Huffington Post Social Media & Web Strategy-- Mix Education with Tabloid

A central challenge in all teaching is to get the attention of the student.  So how is this done on the web? 

Bob Garfield, On the Media, asks this question of Farad Manjoo of Slate.  Here is what he says about the strategy at the Huffington Post:

"One of the brilliant things about what Huffington Post does is it really understands this sort of mix of tabloid news and straight news and politically sensational news better than almost any publication on the Internet. And it has this mix down really well, so that it publishes stories about politics, about legitimate news stories and then it also publishes the kinds you just cited."

 So what should this tell the rest of us about education?  What is the combination of topics that we might be using to get the attention of our students?  In parent education, should be include a place to share cute baby pictures and diaries of new parents?  What is the "sensational news" we could include about parenting? 

Of course, some will ask, is this appropriate?  Again, what should we do here?  What compromises our integrity and what is just savvy marketing? 


There are a number of good articles at On the Media on web strategy and search engine optimization, strategies for the "most emailed stories"  that are worth listening to or reading.  Also, note the multiple delivery methods used by On the Media with its content.  They did a very thoughtful discussion of the pros and cons of the impact of the internet on society. 

The machine is them/us/you/me

What the heck does this web 2.0 social networking stuff have to do with us anyway?

I’ve been reflecting on the place that the “social networking” phenomena has in the online world, and what that means for our work. After hearing presentations by Dr. Michael Wesch, Andrew Barnett, and our own Dr. Bob Hughes, Jr., I’m convinced that we need to pay attention to playing the social network game for two major reasons.

Playing for for fame and fortune

1. If you don’t show up in the first page (and actually the first 5 entries) in a Google search result, you cannot count on being found.


2. A relatively small number of web-savvy geeks are determining what gets to the top of the Google food chain. These folks are dedicated participants in the way of the (social) network, and they determine what everyone else is most likely to find on a particular topic.


3. In order to appear high on the search list, we have to capture the hearts and minds of those who play in these social networks.


4. In order to capture their hearts and minds, we need to play in same playgrounds, and be willing to figure out the rules and join in their games. Standing on the periphery and pouting will not get us noticed.

Playing to spread the word

In his talk, Bob used the controversy surrounding vaccinations and autism as an example of how “experts” have failed to engage in the kinds of conversations (in blogs, etc) that would counter unsubstantiated beliefs that have draw enthusiastic support from non-scientists. The public does not pay attention to research-based outlets - blog entries or videos that “go viral” have a greater chance of getting widespread press and public attention. We need folks who are willing to spread the word in personal and public arenas so that our views can be “part of the machine”.

What does this mean?

Does this mean that we ALL need to dive immediately in the world of Twitter, Facebook, del.icio.us, Digg, etc? I don’t think so – but it means we need to find CoP members who could and would! And we need to provide some support for CoP members who would like to join this brave new world and give them concrete suggestions for how they can promote JITP (or any other website they might support). These “web evangelists” could be:

• writing their own blog posts or commenting on others’
• linking on their own websites
• providing links and tags in social networking sites like del.icio.us
• providing ratings in sites like Digg
• creating or linking to media content in sites like YouTube or Flikr

But how do we find these people? What kind of characteristics or qualities should the have? How do we recruit them? How do we provide initial guidance?

Search Engine Optimization-- eXtension conference

Andrew Barnett from Fleishman Hillard gave a thoughtful presentation about how to manage your website in ways that effectively take advantage of people's use of search engines. Here are some highlights:

Write for four audiences on the web
1. Readers
2. Editors (including bloggers)
3. Google

Barnett suggested that Google uses keywords, relevance, the authority of the website and links from other websites as a basis for ranking the results on a search. A critical first step in writing for search engines is using keywords. Keywords are those words and phrases that a person in likely to use if they are searching for information. Barnett suggested that web authors need to examine their work to see what words would likely be used by others. He also suggested using software tools like Google Trends, http://www.google.com/trends Wordtracker, http://freekeywords.wordtracker.com/ Google Adwords, https://adwords.google.com/select/KeywordToolExternal to see how the keywords you select are being used by the search engines. Google Keyword will search on a specific URL (webpage) and analyze the likely keywords that would be used to find this page.

Once the keywords are identified the next step is using the keywords in the title, subheads, and text of the article. Barnett notes that using keywords should not be done in ways that distract from the reading or overused. He also suggests that no more than 2-3 keywords be connected to each page. (this suggests that short articles may be better.)

Additionally, using keywords to create links to other information makes the keyword more attractive to search engines. Take a look at Wikipedia and how keywords are linked in it.

Links are also important in search optimization.

A link is an editorial endorsement suggesting that this article/page is worth viewing. Links are more difficult to fudge than keywords so they have more "power" in searches. For keywords that many other websites are also using, the "number of links" make a difference in whose page gets listed higher in the search results.

So how do you build links? First, you make sure your pages are linked by all the people and websites that you know. You also will be linked by providing good content! Other ways to build links is by using feeds to distribute your content, publishing unique content and citing content from other relevant sites.

Participating in various forums, listservs, social networks, blogs and so forth are other ways to get the word out about your website and engage others in linking to your website.