{"id":3758,"date":"2012-11-14T07:02:58","date_gmt":"2012-11-14T12:02:58","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/meetcontent.com\/?p=3758"},"modified":"2017-04-20T00:20:51","modified_gmt":"2017-04-20T04:20:51","slug":"case-in-point-content-culture-at-vanderbilt","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/meetcontent.com\/blog\/case-in-point-content-culture-at-vanderbilt\/","title":{"rendered":"Case in Point: Content Culture at Vanderbilt"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Melanie
Melanie Moran, Vanderbilt University<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

One of the biggest challenges we face in higher ed getting people to buy into the value of content strategy and build support for content across our organization. At Vanderbilt University in Nashville, Tenn., executive director of integrated communications Melanie Moran<\/a> has rung up a string of successes doing just that. <\/p>\n

Whether it\u2019s their news site<\/a>, the 365@VU photo project<\/a>, the alumni magazine<\/a> or a recent reorganization, Moran and her team at Vanderbilt seek opportunities to build a smart, holistic, audience-centric approach to web publishing across the university. Last April, Moran authored a post on the Vanderbilt web communications blog<\/a> that articulated her approach in compelling detail.<\/p>\n

Moran studied political science at Penn State and got a graduate degree in public policy from Indiana University. From there, she began doing environmental policy work for the Tennessee Department of Environment and Conservation. When the state went online, she pitched in to help develop the state\u2019s first website. Following that, her career focused on communications and media relations\u2014and an abiding interest in the web.<\/p>\n

Nine years ago, she brought that blended skillset to a different kind of institution, switching gears from government to higher ed. Since joining Vanderbilt, she says she approaches her job \u201calways from a content perspective and looking at how can we use the technology to get our stories to the biggest audience possible.\u201d We asked her to talk more her experiences doing just that.<\/p>\n

Letting Stories Lead the Way<\/h2>\n

MC: How do you achieve the coordination and the efficiency to tell stories efficiently across a range of channels and platforms?<\/b><\/p>\n

Moran:<\/strong> That came about from looking at our stories and seeing how frequently we started with \u201cVanderbilt did this\u201d or \u201cVanderbilt did that\u201d and then got around to the story. Our office is full of former journalists and nobody is going to write that kind of story. So, we just tried to switch things around\u2014\u201cWhat is the story? What is the discovery? What is the news?\u201d\u2014and trying to get Vanderbilt a little bit out of the way and showing people rather than telling them what an interesting place this is. <\/p>\n

So, I think that’s the germ of it\u2014trying to get away from serving a particular college or a particular department or even a particular faculty member, and really focusing on the story, because that’s what’s going to have legs. That is what’s going to interest people and engage them with Vanderbilt. <\/p>\n

Here at Vanderbilt, we do have communicators scattered all across the university, and they are all working really hard to tell those stories about their places, but in the past they really weren’t coordinated in any way. We do have a monthly meeting of all communicators across campus where we share ideas, but other than that, that’s kind of after the fact rather than trying to get ahead of the story and making it as robust and dynamic as we can. <\/p>\n

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The first step is getting the people, the content generators, around the table, talking in a regular way. <\/div>\n<\/div>\n

We just recently did a pretty major reorganization, where we pulled the staff who were acting as editors of our magazines for various alumni populations into news and communications into a new team called Integrated Communications. It includes those folks who are editors, Lacy [Tite]<\/a> and the rest of the web communications team, and internal communications as well, as well as our main flagship publication, Vanderbilt Magazine<\/a>. We sit within news and communications, too, which is full of writers who are working with the media and also producing video. <\/p>\n

By pulling everybody into one place, then the magic happens. The story first happens because we’re talking to each other. We’re sharing ideas on the front end, we’re hearing what our colleagues are working on and we’ll say \u201coh, have you thought about how we’re going to do that online. Have you thought about how the school of engineering can use that? I know we have this weekly newscast. We can include the story there.\u201d <\/p>\n

The first step is getting the people, the content generators, around the table, talking in a regular way. But also just constantly communicating and reiterating with everyone, \u201cLet’s think about all the different ways to tell this story and what’s the best way to communicate it, where it is going to get people’s attention and engage them.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u2018Blurring the Boundaries\u2019<\/h2>\n

Hear Melanie talk about integrating your social media content with website and news content in order to spur engagement:<\/b><\/p>\n