Update for Web Authors

I hope you’ve had a good summer. It’s been great to work with many of you on improvements to your sites.

Perhaps the best news for all web authors is that Jill Olsen has begun her position as CommonSpot administrator (replacing Steve Cox, who retired at the end of May). Jill has a great skill set and ‘can-do’ attitude; she has already assisted many of you via the ‘webmaster’ email.

White Backgrounds: 

We’ve changed the background color of the center content area on the site from light blue to white. Our web team members have been reviewing this on the development server, and found no problems with it. However, we haven’t checked every site! Please review your own site; you may need to adjust images, for example. If you don’t see it right away, refresh your page.

There are some style changes in the works as well, but we are still testing those and will send you the details when they are ready for release.

Design Ideas:

Some of you have been doing great things with layouts and images produced by University Marketing designers. There are a number of sites being redone that haven’t launched yet, so watch for those early in the school year. Here are few examples:

·         Office of International Education:  http://www.uwstout.edu/oie/

·         Alumni Association:  http://www.uwstout.edu/alumni/index.cfm

·         Research Services:  http://www.uwstout.edu/rs/

·         School of Education:  http://www.uwstout.edu/soe/

·         LAKES project: http://www.uwstout.edu/lakes/

New Graphics:

Some of these sites are using a more open layout for their index page, and contain new graphic styles which are being developed by designers in University Marketing. We are behind on updating our sample graphics document (here: http://www.uwstout.edu/webdev/standards/graphics.cfm) but we are starting to move away from the older buttons. If you’d like new graphics designed for your site, please submit your request to University Marketing (https://fox4.functionfox.com/timefox/InHouse/RequestForm/?id=86A9303746E74ED9A0B5BED554E081C9).

Responsive Design:

There are a couple of technical issues in the responsive design phone display. The RD layouts are available in CommonSpot, although they are not working correctly on the iPhone. We’ll communicate with you about the transition and launch once those are resolved.

Agenda for May 7 Web Consortium

• Better Content! (Award-winning presentation by Britta Voigt)
• Responsive Design Update
• Your questions and topics

Struggling with Content Ideas?

Need inspiration? We didn't get a chance to cover these ideas at the most recent social media consortium, so we're sharing them here. 

Content Source Ideas:
Stumple Upon
Pinterest
Twitter
ScoopIt ($12 month)
HARO (Help A Reporter Out - $19)
Blogs
Quora
Industry websites

Multi Media Ideas:
Videos
Slideshare Presentations Images
White papers
Audio

Engagement Ideas:
Questions
Fill in the blanks
Humor
Polls
Audience photo submissions Flat Blaze
This or that
Contests
Reviews
Reading suggestions


Recycled Content:
Stats
Tips
Did you know?
Quotes
Trivia
Infographics
App suggestions
Pop culture tie in
Successful oldies
Round Ups

Personal Touch:
Behind the scenes
Staff features
Interviews

Facebook Edge Rank Prezi

Here's that great Facebook Edge Rank Prezi that Ryan Peterson shared at the most recent social media consortium, in case you missed it:

http://prezi.com/1bsti4qfx26a/?utm_campaign=share&utm_medium=copy

Last Marketing Consortium for the school year this Wednesday - Maplewood Room MSC - 2-3 pm

This will be the last official Marketing Consortium of this school year. Next month, on May 14 from 2-3 pm in the Glass Lounge, we will be featuring a combined social media, design, and marketing consortium to evaluate this year’s consortiums and also talk about some proposed changes for next year.

Therefore, we’d like to keep the format as open as possible for this last official gathering so that everyone has time to share things going on in their areas.

Below are a couple of items University Marketing and Admissions plan to share:

Video Identity 

You Visit

Distribution of Snapshot Piece

New Campus Photographer

New Search Piece

Hobson’s Training

Project Profile (P2) Campaign

Next Social Media Consortium - April 10, Oakwood Room, MSC 2:30-3:30 p.m.

Summer (believe it or not) is just around the corner and unfortunately, this tends to be a time when content on social media pages tend to run a little bit thin at times.  We’d like to facilitate a discussion this Thursday around ideas to not let your sites go into a summer slump. Please bring your sources of inspiration for content ideas and be prepared to gain more. We will also have a discussion on Facebook Edge Rank as well.

This will be the last official Social Media Consortium of this school year. Next month, on May 14 from 2-3 pm in the Glass Lounge, we will be featuring a combined social media, design, and marketing consortium to evaluate this year’s consortiums and also talk about some proposed changes for next year.

Please mark your calendars. We’d love to have you join us both these gatherings- 

Web Consortium Agenda for April 2

1) News from the Web Oversight Committee (Amy Luethmers, Barb Button)

2) Walk through new online tutorials in CommonSpot (Steve Cox, Barb Button)

3) Responsive design demonstration

4) Show and tell, questions, other topics