives. Completely makes sense and puts them in terms that are easily identifiable.

    Tara

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  3. Hey Michael, I like the way you kicked off the intro. I would put a line break to start the sentence, "My name is Michael…" I also think you could can rid of the last two sentences to shorten up the copy.

    Under analysis, it might be useful to add analytics related to how your blog did week-over-week. For example, include the percentage increase or decrease in page views from one week to the next. This will show how effective each social media tactic was or wasn't in growing your blog presence.

    I look forward to seeing your Storify page!

    -Amanda

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    1. Thansk AManda. Good ideas. After four days of the flu, I expect to launch my Storify tonight and hope you will come back with more comments.

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    2. Hope you are feeling better - I was out of commission for a few days last week too with bronchitis. Our colds had impeccable timing with closing out this class, huh?

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  4. Michael,
    Great outline to your story. Very well organized plan. I don't think the introduction is too long. However, I think your should break it up into smaller text blocks with space in-between as well as adding images.

    You have a great plan outlined for your story, once you add the images, it will be a great project.
    I would like to see your progression on the project. Send me a tweet as that happens, so I can view it. @JoannaZammiello
    Thank you,
    Joanna

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  5. Michael,
    I think this outline is going to set you up for a great final product! Once you include appropriate images/text to what you have set up for your analysis, I think it will look really good. A few suggestions I'll leave you with are to include a few direct quotes from our text to accompany your analysis and also make sure analyze how your other social media activities helped promote your blog viewership. Overall, I think you'll have a great final product!

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