Content Curation in Higher Education With WordPress

More info here: http://fl.highedweb.org/content-management-in-higher-education-with-wordpress/

The management of content in higher education can make or break an institution. In today’s world of multiple streams of media all being online and potentially consumed 24/7 it is imperative that your institution’s content be provided and presented in a way that clearly conveys the information contained within the site and also provides different and convenient ways to share that same information. Content management in higher education is important for the entire university to understand. From branding and integrated marketing to social media and faculty/staff and student news and updates; serious consideration is being given to how content is organized, searched and presented online within higher education.

Fully open source, well documented and supported and most importantly, FREE WordPress can be a great resource and tool for content management at the institutional level. The key to mastering the CMS and making it work for you is starting with the latest in best practices, strategic planning, tools and resources right out of the gate. But where do you start? You can read documentation and search for your solutions online, or you can learn from those in higher education that have already done it.

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1. Content Management In Higher Education With WordPress
2. Who/What/When/Where/Why Who: L. Danielle Baldwin, (@LDBaldwin / LDBaldwin@uncg.edu) Web Manager, Social Media Strategist University of North Carolina Greensboro (NC) What: WordPress, Content Curation, CMS When: April 23, 2013 Where: Florida High Ed Web Conference (Gainsville, FL) Why: To share information about WordPress and how you can use it to manage. organize and share your content across multiple platforms and sites.
3. Defining Content Curation "[Curation is] the act of continually identifying, selecting and sharing the best and most relevant online content and other online resources on a specific subject to match the needs of a specific audience" Ann Handley Co-author, Content Rules http://www.contentrulesbook.com/ http://www.annhandley.com/
4. Content Curation: What it is / What it is not Content Curation is: • the next level of bringing added value to your readers • making decisions on content that provide visitors with a source for reliable, interesting, valuable information that they can trust • effective when done right and offers your readers the best of all worlds, (interesting, educational, entertaining, useful, actionable) • about quality over quantity • organically SEO rich if done right (no need to "puff up" your content with fillers and nonsense) • about sharing content that falls in line with your department's/university's message, objectives, initiatives and goals
5. Content Curation: What it is / What it is not Content Curation is not: • just about aggregation of information (misses the point) • all about the numbers. The numbers are all about the content you create • not always good for SEO (when you value quantity over quality, search engines and your readers may penalize you for it) • the act of setting your site or blog on "auto-pilot." It is still your responsibility to make the decisions on the content and provide a personal touch to what information you decide to gather or create for your site • mysterious, hidden or sensationalized - transparency is key • is not social sharing - also about conversations and engagement
6. The 9 C's of Content Curation Concentrate your efforts on searching for/creating the best content you can. Talk about what you know best - first. Collect information, links, multimedia, images, etc. to accompany your content - this enhances the great content you already have Cull (edit) longer stories down to 300 words or less, complex ideas into bullet points and popular subjects into fully developed ideas Curate news worthy of readership, think about what is relevant Creativity filter out stories that are redundant, irrelevant or boring-put your best ideas forward first and foremost
7. The 9 C's of Content Curation Character (voice) content should show professional personality- bring your voice to the content in a real, honest manner Communicate (consistently) define topics you wish to cover and cover across all of your media outlets online and offline (print) Cultivate (Community) don't forget external audiences, surrounding campus community, parents, students, faculty and staff - anyone could be reading your content - write it like you know that Call (to action) It doesn't hurt to ask your readers about content from time to time, what they would like to see, what they like, don't like and if they can contribute anything to the conversation
8. How does WordPress fit into the process of content curation?
9. WordPress Fast Facts WordPress powers over 72.4 million websites around the globe • the most widely used and popular CMS in existence • responsible for over 14.7% of the top 1,000,00 websites in the world • powers 48% of the top 100 blogs as ranked by Technorati • boasts more than 37 million global searches every month • 22 of every 100 new domains created in the US are running WordPress - over 352 million people view more than 2.5 million pages in an average month on WordPress • many social media networking and multimedia publishing platforms are tightly integrated with WordPress • WordPress garners the biggest market share when it comes to comparable content management systems with a share of over 53.8%
10. With that much market share and reach - no one can deny the power of WordPress as a CMS (not even you)
11. WordPress is hearts, rainbows and puppies! Courtesy of http://www.isitedesign.com/insight-blog/10_11/cms-pain-assessment
12. Why use WordPress for managing content? • Provides a way to create a "living" website with Dynamic content that can be changed, updated organized and categorized • Has features and themes that are Optimized for mobile and other small screens right out of the box • Provides content creators with automatic social sharing of their content across multiple social media platforms with one- click • Provides the ability to create both pages (for a full website) and posts (for blogging capabilities) at the same time - no need for multiple applications • Ability for scheduled publishing post-date content to show up at some date in the future (or past) • Provides a simple and basic workflow for managing and creating content
13. • Ability to easily include multimedia such as audio, video,etc • built in excellent SEO • Ability to create, share and subscribe to feeds based off of posts, categories or tags • advanced search capabilities for reader (can search not only on page title but actual post/page content, image names and descriptions, multimedia and more • WYSIWYG based content editor built into the CMS • fully customizable via plugin, code extension, themes and widgets created by third party developers to provided added features and functionality to a WordPress site • provides access for multiple users/content publishers • manages public site comments to pages and posts • easy way to manage user roles, privileges and access to certain parts of a WP site (frontend and backend)
14. Tools to help you manage content in WordPress WordPress integrated tools for organizing and presenting content • categories • tags • multiple customizable menus • feeds WordPress Plug-ins • EditFlow • Yoast SEO for WordPress • Relevanssi • Wordpress Popular Posts • Storify • Google drive
15. Integrated WordPress tools • Categories Categories provide a helpful way to group related posts together, and to quickly tell readers what a post is about. Categories also make it easier for people to find your content. Categories are similar to, but broader than, tags. (think "big picture") • Tags Template tags are used within your blog's Templates to display information dynamically or otherwise customize your blog, providing the tools to make it as individual and interesting as you are. (think details, specifics, "small picture")
16. Integrated WordPress tools • Feeds A web feed (or news feed) is a data format used for providing users with frequently updated content. Content distributors syndicate a web feed, thereby allowing users to subscribe to it. (think Google Reader) • Customizable Menus WordPress allows you to create multiple navigational menus for your site based off posts, pages and categories
17. WordPress plugins • EditFlow (http://editflow.org) A plugin that allows you to communicate and collaborate with your content creation team inside WordPress. Some of the features of the plugin are: Calendar, Custom Statuses, Editorial Comments, Editorial Metadata, Notifications , Story Budget, User Groups
18. WordPress plugins • Yoast SEO (http://yoast.com/wordpress/) A plugin that allows you to edit and improve the information that shows up in and is upon in search engines such as Google, Bing, and Yahoo. Some of the features of the plugin are: Post titles and meta descriptions, Meta data editing, breadcrumb enhancements, permalink cleanup, sitemap creation assistance, RSS enhancements
19. That's all folks! Questions? Comments? Tweet me! @LDBaldwin #sgfl2