The Oshkosh Independent Strategy

May 13, 2015

Prepared by:

Carly Townsend
, Social Media Strategist
townsc15@uwosh.edu

Holly Schneider
, Content Strategist
schneh60@uwosh.edu

Andrea Larson
, Content Strategist
larsoa14@uwosh.edu

Brayden Wendt
, Content Strategist
wendtb52@uwosh.edu

Table Of Contents
About the Client
___________________________________________________________________________
2
Situation Statement and Objectives
______________________________________________________
2
Target Audience and Strategy
____________________________________________________________
3
Project Deliverables
_______________________________________________________________________
4
Appendix:
A
(Internship Descriptions)
______________________________________________
7
B
(Social Media Policy)
___________________________________________________
9
C
(Social Media Guidelines and Recommendations)
__________________
11
D
(Social Media Strategic Plan)
_________________________________________
24
E
(SEO Tips)
______________________________________________________________
29
F
(Google AdWords)
_____________________________________________________
31
G
(Google News)
_________________________________________________________
35
H
(Traditional Advertising Recommendations)

_______________________
38
Sources
____________________________________________________________________________________
39

About The Client

The Oshkosh Independent (OI), as described on its website, is Oshkosh Wisconsins locally
owned independent news source, providing coverage of local news, events, music, art,
business, religion and more. The site was launched in February 2015, and is staffed by
members within the Oshkosh community, including 52 volunteers who write the content for
the website. The Oshkosh Independent (OI) is heavily involved in community service. It
donates 5 percent of all profits to other local nonprofits. Also, the OI organizes the Oshkosh
Music Art Series. The Oshkosh Music Artist Series is a program that raises funds to support
local artists and musicians. As the only nonprofit news source, the OI has no direct
competitors. The Northwestern and The Scene are close competitors that target Oshkosh
and the Fox Valley and have both a print newspaper and website. Along with the website,
the OI is currently visible on two social media outlets: Twitter and Facebook, and offers
advertising space on its site.

Thank you Justin and everyone at Oshkosh Independent for allowing us to work with you on
this project. It has been a pleasure and we hope our suggestions will be valuable for the
organization.

Situation Statement And Objectives

Objective Statement
The OI is looking for ways to promote its website to expand readers and awareness in the
Oshkosh and Winnebago County community. We will aid formation of realistic goals and
ideas of how to measure those goals for the OI, for the next year to three years, and provide
2

ideas for improving the website (built in WordPress with some customizations) based on
best industry practices.
Objectives
After collaborating with Justin, objectives were decided to enhance the OI:
1. Increase marketing initiatives so uninformed community members and students are
exposed to the OI's content.
2. Increase engagement and interaction with followers on social media.
3. Provide an organizational chart to set up a hierarchy of roles.
By increasing marketing initiatives, focusing on social media and search engine
optimization (SEO), the OI can increase its target audience to reach more uninformed
community members and students. An increase of awareness of the OI in the Oshkosh
community will also create a working income to further project the OI, assuming that
advertisers want to promote content on sources that are popular and trusted in the local
community.
The social media strategy will also create an integrated experience through all of the social
platforms that the OI has. More specifically, we will give set standards and optimal social
media content posting for the OI. The social media strategy will include, a situation
statement, objectives, target audience, strategy, tactics, timeline and budget. This will focus
on content management, audience engagement and call-to-actions. We will also create a
social media policy that all members of the OI must follow to uphold this social media
strategy, and guide the OI writers and interns on the proper and effective ways to interact
with viewers and promote its website.
Another objective to help the OI reach more readers is SEO. Justin specifically said, There
are several additional elements that are free to helping with searches, such as Google News,
it would be great to fully explore these in addition to what you are suggesting. Research
and advice will be done to validate the best options for OI.
In order to provide organization within the OI, positions should be created with a hierarchy
system. Further explaining what roles are responsible for what content and people, if
needed. We are looking to create four internship positions for the OI to help establish a
business hierarchy. Positions we suggest are Social Media Intern, Advertising Sales Intern,
Business Development Intern and Web Design Intern. We will develop job descriptions and
requirements for each internship position.

