1. Even small web projects need a content strategy Jason Samuels, NCFR Technology Manager July 20, 2010
2. National Council on Family Relations Founded in 1938 Premier professional association for the multidisciplinary understanding of families NCFR Website Launched in 2006 Organization re-branded in 2008 Branding bolted on to website in 2009 Website redesign in progress (early-2011) 2
3. NCFR Website Banner (old) 3 Original website design included a banner graphic
4. NCFR Website Banner (new) 4 After applying new graphic standards, this space was empty
6. Good idea, but… No idea how much work it would take Unprepared for affirmative response from members we asked (82 of 85 said yes!) No plan for long-term maintenance In short .. no content strategy 6
7. A crash course in Flash animation Original idea was to have pictures fading in and out, replacing each other until the final fade out to “We are NCFR” Used 50 high resolution photos It was slick, beautiful, and a 12MB file Start over from scratch, resize the pictures first, use only enough to fill the space 7
8. An inclusive solution 8 Ten different versions – each contains 16 photos. A scheduled task on the server rotates the banner file every 15 minutes. (Each file = 60-70KB)
9. Maintenance issues The week it launched, two members requested we use a different picture No mechanism in place to ensure featured members are current on their dues Flash animation is labor intensive – changing one picture requires multiple edits in the animation path. If that affects the picture next to it, workload snowballs 9
10. How content strategy could have helped Articulate a purpose for the animation and how it furthers the NCFR brand Plan for the resources needed to create and maintain Set guidelines for what members are featured and how often it gets updated 10
11. It goes to show that content strategy isn’t just for large projects, and doesn’t need to be complicated 11
13. A baseline content strategy Key Objectives Make NCFR homepage more attractive, foster engagement of organization members by featuring them Content owner Marketing & Public Affairs Depts. determine who is featured Technology Dept. does the technical work to make it happen Technology/Publishing Implications Animation file size must be small enough to not affect homepage performance Maintenance Implications Need a mechanism to verify member status 4 hours of work every 3-6 months to update 13
