In my communications work, I often decide to “bulk out”.
Bulk might seem like a bad word to some, but it’s a strategy I rely on in my workforce of 1.5 people. Yes, in content creation we strive for quality over quantity, but I think there are times that quantity can trump shiny, glossy perfection. And really the two aren’t mutually exclusive.
For me, “bulk” content generation really means taking a streamlined approach to content. It’s about developing a tried and true template that enables efficient production of content en masse. In my case, I often use a bulk approach when profiling our people: students, faculty and alumni.
Publish, Promote, Repeat
My first dabbling in a bulk approach was with student profiles in the form of simple questions and answers. I asked students to answer a set of standard questions to showcase their programs and their student experience.
The process is simple. I find the student, email them the questions, they provide me their answers and a photo, I copy edit, they approve and I post. Everything is done through email.
Tip #1: Take time to perfect your content template. Tweak the questions, headings, etc. until you know they prompt the answer or content that you need to meet your goals and objectives.
I like to think of it as a tried and true recipe. I know it well, it’s easy to do and better yet, I’ve perfected it to a point that I know people like it. When they stop clicking the content, it’s time to switch up the recipe.
With a recipe it’s easy to develop a workflow (including sharing out on social) that your team can replicate.
Tip #2: Consider hiring a part-time student to help execute the project on mass. The student can quickly learn the parameters of the project and replicate over and over. They coordinate the project, while you can ensure the vision.
Use a Platform to Show Them Off
I took a cue from the student profiles and decided to come up with a listing of 140 people from our past and present community. I developed a template for each profile that would hit on key messaging. Then, I worked with college leaders, the department of history and our alumni affairs team to compile the list.
Tip #3: Don’t underestimate the good feeling you’ll give people when you profile them. I’ve learned that even simple profiles can build, enhance and strengthen connections.
I realized that by highlighting people in bulk we could convey a complex message about our strengths, history and community. We used people’s individual stories to showcase the breadth and depth of our college’s story.
For about three months straight, I had an intern working on interviews and writing profiles, while I worked with developers to create a searchable visual listing of the “140 Faces of OAC”. By packaging the 140 profiles together, there is a visual impact to the project. Viewers quickly get a sense of our college and most notably its history.
Tip #4: It’s important to set parameters on word count and interview time. A one-hour interview gives way too much detail for a 500-word web profile. Plan your questions to ensure you’re getting the content you want, but also in the format you need.
The end product is an impressive listing of people that increased our number of web sessions by 42% the month we launched, and the tweets about the project had an engagement 100% higher than our other Twitter content.
Tip #5: Create a hashtag for your bulk content since you’ll be sharing a lot of it. For this project we used #140Faces.
Between September 18, 2014 and August 18, 2015 the project received 25,750 page views and 17,500 unique views and made up nearly 20% of total page views for our website.
Scaling Up Content Production Beyond Writing to Save Time and.. Money
Sometimes doing things in bulk is just as much about saving other people’s time. In a recent project, we wanted to save the time of a videographer, and save us money as a result.
Graduate student recruitment is a big focus for our college and students told us they wanted to know more about our profs before contacting them. We had a very limited budget but worked with a videographer to take a bulk approach and produce 60 one-minute videos featuring our professors.
We scheduled as many interviews as we could per day, taking only 10 minutes to shoot each. By increasing the number of videos filmed each day, we decreased the filming rate per video. We used standardized questions and didn’t go beyond the 10 minutes. This also helped keep editing time down for our videographer, and I limited the number of edits I requested.
Tip #6: By doing things in bulk you can also reframe your request for budget approval. For example, instead of pitching a $5,000 video project, pitch a project to produce 25 videos at $200/each.
In total we shot 65 videos over five days. It was a lot of preparation work, but it enabled us to have video content that we wouldn’t have been able to afford otherwise.
Tip #7: Keeping videos short also makes captioning and transcription more efficient.
Now we’re in the stage of releasing the videos and ensuring they’re posted in as many places as possible for potential graduate students.
The feedback on the 30 videos released so far has been great, but over time we’ll know better if they’re meeting their intended audience and supporting graduate recruitment.
The Benefits of Bulk for Higher Ed Web Content
Digital marketing content needs to be fresh, exciting and targeted, but not perfect. And when it’s good, the appetite for this content can seem insatiable. When you’re taking on a new project or are brainstorming new ideas, consider a bulk approach to meet the demand and your goals.
Remember, there are many benefits to taking a bulk approach:
- You’ll save time
- You’ll save money (or get more with less)
- You’ll be able to develop fresh content to keep audiences interested
- You’ll build connections with your people
- You’ll know the content (following a template) is linked to pre-established goals and objectives
Meet the Author: Stephanie Craig
Stephanie Craig is the Communications Manager in the Ontario Agricultural College of the University of Guelph. She is also a graduate of Higher Ed Experts’ professional certificate program in Social Media and Web Writing for Higher Ed