Who is winning and losing in the battle for creating the most engaging online experiences in New Zealand? Intergen recently published a report, The Engaged Web in New Zealand, that set out to analyse how New Zealand websites are performing when it comes to ‘engagement’. What is engagement? What did we learn? Why does it matter? And what does it mean for you and your website? The first part of this seminar (about 20-30 minutes) was a brief summary of our findings. The second part of this seminar (about 20-30 minutes) was a group exercise (in pairs, or small groups) where attendees were tasked with improving the level of engagement of their organisation’s website based on user feedback. Intended audience: Anyone interested in website content, design, development or social media. This was not a technical session. It’s intended for anyone working in or around the web space regardless of whether or not you are a website owner, business owner, project manager, content creator or designer.

1. The Rules (and Tools) of Engagement Study summary – what we found? AND, how do I make my website more engaging?

2. Intros/Housekeeping (5 mins) Brief summary of findings (20 mins) Group exercise (30 mins) Discussion (5 mins) Drinks… Today…

3. 1 of 2: Report Summary

4. Tools of engagement (not exhaustive)… Online Communities (Social Media & Blogging) Multimedia Personalisation Sticky Content Dialogue Design Others…

5. Summary (all sectors)…

6. Methods…

8. 73% of the websites featured an online community; a large majority of these were Facebook and Twitter pages, leaving 27% with no form of online community.

10. Multimedia scored the highest out of all the other engaged web categories.

12. 86% of the websites made an effort to personalise their website.

14. 98% of the websites had some form of sticky content on their website.

16. 46% of the websites did not have a blog.

18. 7. Dialogue

19. Sectors…

20. Automotive

21. Business and Finance

22. Education

23. Entertainment

24. Food and Beverages

25. Government

26. Health and Medicine

27. Lifestyle

28. News and Media

29. Shopping and Classifieds

30. Examples…

31. ASB…

32. GrabOne…

33. 2 of 2: Group Exercise (Pairs)

34. Todayis about improving the level of engagement of your website, stopping, thinking, and having fun. Todayis not a technical session, ‘name and shame’ exercise or design exam!

35. How it works… Get into pairs (with somebody you don’t know) Introduceyourself and your site If you don’t have one, make one upor I can give you one

36. Thinking about your chosen site… Complete this…(alone, first) 1. TELL/ENABLE {someone} 2. THAT {they should do something on your site} 3. BECAUSE{why? motivation? substantiation?}

37. Create someone… Who is your primary audience? Put some flesh on their bones. Create a Persona (typical user) if you wish.

38. Thinking about your chosen site… Complete this…(alone, first) 1. TELL/ENABLE{someone} 2. THAT{they should do something on your site} 3. BECAUSE{why? motivation? substantiation?}

39. Do what … (one/primary thing)? What do you want them to do? Buy, Read, Share, Print, Watch, Stay, Write, Upload? Rate, Listen, Download, Cry, Laugh, Donate, Register, Click? NB: All valid forms of engagement, by the way. Sure, suggest your own.

40. Thinking about your chosen site… Complete this…(alone, first) 1. TELL/ENABLE{someone} 2. THAT{they should do something on your site} 3. BECAUSE{why? motivation? substantiation?}

41. You should have something like this… “[Rose] should [buy our t-shirts] because … [they’re witty]” “[Tim] should [share this clip] because … [it’s informative]” “[Katy] should [register with our service] because … [it’s NZ’s best news aggregator]”

42. Substantiation (future)… So, how will ‘engagement’ help you do this…? [Rose] will [buy] because … [reason] + engagement method [Tim] will [share] because … [reason] + engagement method [Katy] will [register] because … [reason] + engagement method [Wayne] will [donate] because … [reason] + engagement method

43. Methods… Online Communities (social media & blogging) Multimedia Personalisation Sticky Content Dialogue Design Others…

44. Create your engagement method… “[Rose] will [buy] because … [reason] + engagement method”

45. Away you go…(10 mins)

46. Present back to your partner Partner assumes the role of your user You (describe your idea…) To your partner (acting as your user…)

47. Who was excellent?

48. #1: Understand your users. Engagement is relative. #2: Your website is NEVER finished. #3: Can you use/improve what you already have? #4: Focus on ONE thing first. Did you make your website more engaging? Remember

49. Questions? Comments?