I Know CoMo: The 6520 – Fun Blog!

Final Capstone Presentation

I Know CoMo: Introduction

Our Objective: To create a foundation and framework for a local arts and entertainment website for Columbia, targeted towards young adults and students.

Our Expectations: To spend the first half of the semester getting the website running, producing content ourselves while beginning to assemble a staff of writers and contributors. The second part, we planned to focus more on the future of the website, establishing a structure for the organization and potentially finding a news media partner.

The Reality: The original plan evolved constantly over the semester, as we began finding out what worked and what didn’t. We ended up with something a bit different than we had originally envisioned, but still wonderful.

Overall Since we launched the site in September, we have

had a total of 2,602 page views with an average of 29 views per day.

October was our best month, with a total of 995 views. posts during the Citizen Jane Film Fest: 154 we were generating a lot more content in general this

month, so many of these were likely repeat visitors -- people who found it for the first time, and started checking back to see more content as it was added.

we probably lost many of these when content dropped off in November

I know CoMo: The BeginningAugust

The group met before the semester began to discuss concepts for the project and prepare our pitch Names Sections for the website (events, theater, arts,

music, shopping, restaurants, outdoors, etc.) Types of content (audio, text and video)

Pitched our idea to Mike McKean and the class Mike seemed doubtful, but agreed to let us give

it a shot.

Lawrence.com as a model

Initially, we wanted to model the site after Lawrence.com, a website in Kansas with similar goals and audience

What happened: Editor agreed to help us at first, but stopped returning calls before the

in-depth interview happened

In the meantime, we researched the site and found that, though they started out independently-run, they are now backed by a very rich media organization.

We decided this model was not right for us after all As a brand new website, we haven’t yet had the chance to prove our

value, so even if an existing news outlet could be convinced to pick us up, we

would be forced to mold the site according to their style instead of developing our own.

August: Successes and Failures

SuccessesChose a name Bought the domain and hosting spaceSet up Wordpress, e-mail and social

media accountsLaunched the website (version one)

FailuresToo early for failures!

September

First section of site: Music First post: Al Holliday and the Lucky Stars, Sept.14

- “Meet the Band” video- 36 total views, #6 overall for individual posts

First show review ranks next, with 34 views- also got some comments

Rest of September Started restaurant directory, then abandoned it First food, shopping and theatre posts

- Geisha review and “best hummus” both rank in our top 5 most popular posts- “Best hummus” article got attention of myMissourian, we were added to their blogroll

The Site RedesignSeptember 25

The original theme was clunky and didn’t work well visually. New one fits our fun, light-hearted tone, while still looking professional.

The Directory Idea was to gather all the restaurants in Columbia,

break them down by category and create a large database for users to search or browse.

There would be addresses, health food inspections, directions and reviews posted with each restaurant.

The database was created in Dreamweaver, but it was a huge problem to make it visually appealing.

It became clear that creating and maintaining the directory would be more work than it was worth, especially since it is a niche that is already filled several times over in Columbia/mid-Mo.

There was some talk of using Vox’s restaurant database, but ultimately we chose to abandon the directory and focus our energies elsewhere.

September: Successes and Failures

Successes First posts had good number of page views Focused on content and targeting our chosen audience

Developed an informal style, tone

Redesigned the site to better fit our goals Some contributing writers: Jessica Nikolich for music and food, Beth Hoag for theatre Added to myMissourian community blog list

Failures Lawrence.com as our mentor The Directory

I Know CoMo: OctoberEarly stages of recruitment

Contacted individuals- Gwen met with some underclassmen she thought would be interested and responsible enough to take over the site. - Taylor Combs, sophomore, is still looking very promising. She is also motivating her friends to get involved

E-mails to all Listservs in the J-school

I Know Como as a student organization Benefits: Money for advertising, listing in directory, official

Mizzou student org name backing us. Provide structure Draw in new writers to get involved and be the future of the site

My Missourian Blog roll Hummus article featured - increased hits

Citizen Jane FestivalOctober 16-18

HUGE weekend for Iknowcomo.com Alex/Gwen saw many of the films featured at the

festival. They wrote reviews, Facebooking and tweeting

about their experiences.

This was the first time we were linked to from sites other than facebook and twitter - motherhood blog, technology blog, animation blog

Citizen Jane Cont. Effect on site as a whole

6.5% of total views for month previous week: 146 views, to 292 week of fest (doubled) numbers remained above 146 for the next 3 weeks

October: Success and FailuresSuccesses

Interest from other students to write for run the site in the future

995 views (HOORAY) for the entire month Citizen Jane Festival Use of Facebook/Twitter

Failures Actually generating any content out of recruited

students. A lot of interest, but no action.

I Know CoMo: NovemberContent took a sharp decline

We decided shift our focus from generating content to more actively recruiting people.

The plan Go to FIGs, classes and talk to students to get

them interested Posting flyers all over campus and using chalk

Results Sent out e-mails to people who expressed interest

in the FIG meetings, but only one person responded.

However, days when fliers were posted did see an increase in website hits.

November: Successes and Failures

Successes A lot of people showed enthusiasm to work for

Iknowcomo.com Took the initial stages to becoming official student

org.

Failures Content - much less of it Recruitment

Poor results - two meetings, only one person showed up

The Infinity ProjectNovember 30

The Infinity Project approached iknowcomo.com to host their videos.

The first video was posted on November 30. On its best day, the third day it was up, accounted

for 40 percent of our traffic, with 58 views.

102 views total - most popular post of past month - runner-up was coffee, with 38 (had been up since October and only 14 views on its best day)

The site as a whole saw a 1,000+% increase in readership in the IP's first week

First day, accounted for 12% of total views2nd day: 16%3rd day: 48%4th day: 30% after, 0-2 views a day

All of our referrals from this day were from facebook

It is possible that the IP video served as an entry point and the users who found our site through that proceeded to explore more

Infinity Project Cont.

I Know CoMo: DecemberStill producing content

Beginning of the month, there was another round of recruitment with less than favorable results.

Student organization first steps Met with director Started writing constitution Looking for an advisor (hint, hint?) Will be submitting our database info shortly

- once we’re approved as an org, this is what new students will see

Facebook Fan PageCreated a fan page around 8 p.m. Sunday Dec.

13th, and by midnight we had 61 fans and had gone from 30 page views to 250. the pages that got visited the most on this day,

when a lot of people were seeing it for the first time:

Facebook Cont. Most of the traffic from the Infinity Project post

came from people involved in it linking from their Facebooks- We had already noticed that page views were better when we did the same.

Our target audience, students and young adults, is typically very much immersed in Facebook, so it is the natural way to reach them.

This fan page can be an easy way of creating a community around the iKnowCoMo brand, making it easy for people to comment, give feedback on what we're covering, and share their own ideas/ask questions.

What We LearnedDon’t overestimate how far you can go in one

semester- starting an active blog + student org is actually a lot of work!

Facebook and Twitter are essential for driving traffic to our site.

People really seem to like articles about food.

Students are far less motivated to participate in extracurricular activities if they are not required to for class.

Questions? Comments?

One at a time, please…