Target Audience And Strategy

Our client wants to target all ages and members of the Oshkosh community. The content of
the website emphasizes the arts, food and politics. Our client feels the website already has a
large pull on informed community members within these niche markets. The focus is now
on the uninformed who dont know what is happening within the community, but are
seeking new, fun things to do and trustworthy information on politics, events, services and
news within Oshkosh.
3

To target the uninformed community, we chose tactics that will catch their attention and
inform them of OI and what its content has to offer. The OI as of now, is not a household
name; our goal was to strategize ways to put the OI closer to becoming the community's
favorite destination for updates on local events, food, music, art and news. Both traditional
and nontraditional platforms were chosen to meet this goal.
The platforms include online marketing such as social media, an aggregated news feed, an
online advertising campaign and SEO tips. A large portion of the Oshkosh population is
made up of college students who obtain most of their news from online sources- a reason
why online marketing was a chosen tactic. Traditional platforms include distributing fliers
and coupons. Another portion of the Oshkosh population has been long-time residents and
are loyal to many local businesses- a reason why traditional advertising was chosen. To
resonate with the target audience through these platforms, we chose a familiar voice. The
tactics were designed to be community members informing other community members.

Project Deliverables
Our team created five main deliverables to help accomplish the clients goals. When we met
with the OI founder, Justin, he discussed his need for more help in managing tasks, social
media engagement and SEO to drive more traffic to the website. From this information, we
came up with the deliverables of a social media strategy, Internship position requirements
and descriptions, social media content guidelines, and search engine optimization
suggestions and tips.
The social media policy focused mainly on protecting the OI brand, employees and
volunteers conducting themselves properly on social media.
Justin reached out to us to provide suggestions for better SEO, so we suggested both a free
and paid option with Google News and Google AdWords. We used our research to create a
sample Google AdWords campaign to see the possible benefits and also go into detail on
how to submit an article to Google News.
Social Media
Social media presence is very important for online businesses to help engage customers. To
help the OIs social media pages better perform, we broke down the goals and objectives of
the social media pages and created action plans and measurement tables for each suggested
social media platform based off research such as
What are the best times to post on social
media
. We also did a current analysis of the clients social media pages.
Some social media platforms we recommend the client look into in the future are:
Instagram and Youtube
Instagram would be a great place for the writers of the OI to post real time
pictures of the events or stories it is covering. People love to relate to
businesses on a personal level. According to an infographic from the
Marketing Eye
, more than 76 percent of brands claim increased engagement
through real-time marketing.
4

 YouTube would be a valuable source to hold and catalog all the videos that
are uploaded to the site, and would make it easier for people to share on a
variety of social media platforms.
Internships
There are three internships to fill, and they are the Advertising Sales, Business
Development, and Social Media and Web Development. These descriptions should go live at
the end of May in order to have interns hired for at least the summer. The way to measure
the success of the internship descriptions is simple. The more applicants you receive during
the hiring period, the better the descriptions are.
The suggested internships are based off of our initial observations at the site, for which the
OI needed some work.
The Advertising Sales Intern establishes relationships with local businesses and
helps get ads into the publication, which in turn brings in a source of revenue.
The Business Development Intern will help keep the OI organized and assists in
areas such as accounting, marketing, sales, web, and editorial.
The Social Media and Web Development Intern establishes the OIs online presence.
This individual will manage all social media accounts and maintain an up to date
website.
Search Engine Optimization
In order to reach a larger audience, it is recommended that the OI get involved in Google
News. This platform allows you to customize your news feed, including a geographical filter
which allows people to get news from only the Fox Valley Area in Wisconsin. In order to
qualify for Google News, you must have your news site pass all of the Webmasters
guidelines. Here is the link to the actual guidelines from
https://support.google.com/webmasters/answer/35769
.
We are suggesting that the client use Google Analytics for the website and SEO
measurements. For the social media platforms, in our deliverables we list the different
analytics options available for each social media site and the suggested weekly
measurements to be taken to ensure that the strategies and tactics are improving the
overall performance and engagement of the sites.
Some recommendations we have for the client to use for search engine optimization in the
future are
Google AdWords and Google News (Note: see Appendix).
Timeline
Internship openings should be posted on the OIs website, UW-Oshkoshs Journalism
Department page, and on Titan Jobs by the end of May and filled by the end of June or early
5

