digital strategy 101

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Digital Strategy

John Eckman @jeckman http://www.openparenthesis.org/

Who am I? • Digital Strategist at ISITE Design • Mythbuster at CMS Myth • Blogger (openparenthesis.org, goatles.org) • Founding Organizer, WordCamp Boston • Open Source Developer: WordPress, Drupal • Webmaster for the Boston Vegan Association • Volunteer at Design 4 Drupal, BarCamp Boston,

PodCamp Boston, etc.

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What is Digital Strategy?

“Helping organizations effectively leverage digital technology & apply (limited) resources to achieve their mission”

Strategy • Goals • Audiences • Digital Channels • Resources

http://icanhascheezburger.com/2008/01/02/funny-pictures-goals-i-haz-dem/

Awareness • Of an issue? • Of your

organization? Action • Contribute • Volunteer • Share Service • Direct • Indirect

General Public • Segments • Local / National Volunteers / Donors • Current • Prospective Press • Professional • Local / National

Audiences

Note: You probably have different goals with different audiences

http://failblog.org/2011/08/03/epic-fail-photos-classic-knowing-your-audience-fail/

Digital Channels

• Website • Social

• Facebook • Twitter • ?

• Mobile • Email

How many can you sustain? Which help you meet goals? ht

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(Limited) Resources

Money • Where will it be most effective to buy?

• What can we simply not do ourselves? Time / People Knowledge

Content Strategy • Content Inventory

• Recency • Frequency • Clarity • Potential for Re-use

• Message Hierarchy • Core messages • Tone / Voice

• Creation / Curation • Editorial Calendar

Responsive Design “an emergent discipline called ‘responsive architecture’ has begun asking how physical spaces can respond to the presence of people passing through them. . . . rather than creating immutable, unchanging spaces that define a particular experience, they suggest inhabitant and structure can—and should—mutually influence each other”

http://www.alistapart.com/articles/responsive-web-design/

Mobile First

1. Mobile is Exploding 2. Mobile Forces Focus 3. Mobile Extends

Capabilities

Analytics • How will you

know if you are successful?

• What data can be easily gathered which will show trends over time?

Many organizations spend more time collected data than turning it into insight – don’t gather what you don’t use!

http://rosskimbarovsky.com/2010/03/not-everything-that-can-be-counted-counts/

Take-Aways

1. Your website is not a project 2. Focus is better than breadth 3. Build only what you can sustain 4. “Keep Everything” is not a content

strategy 5. Optimize continuously 6. Crawl -> Walk -> Run -> Fly

WordCamp Boston July 13, 14, 15th Boston University boston.wordcamp.org

D4D Boston MIT Stata Site TBA June 30-July 1

Questions & Answers

John Eckman @jeckman

http://www.openparenthesis.org/