An Introduction to Content Analysis

This week, my team and I submitted our Practicum Report “Content Marketing Strategy and eBook”.

While the title is tidy and cuddly, the work involved was definitely not, but it was a really fantastic project to work on, where we got to put lots of our years’ learning into action. But the reason this was such a great practicum was that it presented us with a brand new challenge. Content analysis.

Being honest, content analysis was not something I had heard of before, or if I had, I definitely hadn’t a clue what it meant. Now, after spending three months immersed in it, I see web content analysis as a crucial research technique, not only for serious content marketers, but for any digital marketer who is looking for an insight into their target market. In this post, I share an introduction to content analysis, using examples from my own recent experience.

 

What is content analysis?

Content analysis is about looking at content, classifying and coding it and identifying various themes or patterns which emerge from it. You can look at it as an attempt to quantify qualitative data – looking at words, opinions, conversations and so on, and putting an order or system on them.

For the practicum, we were working towards creating an eBook for our client to use in their content marketing strategy. Our client was a company involved in the wedding industry. The content analysis was therefore focusing on wedding related websites and forums, with the aim of

1. Uncovering the most popular topics of discussion and

2. Whether or not there was a gap between what consumers were concerned about in the forums compared to what publishers were producing on the websites.

If we found a gap, this was going to impact what we included in the eBook.

Warning! Content analysis is difficult, mind numbing, paralyzing and time-consuming. Proceed with caution.

 

How do you do it?

1. Decide what you want to find out.
   When you start to get lost in the World Wide Web, keep reminding yourself of what it is that you want to find out. For us, it was to find the most popular wedding topics.
2. Decide which websites you want to analyse.
   Again, for us, this was wedding related websites and forums. We used Google’s SERPs to show us in the direction of the most popular and authoritative wedding websites.
3. Decide what you want to analyse on those websites.
   This is tricky. As our focus was on content and topics, we were committed to delving deeply into each website. We classified and coded over 7,000 pages of web content noting the following;
   • URL
   • Year of content publication (where available)
   • Authorship (Publisher or Consumer)
   • Topic

 

What can you learn from it?

If you commit to content analysis, you can learn anything from it. We managed to get our questions answered. We discovered the most popular wedding related topics overall;

 

And the difference in topic popularity between publishers (orange) and consumers (blue);

From this information, we gave ourselves a great basis for making our decisions on what topics should be included in our wedding eBook.

 

But hold on! First, see if a tool can help.

While we carried out our ‘scraping’ manually – moving systematically through the websites and inputting our data to Excel, there are tools out there which can help you scrape web data. Moz have a brilliant step by step guide to data scraping for content marketers and talk about how to use it in, for instance, identifying online influencers. Figuring out how to use these scraping tools is next on my big, bad list of learning!

Interview: Working in a Dublin Marketing Agency

This week is intense. We are in the final few days before ‘Digital Deadline Day’. There’s no doubt that we are going to need every minute of the 11:55pm cut off on Friday night.

Once that date is passed, there will be more deadlines to follow, but attention will also increasingly turn to ‘what next?’

Rachael Greene is Account Manager at Dublin based marketing agency, Acorn Marketing. In this interview she shares her insight into what life is like inside a busy marketing agency, the key skills we should develop for a career in marketing and the importance of the Friday night pint…

How did you get into a career in marketing?

Through my boyfriend’s sister, so I fell into it really. I went to IADT and did a degree in Business Studies and Arts Management. My first post-college job was in Carlton Screen Advertising, the cinema advertisers, in 2008. A dream job, with invites to premieres and free cinema tickets. Unfortunately recession affected the business and after a couple of years it was time to leave. My boyfriend’s sister worked in a marketing agency, they were expanding quickly and needed people. I interviewed and got the job.

 

Did you find moving from college into a marketing job a steep learning curve?

Yes definitely. I kind of went a roundabout way, and what I did in college didn’t really prepare me for life in a marketing agency, but I’m not sure any course will really prepare you! The one constant of every marketing job is there will always be important deadlines. If you can work to deadlines, you’ll be fine.

