Web Wednesday Recap – Crafting a Winning Instagram Pilot

If you were unable to attend our most recent Web Wednesday event, no worries. We’ve written a recap of the highlights and shared the video and slides below. Enjoy!

Transitioning to Google Analytics 4

Jamie Rodger from DUC kicked things off with an overview of Carleton’s transition to Google Analytics 4 (GA4).

Universal Analytics (the current analytics version) will stop processing data after July 1st. What does this mean for Carleton and for you?

GA4 Migration Needs and Goals

• Create one Google Tag Manager (GTM) account so that we can see user journeys holistically as they navigate across Carleton sites
• Integrate Google marketing platform to better view campaigns and traffic
• User needs review: how many users do we need in analytics? what do they need to know?

GA4 vs UA

• No more session traffic
• Everything is event focussed
• It will be important to clarify audience segments

Current State

• GTM is installed and GA4 has been collecting data on several sites for a year
• Manually created index of sites
• Big Query Data initiated to save historical data
• Enterprise GA4 account set up
• High level universal dashboard in place

Next Steps

• Indicate if you would like to back up your historical UA data (contact Jamie in DUC)
• GA4 admin meeting to be scheduled in June
• GA4 training to begin in July

Crafting a Winning Instagram Pilot

Quinn was up next to share about how she created an Instagram pilot for Web Services.

What are your goals?

Quinn started, by giving a bit of background around our Instagram goals:

1. to enhance authority and reputation and
2. to build an online community.

It’s also important to take into consideration your target audience (in our case, individuals between the ages of 17-25).

They started off by doing a competitive analysis. This is a great strategy when planning any kind of content campaign. Look at what other universities or similar industries doing.

What content will you create?

Content Pillars

Keeping your goals and audience in mind, you can now come up with some ideas for content. We call these content pillars or categories. For example, we determined 4 key areas for content creation:

• Web Accessibility
• Search engine optimization
• Social media
• Web design and development

Post Types

Besides categories, we used a variety of content post types and evaluated which performed best. These included:

• Carousel posts
• Reels
• Photo posts
• Video posts
• Stories

Pilot Phase

Once you are ready to begin your pilot, there are a few things you need to determine. These include duration, objectives, and deliverables. Here’s an example from our plan:

• Duration: Three months (12 weeks)
• Stakeholders: Quinn Lin and Nadine Basil
• Objective: Assess the effectiveness of Instagram as a community-building tool for Web Services. Evaluate the long-term resource requirements for maintaining a presence on the platform.
• Deliverables: Strategic plan, Instagram account, monthly content calendars, social media content, retrospective minutes, bi-weekly metrics report, and project report
• Evaluation: Bi-weekly metrics

Tips for a Successful Pilot

There are a few things you can do along the way to ensure a successful pilot.

• Track things! We did this by looking at our metrics biweekly.
• Create a content calendar outlining what and when you will post.
• Hold retrospective meetings to determine what is and is not working.

Best Practices (or things we learned …)

• Include animations in carousel posts
• Tag other accounts in posts where appropriate and use geo-location tags to increase visibility and engagement
• Periodically monitor followers’ age range and most active times to inform posting schedule
• Regularly track metrics to determine how the account is performing and adjust accordingly
• Repurpose existing content. This will help to save time and resources while maximizing reach.
• Make sure content is aligned with your organizational mission and values.
• Don’t be afraid to seek feedback from your team members.

cuTheme Update

To wrap things up, Troy shared the latest cuTheme designs. We’ve been working on some really cool ideas for hero banners and featured content. You can have a look at these designs by going to the video replay at this point.

Be sure to check them out. We can’t wait to bring them to life in cuTheme!

Feedback

If you attended the workshop, we’d love to hear your thoughts. Please share your feedback and ideas for future Web Wednesday topics using the form below!