Weeknotes #6
b-side festival was great. Caitlin’s Portland Print Workshop was a hit, the girls loved exploring the Jurassic Coast 🦖 and the parade at the end was a lot of fun!
Portland Print Workshop © Caitlin Akers
Conversations this week
On Tuesday I spoke to Nancy Waters (Website & Digital Content Manager) at Britten Pears Arts as we went through Google Data Studio and configuring Tag Manager.
Later on I spoke to Alice Fuller (Business Development Consultant), who is now working with Newcastle Arts Centre, to get Google Analytics 4 set up and running.
Wednesday I went to the Manchester office to see some of our brand new team members in person (Emily, Ewelina and Laura) and say goodbye to the wonderful Gen before she goes off on maternity leave. I also got to catch up with some of the North West Relationship Managers, who all look refreshed and sprightly now the funding application reviews are over. I had a whole Nell’s pizza for lunch, which was glorious.
On Thursday I had a chat with Romana Ashraf (Marketing Manager & Digital Content Producer) and Peter Craik (Marketing & Communications Director) at English Folk Dance and Song Society to guide them through the setup of Google Analytics 4 with Spektrix, Civic Cookie Control and Google Tag Manager.
Lastly, Friday I spoke to Madeline Levy at Alternative Voices Theatre Company about getting Google Analytics set up and running. The website runs on SimpleSite which has one of the most archaic interfaces I’ve seen in a while. There is no custom HTML support at all so no additional scripts can be embedded into the platform. I recommended switching to an alternative platform and host which has that functionality (for a fraction of the cost).
Tracking the right metrics
On the train back from Manchester I watched the Substrakt webinar on How to measure the performance of your content from Katy Arnold (Digital Analyst) and Zosia Poulter (Content Strategist).
It was excellent with really clear language and practical tips for tracking the important things and getting the context right. I recommend watching the 25 minute recording if you can:
I also read an article from SparkToro: Zero-Click Content: The Counterintuitive Way to Succeed in a Platform-Native World. It sets the scene with an infographic showing you how very little major platforms care about your external links. They really don’t want you to leave.
Content link support by social platform © SparkToro
This looks bleak if your whole marketing strategy is "tell people to go read the rest on our site so we increase pageviews". Instead, they suggest what is being dubbed ‘zero-click content’, creating content that people don’t need to leave a platform to enjoy.
The idea is you occasionally post “conversion” content (to get people to do the thing you want them to do), with hopefully higher visibility and engagement rates.
This fits in with the marketing funnel discussed in Substrakt webinar and one I cover in my upcoming webinar Why are you measuring that? on 28 September, come along!
Guaranteed Social Media engagement
I thought this tweet was hilarious:
There are lots of examples online, i’m sure they’re all genuine.
I’ll now have a cynical eye next time I see one of these posts 👀.