July. That way the OI has interns hired for at least the summer. Google News should be
implemented almost immediately (May) if the site passes all of the guidelines. If not, task
the Social Media and Web Development Intern to give the site an overhaul in order to fit the
requirements. This process may take a few (2-3) months of editing and usability testing to
complete. It should be implemented no later than September. Google AdWords should be
implemented as soon as budget and management time is available. Social media strategies
and policies should be implemented immediately on the platforms that the client already
has a presence on and platforms that were suggested as beneficial to the OI should be
implemented as more time management become available.
Budgeting
Some budget concerns we have for the client is possibly the investment in using Google
AdWords. The client was interested in suggestions for free search bar advertising, but we
found that the free SEO options were well rated or a good fit for the OI. We believe that
using Google AdWords would be highly beneficial for the OI even if a small budget of $5 a
day was implemented. After running a sample campaign through Google AdWords, the
algorithm estimated that by spending a max of $5 a day, the ad could gain an extra 130 to
218 clicks toward the website.

Appendix A
Internship Descriptions
Advertising Sales Internship
Company: Oshkosh Independent
Supervisor: Justin Mitchell
Description:
The Oshkosh Independent(OI) is looking for an intern to work in the marketing

and advertising department. The intern must be able to effectively participate in multiple
stages of online advertising. OI client development focuses on locally owned business,
music and art venues, and local non-profit organizations. The Advertising Sales Intern will
develop relationships with OI clients to facilitate client marketing, OI sales, and ongoing
collaboration.
Responsibilities:
Prepare presentations
Assist in the distribution or delivery of marketing materials
Assist in the creation of online promotions
Call and visit with local businesses
Implement ads into the publication
Requirements:
Undergraduate majoring in Business, Marketing, Sales, Advertising, Journalism or
Communications
Excellent written and verbal communication skills
Proficiency in Microsoft Office (PowerPoint, Word, Excel) and website applications
Ability to work independently
Previous advertising experience preferred
Experience with photo/design software
Business Development Internship
Company: Oshkosh Independent
Supervisor: Justin Mitchell
Description:
The Oshkosh Independent(OI) is looking for an intern to facilitate business

operations of a local media organization. The Business Development Intern will contribute
to all areas of the organization, including marketing, sales, editorial, and web functions.
Responsibilities:
Update editorial and event calendar
Distribute tasks to volunteers
Gather research on target market and local businesses
Administer new writer trainings on content process
Assist with OI accounting
Contribute editorial content as needed
7

Represent the OI at community functions

Requirements:
Undergraduate majoring in Business, Marketing, Sales, Advertising, or Journalism
Excellent written and verbal communication skills
Proficiency in Microsoft Office (PowerPoint, Word, Excel)
Previous advertising experience preferred
Strong organizational skills
Desire to learn, grow, and contribute in a creative environment
Experience with photo/design software
Social Media and Website Development Internship
Company: Oshkosh Independent
Supervisor: Justin Mitchell
Description:
The Oshkosh Independent (OI) is looking for an intern to help post and

maintain their social media platforms. The intern should have strong knowledge and
understanding of the digital media landscape. This position will also be responsible for
researching and developing additional web platform features to maximize the role as a
community news outlet.
Responsibilities:
Monitor posts on websites and social networks
Provide online promotion and engagement on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram,
Pinterest, etc.
Keyword analysis
Implement a social media policy and strategy
Create social calendars
Develop analytic reports for web and social media
Develop a mobile site/app
Requirements:
Undergraduate majoring in Business, Marketing, Communications, Graphic Design,
Web Design, or Computer Science or Journalism
Excellent written and verbal communication skills
Commitment to meeting deadlines while working independently
Creative approach willing to expand role and offer new ideas
Proficiency in social media (2-3 years experience)
Proficiency in HTML, Javascript, PHP, or CSS
Experience with photo/design software

