I
approached my role as editor of the BA Journalism (Philosophy) Magazine a
little later than expected but with an already distinct vision of how the
product should function as a web based medium. It
made sense to compare the site to higher-ranking magazines each week (as
outlined in my proposal) with the site itself adequately functioning via a “Gabfire” theme generated for WordPress; which was pretty simple to navigate once I had the right tools. My
new found familiarity with Slimstat
for example was often challenged by questionable peaks in pageviews, which made
sense once technological ‘spiders’
were taken into consideration. Unlike
my previous experience, I found it a lot easier to organise myself in accordance
to the content that had already been uploaded. My
fundamental task was more to “tidy up”
the initial site, which I admit perhaps didn’t take as higher priority as the
weeks went on. A
solid plan to include a ‘debates and
discussions’ tab also took a back seat, as did actively editing the front
page as a whole. Referring back to my FYP proposal however, I believe I did well to build upon each
objective within this fully functioning website.
*Increase All Social Media Relating To Website.
By
the second week of active editing, a Twitter account had been set up under the
alias @PhilosophyWinch with an aim
to increase the magazine’s current following. Within
four days the account managed to obtain *9
individual followers, which has now increased to a comfortable *19 dated 16th March 2014. Experimentation
with a “live tweet” format, where I
proceeded to tweet mini tasters mid-semester, did well to increase social media
hype.
*Edit All Existing Content.
“Rome wasn’t built in a day” so when
considered in relation to all other responsibilities, subbing lecture notes was
probably the least prioritized aspect of the project. I
did however make the executive decision to begin ‘cleaning up’ the site, by setting all new content delivered via RSS
feed to ‘pending;’ thus preventing
automatic posting and promoting strict content regulation.
*Optimize Content And SEO Checks.
I
thoroughly enjoyed getting to grips with the varying aspects of statistical
data through Alexa and Slimstat (amongst others). I
would have liked to become more involved with Google Analytics specifically but a strict routine of blogging every
week did well to motivate and keep me up to date with the magazine as a whole.