Can you tell us a little bit about your role and what your typical work day looks like?

My role involves working with two main clients within a large company. One based in London, the other in APAC (Tokyo). For my London client, I am helping rolling out two event management platforms, involving training all local market contacts on how to use the tools. For APAC, I am rolling out a global offline and online marketing campaign, that incorporates multiple stages from research, copywriting, translation, design, print/HTML build and production.

Because I have two large clients, I try to split my day in two, with 50% on each project. Typical day starts with  sifting through emails (when you work with global clients, you get a lot of emails around-the-clock, so the day starts with a full inbox!), then moving onto proofreading copy, emails, reviewing design, briefing the studio, brainstorming, creating presentations, meeting clients, generating strategy for campaigns, analysis, writing back to emails/pings… and doing timesheets!

 

What is the best thing about working in a marketing agency?

The camaraderie. When you all work hard, put in the hours, then go for a well deserved pint… there is nothing better than that feeling. Also, when you help create something that achieves the objectives set out by the client is always a proud moment!

 

What is the biggest challenge?

The work itself is always challenging. Achieving what you want to achieve, and what your client expects you to achieve, within the hours you have isn’t always easy. You have to have dedication… and not be too keen about leaving at 5 every day!

 

What do you see as the key emerging trends in marketing at the moment?

Its been said a thousand times before, but its all about relevancy! Using your data cleverly sounds easy, but its amazing the amount of companies not doing it right. Then the natural progression is getting the right communication at the right time; for example sending real-time, geo-targeted incentives for cafes and shops when they know you are within the locality. With everyone owning smartphones the potential for making communications extremely relevant has not been fully exploited yet.

 

Would you like to share a story about a really successful campaign you have worked on?

One of my first accounts was with a direct response client. Don’t underestimate the power of a large, in your face phone number and URL! Or a catchy jingle for that matter.

 

What skills would you recommend any graduate should look to acquire in order to hit the ground running in a marketing agency?

Working in a marketing agency will be fast paced, and you usually have to learn as you go. Time management skills is an obvious essential, along with being able to work on your own without needing to be micromanaged and taking responsibility for your own work. My advice for people starting work in an agency is –  don’t be scared to ask for help, always say when you’re not busy so you can help someone who is busy, put your hand up for the random ad-hoc requests and go for pints in the local on a Friday night.

 

Are Acorn hiring at the moment?

Yes we are! Check out the Acorn website, and also Epsilon on LinkedIn. (Acorn is an Epsilon company).

 

Massive thanks to Rachael for taking the time to do this interview! For more on graduate careers, see my previous interview with Microsoft Ireland Staffing Specialist, Andrew Byrnes.

Webinar: How to Run an Email Campaign A/B Test

Dr. Lynn ties up the loose ends

On Friday night, I had my last ever Digital Marketing lecture. (Many thanks to Ieva Masevic for the pic!)

It was a pretty chilled out affair, where we took some time out of our 100 mile an hour race to complete our final assignments of the semester. We reminded ourselves of all that we have covered over the year, from our initiation with  ‘Introduction to Digital Marketing’, all the way through Blogging, Online Influence, Advanced Analytics, Mobile Marketing and everything in between. It was strange, after 8 months of pressure, just to stop for a minute and appreciate how far we have come.

Alas, on Saturday morning, it was back to the grindstone and back to the Digital Marketing Portfolio. This weekend I was focusing on e-mail marketing and I recorded my very first webinar. In it I discuss why email is important for digital marketers and how to go about setting up an A/B test in an email campaign using Mailchimp.

Take a look…

The Graduate Job Hunt – Staffing Specialist at Microsoft Ireland Shares His Tips.

As we enter the last 2 weeks of the semester, attention increasingly turns to life after DCU. I complain as much as anyone about the crazy workload this Masters has thrown at us, but it hasn’t dampened the fact that overall, since day one, I have loved this course. All the same, I’m dreaming of the day we finish our practicum and our final presentation day in the Helix on the 29^th August! I can’t imagine the feeling of waking up on the 30^th, and having NO assignments to work on! I have a nice bottle of Champagne gathering dust which I think might then see its day in the limelight.

