You can access my Storify paper by visiting http://storify.com/KaitSmithCOM610/kait-smith-comi610-final-paper.
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| Can you offer insight into my analysis of this semester's social media activities? If so, head to my Storify then comment below! |
Here are some questions I have for you, members of #Marist610:
-Am I using too many "Storified" examples in my "Activities" section? If so, what would you suggest I cut? Or, if not, what would you suggest I add?
-What sections of the paper leave you looking for more information? What sections feel like they include too much detail?
-In comparing my "blogger" images to other classmates, mine seem off. They don't include the headline for the post. Can you offer me any insight on how to fix this? (SEE BELOW)
Of course, you can extend beyond these questions in leaving me comments and feedback. I'll be sure to update this post when I've changed and edited sections of the Storify paper.
Looking forward to working together during this "home stretch" of our course!
UPDATES:
3/11 at 4:30 p.m.
We're in the home stretch, and my Storify paper reflects it! I've beefed up the analysis section, fine-tuned the plans and policies section, and did some minor editing in the activity section. All that's left is the conclusion, minor edits as suggested by future comments, and peppering in course readings when applicable. Your feedback is still welcomed and appreciated!
3/9 at 8:30 p.m.
My paper has been updated to reflect some of the suggestions you've given me in the comments. More specifically, I've added Scott's Twitter reply, developed the "Plans & Policies" section more, and did some fine-tuning to the activities section. I will be working on the analysis and conclusion in the days to come, so please continue offering feedback!
3/5 at 10:20 a.m.
Classmate Adrienne offered some great insight (via a comment ) as to how to make my headings appear in my blogger. When I follow her advice, however, only some of the headings appear! The rest (the ones I need for the paper, ironically enough) appear with just the title of my blog. It seems that the ones with headers appear as RSS updates and the others appear as Blogger updates. Below is a screenshot; I'm going to do some searching for the answer, but if anyone else has figured this out please comment below!
Kait. I looked over the story quickly. I have been working on mine all night and my contacts are stuck to my eyes, can hardly see. Just posted mine. I will look at yours more closely tomorrow and get back to you.
ReplyDeleteThanks,
Joanna
Thank you, Joanna! Looking forward to your feedback. I know the contact stuck to your eyes feeling you are talking about... happens to me often at the end of a long day.
DeleteKait
Kait,
DeleteThanks. Great start to your story. Wonderful introduction, with great content. My only suggestion is possible breaking it up into smaller text blocks. (I've noted on several posts, I am very visual) give it a try and see how you like it.
I like how your goals are very specific and to the point and further down in your activities section you reference them again. To me, this is a great progression to your story; pulling it all together.
I really like how you added Scotts response to you. I actually saw that come through and I thought it was really neat he did that. I wonder if you should include it in your story, to maybe a link to it?
I like how you added text to explain your blogger stats, this gives the story a great visual.
On the technology side, I have been just been embedding the links into the link tool (upper right hand corner go Storify) when you hit enter, it will pop up as an image and then I just drag it to the story.
I think by showing how you added the tweet, then the pin, shows the integration of the platforms.
Look forward to the rest of your story.
thank you,
Joanna
Glad to share the trade secrets! (and by that I mean I spent 30 minutes googling it myself...)
ReplyDeleteThe way you pull the blogger posts in - with the headings - is by pulling in a feed of your posts into Storify. You do that by going to the home page of your blog (http://sociallykaitsmith.blogspot.com/) and scroll all the way to the bottom. You'll see a little linky thing that says, "Subscribe to: Posts (Atom)"
Right click on that linky thing - and click "Copy link address"
Then, go to you your (edit) Storify story
and paste the link into the RSS tab (the orange one with the white lines on it)
Once you hit "enter" to search that URL, all your posts should come up with the headings.
I hope that helps! Let me know if you're still stuck and we can get on the phone.
Ah, thank you! In some weird, twisted turn of events, only some of them are appearing with headings and others (ironically, all of the ones that are course-discussion related) are still showing only my blog name. I will keep plugging away at it, thank you for the help!
DeleteKait
Hi- I too have sent tons of time on Google trying to figure things out.
DeleteJoanna
Hi Kait,
ReplyDeleteI think your Storify is an excellent sory, but even more so for me, it was an excellent learning tool also! As you stated, you have been "an avid user of social media for several years", while have been a non-user for several years. While this non-use has kept me in a cave with regard to social media marketing, it has also allowed me the tools and time needed to re-assess my role in business today, and where I want to take the knowledge and skills I already have, along with those I have learned during this degree program. All of this said, you have answered some of the questions I have been asking myself over the past few weeks with regard to my strategy for my blog. For this, I thank you very much!!! I know believe I know more of where I have been going wrong. So, THANKS once again!!!
As I see your Analysis section is in development, I was curious as to whether you used only Blogger Stats, or did you also use Google Analytics for your tracking?
Best of luck on your final paper - I'm sure it will be great!
Hi Dawn,
DeleteGlad my Storify could help you out!
I signed up for Google Analytics but am not sure if I am going to include them in my Storify except for in analyzing my achievements in terms of my set "time spent on page" goals. Google Analytics is a bit more advanced than Blogger Stats, and I've taken a few courses on how to use it but still feel like many features are a foreign language. Are you interested in using them?
