Anyone who knows me well knows I don’t hand out empty compliments. You get paid/rewarded for your work and, in my GenX world a compliment is handed out when it is truly deserved.
Last week the students of OKState’s JB 4520 Social Media class took over the reigns of PROpenMic. Their goal was to increase traffic to the site and, in my opinion, more important, increase conversation on the site. They didn’t just accomplish both, they knocked it out of the park. Once again, time isn’t on my side (please forgive any typos, etc. I will fix later but want to get this out) to share every little detail (it will come later) but here are the highlights:
If we only compare their Monday – Friday takeover to the prior week we find the following (prior week’s numbers in parenthesis)
- Average time on site increase of 6.45%
- There were 1,918 (1,057) visits with 1,213 (698) being unique visits
- These visitors collectively visited 9,466 (4,710) pages
- 45.46% were new visits (never before been to the site. You could infer we were a driving result of that)
- Regarding Friday, I heard some comments from the students that the effort just kind of died out – nothing could be further from the truth. We saw a 59.6% increase in traffic on that day. A few thoughts on this:
- Friday traffic on websites is usually a bit slow. Review all the Fridays on the attached graphs and you will see a steady decline into the weekend.
- I would argue you stopped a much larger decline due to the strategic tweeting which occurred.
- Here is the kicker – Socially Orange, the OKState’s student created site saw a 163% increase comparing the last two Fridays and had the most visitors on a Friday, or any day, ever. There was also a 26% increase in traffic from previous week, a 13.02% increase in time spent on site from previous week and an increase in visitors – 539 Visits vs 425 the week before.
Finally, the most popular blog posts on propenmic were all created by OSU students. This is a great compliment – I have blogged several awesome (I thought so anyway) articles and never ranked on most popular.
Regarding conversations – the facts speak for themselves. Simply visit PROpenMic and review the events.
Great Job JB4520 – my compliments to your hard work and results.
[...] Uncategorized JB 4520 was one of the first social media courses offered in the United States (way back in 2009). The recommendation made, almost a year and a half earlier, was met with a tepid response. The [...]
Hey Bill, just saw this and sorry I didn’t comment earlier.
The students did a terrific job! Thank you for taking on the project. OSU has set the bar very high for all future efforts by other schools.
They should call themselves Team Zizzou. A worthy Wes Anderson themed name, but just a notch bellow The Max Fischer Players, of course. You know what I’m talking about Abby
Bill,
Your students did a phenomenal job of running PR Open Mic! It was so fun with how they changed the front page to school colors and generated captivating content each day. I enjoyed listening to the live discussion held mid-week as well. Your students’ energy and enthusiasm were outstanding. Hats off to you and your students! Go Pokes!
Cheers,
Tiffany