Anyway, enough of the day dreaming, because on the 31^st, the attention for many will be turning towards getting into the workforce and showcasing all of the skills we have developed so intensively over the year. I interviewed Andrew Byrnes, Staffing Specialist on-site at Microsoft Ireland. He is a DCU graduate himself, awarded with a Masters in Human Resource Management from DCU in 2010. I asked Andrew about the job hunt after his Masters, interview and CV tips and what makes DCU graduates stand out from the rest…

Michaela:            Hi Andrew! You graduated in 2010. How did you find the job hunt once you left college?

Andrew:              It was tough when I finished, it was right in the middle of the recession and my masters class was 60 strong, so we were all competing for the same roles. I ended up in a recruitment internship that got me a full time role after 3 months though.

 

Michaela:            As a DCU MSc Management student, I am going through an infamous module called “Next Generation Management” (NGM) which has been designed to allow students to identify the competencies that they feel are most in important to develop and to produce a portfolio of this development at the end of the year. It is also designed to teach the student to deal with complexity and working under pressure.

I am interested to know if you have had any experience with graduates from this course, either as colleagues or in the recruitment process. Have you noticed any particular strengths and weaknesses in these graduates?

Andrew:              I don’t think I have come across students from this course in particular but I have come across a fair amount of DCU Degree & Masters graduates, both as interviewees and as colleagues. I would say the common attribute I see from these graduates is a great pragmatism and application of theory to actual situations.

 

Michaela:            Do you have experience of hiring people for digital media, e-commerce or digital marketing roles? What are the 3 most important skills graduates in these areas should have and have you spotted any missing skills in the area?

Andrew:              I would have had some exposure to this market in a previous recruitment position. The skills that I see hiring managers look for are; creativity, commitment and languages. Languages are probably the least available skill in Ireland, as native Irish rarely have fluency in another language. As digital marketing reaches a global audience the ability to translate and produce copy for multiple markets is a huge advantage.

 

Michaela:            What is the most common mistake you see graduates make on their CVs?

Andrew:              Spelling and grammar mistakes. NO CV should be sent without a spell-check and having someone else proof read it.

Also CVs generally are too basic and are simply a list of skills without any proof of these skills being used to achieve anything.

 

Michaela:            If you could give 3 pieces of advice for preparing CVs what would they be?

Andrew:

1) Attention to detail, ensure your information is accurate and spelled correctly.

2) Highlight your achievements in each role you have had, demonstrate how you have used your skills.

3) Be creative, make your CV stand out, utilise your digital marketing skills.

 

Michaela:            What is the most common mistake you see graduates make in interviews?

Andrew:

Lack of research into the role, company and/or interviewer. There is so much information available on the web that candidates should know all about the company they are interviewing with; its services, customers, competitors, etc. Candidates should be familiar with the products and services and be able to show that they have used or interacted with them.

Candidates should also find out who is interviewing them/going to be the hiring manager via LinkedIn or Facebook to have an idea of who they’ll be meeting. But be careful not to form any preconceptions of who they will be meeting.

 

Michaela:            If you could give 3 pieces of advice for interviews what would they be?

Andrew:

1) Be prepared and relaxed. However do not be over-prepared to the point where you reeling off answers without showing thought behind them.

2) Be honest with your answers.

3) Ask questions, this is a great opportunity to find out more about the role/company directly from the horse’s mouth. You will be surprised at how much information the interviewer may share with you.

 

Michaela:            What could final year students be doing right now to improve their chances of finding the right job ASAP after graduation?

Andrew:              Right now you should be prepping your CV and looking for potential roles or researching companies you would like to work in. Start reaching out to HR departments and recruiters now.

 

Michaela:            Are Microsoft hiring at present?

Andrew:              Global Multi-nationals are always hiring. The majority of roles open at Microsoft are contract positions but these are a great way to get experience and earn a permanent role if you are clever about the contracts you take.

 

Michaela:            And have you ever used Facebook to check on applicants?