Kait
Hi Kait,
DeleteI would love to learn how to use Google Analytics, but I just could not find the time to figure things out during the class, so I just used Blogger Stats. As it turned out, my stats are pretty scarce, so for me it worked out ok. For those of you with much higher pageviews, and International viewers, the additional info from Google Analytics may have been cool to see. I have my blog set as private, and so I do not have quite the following, but perhaps next time.
As for your questions at the top:
I think the use of the images is great, and this is what Storify is best at - visually telling the story.
I agree with Joanna wholeheartedly ... you should definitely include a picture of Scott's response ... this will help add authenticity to you as a knowledgeable author.
Excellent job so far!
Dawn
Kait,
ReplyDeleteI think you've done a very nice job with this so far. I don't think you have too many samples here.
Some suggestions for you on the analysis portion on which you are working. Look to see if you can find linkage between individual social media promotions to the activity occurring on your site. For examples, I would be interested to know if ... on the day Scott referred to you... you saw traffic increase, particularly from non-class related sources, ISPs, etc.
Also, what do you think drove the international traffic for you? I had a more-than-anticipated amount as well and thought it might have been Google+ at work, but I don't see that you have Google+ at work for you. Any thoughts?
Mike
Mike - I saw the same thing on my blog! I was really surprised to see that a number of page views had come from the UK, Germany and France.
DeleteInterestingly - I know who was viewing my posts from the UK. A socially-savvy colleague of mine (who follows me on Twitter) saw one of my tweets about the blog I posted on job-hunting and social media. He actually tweeted back to me - curious about why a (happily employed) IBMer would be publically talking about how to find a new job!
I pointed out the link to my blog, letting him know it was a grad school assignment - and not something personal. He has since become a follower - but I can't figure out who would be looking from Germany!
Does anyone else have similar experiences with international followers?
Mike,
DeleteThank you for your feedback. I'm happy to know I'm not going too overboard with Storified images; as this is my first time using the tool, I'm still trying to determine the proper balance between images and the written word.
The analysis and stat suggestion is great, thank you. I hadn't thought to see if I can find a correlation between Scott's mention and my traffic on that day. I'll see if I can include anything useful.
I'm not sure what drove my international traffic. I'm new to Google Analytics, but when I visit the Geographic section and add "Referral" as a secondary dimension in analyzing traffic, there is no specific referral site mentioned for my visitors from Spain and Norway. It simply says "(not set)" in the referral path category. Interesting! I wonder if any classmates (in another section or another course, perhaps) are international?
Kait
Hi Kait,
ReplyDeleteFirst off, I've enjoyed reading your blog posts over the last few weeks. I think your Storify is shaping up quite well - it flows well and is easy to read so far. Under your measurements section, you may want to break up the stats a little more to provide a bigger breakdown of your stats.
Question for you - how did you get an image of your stats to pull into your Storify? I can't for the life of me figure out how to do it on mine.
Hi Tara,
DeleteGreat question. I took screen captures (using the print screen button on your keyboard) and pasted the screen capture (using ctl+v) into Photoshop. Paint or some other image software will also work. From there, you can crop the image to feature the information you'd like featured.
Then, you must upload it to Flickr, an online image portfolio. It takes only a minute to create an account. Once you do create an account and upload the images you'd like on your Storify, there is a Flickr "button" on the right tool bar on Storify (it's two dots, if you hover over it "Flickr" will appear). Search for your username and your uploaded images will appear to add to your Storify.
Let me know if you have more questions. Happy to walk you through it!
Kait
Hey Kait!
ReplyDeleteI think your Storify paper looks really good so far. To answer your first question, I definitely do not think you have too many "Storified" examples. I think they really add to the paper and would not change them. I do definitely think that your strategies section could use some more but you did state that that section was under development so I am sure you are already working on it. Overall I think it is really coming along. Nice job!
-Michele
Thank you, Michele. Definitely planning on boosting the strategies section tomorrow, check it out again tomorrow evening if you can!
DeleteHey Kait, here are some of my suggestions:
ReplyDeleteIn your intro, I think you should add a line break before, "With my graduation date nearing…" This will make it easier to read.
I don't think you added too many Storify examples. I think this is perfect, and it shows your growth as you progressed over the weeks.
After Michael's great suggestion on my page, I have been telling a few people to dig more into the metrics they included in their analysis. It's great to list the results, but you might want to offer more of an analysis to show why you think your blog improved/didn't approve over the weeks, why the majority of your traffic came from Twitter, etc.
Great job!
Thanks, Amanda! I will definitely separate the introduction paragraph as you suggested. I also hope to go in depth with my analysis, as you suggested. I can already tell that I relied more on Twitter to promote my blog, which is why I think most of the traffic came from there. I'll make sure I convey that in my analysis section.,
DeleteKait,
ReplyDeleteThe strategies that you presented were good and provided straight forward information about what you wanted to accomplish. The objectives were good as well because they were easy to measure whether or not they were met. What made you decide on the 100 page views per month instead of a certain amount per week or post? I found that objective interesting. I also really liked that you wanted to increase the time people spent on your blog. That goal seemed important because it sounded like you wanted to create more and more interesting content in order to get more people to stay.
Breaking your activities down into individual weeks made it very easy to follow. Did you consider breaking down your analysis into weeks as well? You also mentioned that two particular posts were the most popular. Why do you feel these posts were more popular? Good post so far and I look forward to seeing the conclusion once it is done.
Great Post!