This is the second in a series of posts giving you an insight into the Go Mobile programme from the perspective of a web editor.

Ivan Lazarov is a Public Relations Assistant in the Press Office. His work involves a range of projects, including the International Research Impact campaign, raising awareness of the outstanding work carried out at the Careers Service, helping promote entrepreneurship stories, developing publicity opportunities in India and creating video content.

As part of Go Mobile he is editing the Press Office and Research websites.

Key take-aways from Go Mobile training

I changed my attitude towards creating and publishing content thanks to the Go Mobile training. It helped illustrate the importance of a structured approach prompted by the evolving media production and consumption. Starting with analysing the website data, through to having a hard look at your content to some great tips and ideas. The training covered all aspects that help publishers deliver key messages and engaging content.

I learned a lot of new skills, but I must admit that I still need to look at cheat sheets when editing. Hopefully, this will change soon. The Top 5 Tips for writing for the web are excellent. I refer to them even when I’m not creating web content – they are a useful when I write press releases and internal newsletter articles.

The Hemingway App and headline analyser tools are interesting and I try to use them to streamline my content when possible. I also use Fotor to crop photos and do other minor editing when I don’t have Photoshop available. I highly recommend all of these tools.

The training is hands-on, with plenty of examples and scenarios to work with – I really enjoyed that. Also, the small-group dynamic ensured that all participants were engaged throughout the session. The exercises (not intended to put you on the spot!) helped us put the training into context and align it with what we do every day.

Getting stuck in to editing

The T4 training has been essential to help me get up and running. I’ve edited a number of pages within the Research website and the training is now helping me better understand the development of the Press Office website. Once the Press Office website goes live, we’ll be using T4 all the time to publish press releases and multimedia content.

The Writing for the Web training is helping me craft content that will be fit for the new content types and users’ expectations. As I mentioned, it has helped me optimise the way I write in general.

Advice for other Go Mobile editors

Try to put the training in context and ask lots of questions. The Web Team are friendly and very helpful. Also, use the opportunity to talk to the other editors and exchange ideas.

Don’t worry about taking too many notes – I am a profuse note taker, but the Web Team have produced detailed guides which include everything you need to know and can be used as a reference once you hit the ground running.

Ongoing support from the web team

The web training team run regular drop-in sessions for Go Mobile editors. They also provide space for editors to work when they need some quiet time. I think this is great and recommend you to make use of it.

When I come across any issues, I talk to the Web Team and get them sorted out right away. Many thanks! For me, the support available is more than enough.

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This is the first in a series of posts giving you an insight into the Go Mobile programme from the perspective of a web editor.

Fiona Simmons is the Institute Clerical Assistant at the Institute for Social Renewal. Along with the Institute Administrator she is responsible for the Institute’s website, blog and social media channels.

The first step – Go Mobile training

As soon as my colleague and I sat down to fill in our ‘site purpose’ exercise we knew that Go Mobile was going to be a good thing for our website. A few diagrams and coloured pens later, we had identified:

• our core pages
• our main user tasks
• the business goals that we were to aim towards

At the planning and writing web content session it was brilliant to crystallise our thinking on what the Social Renewal website could do better if we gave our content a makeover.

The next training session, on editing in T4, was totally different. It took us from what was ideal and essential to what was possible. With new types of content available, it became clear how we could practically carry out our plans for a re-vamp. I went into this session with a great keenness to find out how to add link buttons, but I learnt much more!

I’d been looking forward to seeing how the new mobile responsive websites would look but was worried that our website would be the one that it just wouldn’t work for. When I’d finished the training, I realised that the team has a great understanding of our needs as an Institute. And the flexibility in the system would allow us to create content that was more consistent, usable and effective.

I loved getting a chance to practice re-writing content so that it is concise and clear, and working out the best way to structure a page.

We left the training with loads of ideas for the Social Renewal site, and so many options for how we could take it forwards. Of course, with all that enthusiasm comes a health warning.

It takes invested time to bring all this together. The main time-suckers are sourcing new images and re-imagining your site structure to reduce its depth. It’s worth it, and it’s rewarding, but the following will be useful:

• Fotor.com – for resizing your images
• Hemingway Editor – plug your written content in and see what comes out
• content templates – figure out your primary message, secondary message and supporting content
• a content calendar – use this to plan your web updates alongside your business calendar

Putting what we learned into practice

Now that the training has sunk in, we’re gearing up to have a re-think of our site content. We’ll use the templates that we’ve been given by the Corporate Web Team. In the meantime, just to tidy up our pages, I’m using lots of different types of new content, from social media buttons to tabbed pages.

When I’m looking at a page, I’m now constantly thinking of:

• the user’s task
• the business goal that I want to direct the user towards
• why we want them to visit our page

I can already see the improvements.

If you haven’t experienced T4 (the new content management system) before, then my top tip is to have a play in the system as soon as you have access. You’ll quickly see the new flexibility you have, and the opportunity to re-configure your site in a meaningful way, using the resources provided. If you have used T4 before, as I had, it’s all the freedom with none of the frustration!

My next step is to work with the rest of my team in the Institute for Social Renewal to make our website showcase our activities in the best way it can. We’re very excited for our colleagues to see the finished result!

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