Andrew:              Today all forms of social media are used to research candidates. Everyone should Google/Bing their own name and insure nothing negative is too easy to find.

 

 

Data-Driven Marketing Roadshow, DCU

6:00pm
Drinks

Well that’s it. Last attendees standing here were treated to a drink. Thanks to everyone who followed along with the live blogging here and on Twitter. It’s been a long day but really fun to connect and engage with everybody.
There was an amazing array of experts throughout the day and for someone who is not a natural data analyst, it was great to be immersed in it for a day. It’s experiences like these which work towards demystifying data and presenting it as something which can be accessible to everyone in some form.

Night all!

Michaela.

5:20pm

The panel finishes by giving one piece of advice for marketing people to take on board for their future careers.
Daniela advises the audience to become great at networking, whether that’s human to human or online. The interesting point Daniela makes is that you should fill your network with people who challenge you, people who about you, as these are the people who will help you progress to the next level. I know this is an area I’d like to improve personally.

Jan says marketers should have

The Digital Wedding

7pm.

Luxury beach hut on Koh Phagnan.

The best sunset we’ve seen yet on our trip to Thailand.

This was the moment that I hit one of life’s milestones when Graham and I got engaged. It was the most exciting time – I had just left my job at Dermot Kavanagh Orthodontics, I was only weeks away from starting my full-time masters in Digital Marketing and now we had a wedding to look forward to.

6 months later, and the planning is in full swing. The venue and band are booked, the budget is beautifully drawn up in Excel, the wedding party is taking shape and the guest list has been drafted. Oh, and most importantly of course, the Facebook relationship status has been updated.

That was my first taste of the Digital Wedding. Within days, my Facebook timeline was looking quite different. Every sponsored post was about weddings.

Windows Phone App Studio; The Good, The Bad and The Ugly

It has been the busiest couple of months I’ve ever experienced – no surprises the poor old blog suffered. However, so much has been achieved, including the development of my very first app for Windows Phone. As an all-weather Ireland football fan, I developed the Republic of Ireland Unofficial Football App. Go ahead and check it out.

It’s fair to say I had a mixed experience using Windows Phone App Studio. There are good and bad things about it. And because it is such a new program, your standard Google or Youtube search for a walkthrough is unusually fruitless. But it’s Christmas so let’s start with the positives!

The Good – You, yes YOU, really can build your own app.

Windows App Studio allows any willing individual to become an app developer. It is a free online app builder which allows any user to develop a Windows Phone app without needing to know any code. I found the interface quite confusing at first. It is far from intuitive. But, like with most of these things, all it takes is some patience, persistence and time to adapt and become familiar with the different functions. Here’s a quick step by step process to getting started and making your first page in your app.

Step 1. Sign in

Go to apps.windowsstore.com, sign in with your windows account (your Hotmail or Live account) and click “Start Building”.

Windows App Studio Start Screen

How Introverts Can Become Great Leaders

Are leaders born or made?

I’ve been considering this over the last couple of weeks in the aftermath of the Junior Chamber International (JCI) Dublin, ‘Leading for Growth’ Summit where the leaders of tomorrow gathered to receive some pearls of wisdom from the leaders of today. During my own pondering on the subject, I came across a little gem of a 2012 TED talk by Susan Cain, titled ‘The Power of Introverts’. At this point, I strongly recommend getting yourself a cup of coffee and taking 19 minutes to enjoy her talk.

As I have always thought of myself as having a tendency towards introversion, I found Susan’s talk quite inspiring. She does a great job in highlighting the positive leadership competencies which come from an introverted leader.

However, I’m afraid I have to disagree when she argues that introverts

Get Social 2013 (the short version)

This week, I attended my first Techspectations mini-conference of the year in the Helix.

‘Get Social’ (to be followed by ‘Get Mobile’, ‘Get Started’ and ‘Get Digital’) was a 4 hour marathon of presentations by experts in the field of Social Media and PR. If you didn’t make it, here is my nutshell summary:

Facebook: What’s On Your Mind?

This revealing video kicked off the event and explores up-to-date data on Irish Facebook usage.