Assess Your Digital Health with this Checklist
The end of the calendar year provides the perfect opportunity to reflect on the past 12 months and think about how you want to invest in team planning and strategy in the near future. Starting the process early helps to ensure you can take a much-deserved break this holiday season while remaining confident you have systems in place to start strong in January.
Maybe that means updating your organization's social media policy, adding frequently used terms to your messaging guide, or doing a digital content audit of the website.
Here's a checklist that can help you assess the health of your digital marketing and communications practices as you brainstorm the best way to meet future engagement goals.
Checklist Item #1: My website is optimized to boost SEO, based on my target audience.
Doing research to understand keyword ranking in relation to your content topic is essential. Once you have this shortlist, you can review existing messaging to incorporate phrases and terms that will increase your organic ranking. These keywords can also be used within photo alt-text and file naming, which is also found by site crawlers.
Checklist Item #2: My website is compliant with recommended accessibility guidelines.
Do you have PDFs that are intended to deliver critical information, but lack the ability for translation or text size changes, for example? Go through existing web content, starting with pages that are most viewed, to ensure that basic functionality tools are in place for your audience members who may have different needs when interacting with your website. Here’s a great resource from the ADA website that can guide you.
Checklist Item #3: My digital asset library is organized with a workflow that my entire team can understand and regularly implement.
Nothing is worse than trying to source a video or photo asset that you know exists but have no idea where to find within your digital library. Building and documenting a system that your team can follow, including appropriate folder categorization by file type or nomenclature, can save precious time and energy when executing on digital strategy.
Checklist Item #4: I have a digital editorial calendar that clearly outlines planned content management for future strategic projects.
Using an editorial calendar is a great way to map out content ideas that best serve your audience. This takes the stress out of coming up with ideas week-by-week and allows for alignment with programmatic activities and national days of awareness. Editorial planning allows for clear expectations, but there are opportunities for flexibility within that as current events and external conversations shape organizational needs.
Checklist Item #5: My active social media platforms have been audited in the past six months.
Things like changing your social media profile introduction content, managing the profile landing page links, and assessing your overall content management approach can bring forth areas of opportunity. Have you started a Twitter list that needs to be updated or removed? Does your Instagram stories feed need to be reorganized? Have you enabled two-factor authentication on all of your accounts for security?
Checklist Item #6: My email marketing audience has been cleaned up and/or segmented in the past six months.
Whether you operate a regular e-newsletter program or something less frequent, understanding the type of content your audience is looking for is key to retention and strengthening engagement. If you’re currently emailing one mass email list, try A/B testing to see if there are specific elements of your content that resonate with different audience groups, and then tailor your future actions to what you discover.
Checklist Item #7: I have an insights process identified for the ongoing collection and interpretation of digital data.
Looking at how your audience is responding across your digital ecosystem is critical to adjusting your operations to add value through your user experience. No matter where a user comes across your content, they should find something that’s useful to them. Collecting and analyzing this data in a way that goes beyond numbers and identifies behavior will allow for ongoing tweaking of existing plans through targeted listening and action.
If your digital operations are running smoothly in at least half of these areas, you’re in good shape to greet the year with confidence.
Not quite there yet? Use these ideas and plan a strategy meeting with your internal team in Q1 to talk through some potential work plans that address critical needs.
And if you’re in need of a strategic mind to help you lead this process, I’d welcome the opportunity to chat. Happy planning!
WordSpark Digital Consulting is a social impact consultancy based on the East Coast. Ready to learn more about how you can use effective strategy to deepen your connection with relevant audiences? Let’s connect.