crop production and crop science<\/a>. Within that theme, students can browse by commodity (e.g., barley) or by topic (e.g., plant breeding). Once the prospective students drill down to this level, they can then explore faculty profiles to find the perfect match. <\/p>\nWhile working for two departments and a few research units, our group noticed that there was a lot of duplicate content scattered among the sites. Some faculty would have three or four profiles floating around in varying stages of updatedness. Events would be listed multiple times on various sites, sometimes with conflicting details (e.g., different room numbers).<\/p>\n
Our group devised a way to share this common content among sites using tools offered in our CMS, leading to a streamlined experience for users and relief among content creators who now need to update information only once.<\/p>\n
Learning About Audiences<\/h2>\n As a communication and content professional, I know enough to guide faculty away from their assertion that the whole world would rush to their website, if only it found its way on to the internet from their brain. After all, the world at large may not be as interested in all the particulars of their research \u2014 maybe just outcomes, risks, or an aspect that the faculty member hasn\u2019t even considered. <\/p>\n
Our web team has started holding web strategy workshops designed to give faculty space to think about 1) what they need to communicate to their audiences, 2) what their audiences are looking for and 3) how to use online tools to support their content needs. <\/p>\n
We charge faculty and researchers to think strategically and really push them to consider what their audiences are looking for. In certain cases, a small tweak is all that\u2019s necessary to improve their communication online. In other cases, our web team must work closely with faculty to assist in building new content from scratch. <\/p>\n
Often our faculty show up at the workshops with a kernel of an idea, something like \u201cPeople are always asking me about new drought-tolerant landscape plants for this area. I just completed Grevillea<\/em> trials in western Oregon and wrote up a long Word document detailing the research and my findings. What now?\u201d<\/p>\nIt\u2019s a lot of work but through exercises that help them define their audiences and explore online tools, we help faculty communicate their research in efficient, effective ways. <\/p>\n
Being Nimble<\/h2>\n At the end of the day, I am a communicator working directly for two departments. Web duties aren\u2019t farmed out to an unknown unit or tacked on to an overworked admin\u2019s job description as \u201cother assigned duties,\u201d which benefits the departments and my groups in many ways.<\/p>\n
I don\u2019t think any initiative within a university can be easily called nimble, but our web team\u2019s leanness and focus on results allow us to move a bit more quickly. We\u2019re lucky in that we can rely on the university\u2019s web group to do the heavy lifting on some of the more vexing issues, like accessibility or template development.<\/p>\n
Another benefit of working directly for a department is that I can take advantage of the content from more long-form pieces written by University Marketing, Web Communications or our research magazine. And, I can choose to focus solely on the topics that interest my departments. <\/p>\n
For instance, from an article that focuses on all the ways the university is researching the effects of climate change on the natural world, I can extract and republish the information about agriculture \u2014 content that the College of Agricultural Sciences\u2019 web users are interested in.<\/p>\n
Drawbacks<\/h2>\n Of course, there are a few drawbacks to this sort of in-the-trenches departmental content strategy\u2014 for me, one drawback is an uncertain job. Departments and units kick in to cover salaries and benefits, so really showing value is key. I do this through analytics and student data. <\/p>\n
However, our web group also tries to make ourselves indispensable by offering consulting expertise aimed at connecting with our audiences in new and more effective ways \u2014 running webinars, producing videos and even developing a communication strategy that informs content creation for smaller projects, which includes setting communication goals for a site and devising a schedule of content creation and maintenance that allows the project to reach these goals.<\/p>\n
Also, Oregon State University\u2019s brand guidelines<\/a> are well known, deservedly so, for being simple, strong and followed across the university. Faculty who bristle at being told what to do have come to me to try and find a way around these identity guidelines. OSU\u2019s strong branding makes my job easier, so I follow it closely. You\u2019ll not be breaking any branding guidelines with me. <\/p>\nNear the end of Confab Higher Ed 2013, feeling a bit overwhelmed, I hid out in a hallway and found a comfortable bench to park myself on. I needed a breather for all the inspiration and ideas coming my way. But my hiding place wasn\u2019t very good \u2014 first one attendee wandered up to ask me about my position, then another. Here I had attended Confab Higher Ed, in part to learn what I could do with minimal resources, but people were seeking me out, showing me the benefits of my position.<\/p>\n
Before Confab Higher Ed, I was slightly embarrassed about my position within the university \u2014 and even hid the facts when I registered for the conference, saying that I worked for the university as a whole. But Confab Higher Ed convinced me that my role is an asset to Oregon State University. Content strategy doesn\u2019t have to work out of your central marketing and communications office; it can work where you are \u2014 whether you\u2019re a team of many or one.<\/p>\n
Are you working in the trenches, too? What does your department-level content strategy look like?<\/p>\n
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About Erin Martin<\/strong><\/p>\nErin Martin is the web communications leader for the departments of Horticulture<\/a> and Crop and Soil Science<\/a> at Oregon State University, where she works closely with faculty, staff, and students to help them inform, connect, and engage with their audiences. Her research program seeks to find the best coffee on campus.<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The following guest post was written by Erin Martin, Web Communication Leader for the departments of Horticulture and Crop and Soil Science at Oregon State University. Last year, I scraped up enough funding to attend Confab Higher Ed, the inaugural higher education content strategy conference held in Atlanta. As I was wandering around, meeting inspiring […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":5137,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[127],"tags":[50,59,21,22,56],"yoast_head":"\n
Department-Level Content Strategy | Meet Content<\/title>\n \n \n \n \n\t \n\t \n\t \n