Web Strategy Team Meeting 11/18

Monterey Institute Web Updates

  • New stories and videos for the homepage – Check back at the end of this week
  • Promote Middlab
  • Moodle moving to ilearn.miis.edu in January

Lessons from the Webinar

“Communicating through your Traditional Website”

What did you learn from the webinar? Would anyone like to attend a workshop about search engine optimization?

Web Strategy Team Meeting 11/4/10

Web Updates

  • Webform Upgrades
  • Maureen’s Virtual Tour Videos
  • Editorial Calendar

Video Strategy

Before you begin

  • Purpose: Does it satisfy a user need or business goal?
  • Commitment, time, effort

Then – the technical stuff

  • Sound is very, very important! (make sure audio can stand alone because the audience might be multi-tasking)
  • Quality of picture, lighting etc.
  • Quality of extra material such as photos or slides
  • Graphics – Readability is key
  • Planning

Once you have all that down: CONTENT!!!

  • Have a strong story to tell
  • Jump right in – remember the purpose and the audience and think about your own attention span online
  • Keep it short but interesting (Promotional videos from 30 sek to 5 min tops – program videos preferably no longer than 30 min – informational video somewhere in between)
  • Think about visuals
  • Provide context if necessary but stick to the point

A few odds and ends

Web Strategy Team Meeting 4/8

Welcome to Kristen Shaw, the new administrative assistant for the intensive English programs.

GO URLs were broken, now fixed. These include the link to the MIIS Stories Campaign, so please keep promoting our effort!

Usability Study

Participants fit our target demographic: ages 24 to 32 with a Bachelor’s degree who are interested in pursuing a graduate degree in our fields of study. They interacted with miis.edu through one-on-one interviews and an online discussion board.

Strengths

  • Information Architecture: The users were able to find the information they’re searching for.
  • Content is well-written, but wordy.
  • Story-based content
  • Social media integration

Opportunities for Improvement

  • The header photos do not highlight campus life. Photos of sunsets and clouds don’t tell users enough about our graduate programs.
    • The sky imagery was proposed by White Whale to capture the international nature of our community: Is there a better way to communicate this vision?
    • Develop content for the “About this Photo” link, the most clicked link on the site.
    • We should explore this issue further as a team!
  • Too many font sizes and colors? Pink, Green, and Purple
  • Pop-up menus (NOT the drop-down menus) on main navigation on homepage. But this was NOT a universal reaction.
  • Theme Pages: What does “Be the Solution” mean? How could we better introduce this section? For example, “Be the Solution: Areas of Study”
  • Use social network icons on Homepage? But would this clutter the footer?
  • Many of the participants expressed interest in reading or watching videos of student and alumni stories. How can we better highlight these throughout the website and YouTube? How can we best promote the stories through feeds on the section landing pages? In addition to listing the titles, should we preview the most recent one in the sidebar?
  • Next Steps

  • Jason has completed a priority matrix and will share it with the Web Strategy Team for feedback.

Adopting a Video Strategy for miis.edu

Coordinating Our Efforts

Who is creating video content? Center for Nonproliferation Studies (Eduardo Fujii), Recruiting (Rob Horgan & Maureen Fura), work study students from GSIPM/GSTILE, and others.

Learning Best Practices

  • Tell a story! Tailor this story to your audience whether they are current and future students, alumni, and/or donors.
  • Interviewing Tips
    • Interview your subject beforehand so you have a specific story or topic you would like her to share.
    • Record multiple takes.
    • Rule of Thirds: Don’t position your subject in the center. Also, the interviewee shouldn’t look into the camera; she should look off-camera at the interviewer.
  • Capture the audio with wireless microphones.
  • Please limit the time to under 3 minutes
  • Use titlecards and transitions. Check that viewers have enough time to read the words on your titlecards.
  • Spice up your footage with photos. Ask your interview subject to submit five to ten photos related to their story.
  • Add background music. You can use 30 seconds of copyrighted material. You can also find music on Creative Commons or create your own music track through Garage Band. It only takes 30 minutes!
  • End your video with the official “Outro” created by Ryan Gonzalez.
  • Ask for feedback before you publish the video.

To perfect your video production skills, visit the Digital Media Commons, or read a recap from their latest video storytelling workshop.

YouTube vs. Vimeo: Which should I choose?

We recently created a Vimeo channel to feature MIIS Spotlight videos from the website. Vimeo provides a sleeker interface to show off our our new videos.

Though we’re building our Vimeo presence, most videos should still live on our YouTube channel to attract a wider audience. Uploading videos to YouTube or Vimeo requires a password, so please contact us if you need assistance.

Please tag and title your videos effectively, including search terms relevant to the video. Before you begin, check out Rob Horgan’s recommendations for titling and tagging YouTube videos.

Looking at the Big Picture

Once you post your video to YouTube or Vimeo, you’re not done. Add your video with existing content on miis.edu (Ex:MPA degree page), submit a MIIS Around the World story, find a blog that relates to your video, or share it on relevant social networks (Ex: Rob’s Japanese T&I videos & Mixi).

Sites DOT MIISThe Middlebury Institute site network.