Appendix B
Social Media Policy
Everyday, people are turning to social media to seek out news. Social media is a tool used to
build relationships and engagement in real time, and Oshkosh Independent (OI) wants to
be readily available to participate in online conversations with its readers. Along with
original content, the OI will integrate the stories from its online news website into
additional platforms.
When using social media networks such as Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Pinterest and
Youtube for reporting, it must protect the professional integrity and company reputation.
Seven principles have been created as a guide for the OI volunteers and interns on how to
post effectively and actively in the proper way. Each person posting on behalf of the OI
should follow the following guidelines.
1.
Credibility
The authenticity of what gets posted is important; we want readers to trust what the OI
filters, reports and includes on its social media accounts. Chosen volunteers and interns
should make it apparent when posting original content, stories from the OIs website and
content when from another party. When using sources, make sure the owner is provided.
When creating a post, include links to the source and if available, include its handle. Check
the credibility of people and organizations before attaching facts or quotes from them.
Do not use the copyrights, trademarks, publicity rights, or other rights of others without the
necessary permission of the owner. Remember, every comment or link shared should be
considered public information.
2.
Trust
Be mindful and continue portraying the OIs reputation for journalistic excellence by
exercising sound judgment and common sense. There are many things to think about when
crafting a post. The OI is a news website, avoid use acronyms, write posts in Associated
Press style and use proper grammar. Do not criticize or offend others and do not write
anything that can be taken as racist, sexist or other bias. And, please clearly distinguish
news from opinion. As a chosen social media contributor, ensure that what is posted are
facts and not misleading.
Non-public information of the OI must not be revealed. Be professional and do not discuss
business activities, upcoming stories and promotions, decisions on what to publish and not
to publish or any other internal editorial or business issues.
3.
Engagement
Not only do we want readers to come to the OIs social accounts for frequently updated
content, but we want to encourage them to engage with the OI too. To do this, urge
interaction within posts. Dont ignore readers who are engaging, instead, support
connections by responding to comments made. Not every comment will be positive, so
9

respect the opinions of others and if you feel a conversation has gotten out of hand, reach
out to Justin before continuing the conversation or deleting comment(s).
4.
Be Yourself
Each contributor has a unique personality and the OI wants to encourage volunteers and
interns to give each post a voice. They should convey the same positivity that the company
does, but put your own flair to it.
Stick to your area of expertise within the OI. Do not make general claims; talk specifically
about what you know and experienced.
5.
Keep Records
It is critical that records are kept of online interactions and that the activities of those with
whom we engage are monitored. Online conversations occur quickly, so it is important to
keep track of them when representing the OI.
6.
Acknowledge Mistakes
Everyone make mistakes. If one is made, fix the error in a timely manner or reach out to
Justin if the problem needs assistance. Be mindful that what each person writes is his or her
responsibility, so it is up to the individual to make sure the mistake is taken care of. The
company reserves the right to edit or amend any misleading or inaccurate content.
7. Be Professional
Keep in mind that the volunteers and interns who were given the responsibility of posting
on the OI behalf were given an important responsibility. Failure to abide by these guidelines
could put that responsibility at risk. Please follow these seven principles for any third-party
sites in which you participate.

10

Appendix C
Social Media Guidelines and Recommendations
The Oshkosh Independent (OI) is currently using a centralized social media structure. One
person is responsible for regulating social media, with hopes of an automated content and
social media uploader.
However, we recommend that the OI considers a decentralized social media posting plan.
This structure is seen most commonly in tech-savvy, small businesses to maintain efficient
work flow. This organizational structure will portray a sense of community to the readers. It
will expand the organic reach of articles and foster expansion. Writers will be empowered
to make their own decisions and use their knowledge and expertise to produce a gain for
the OI. By having the most insight producing the article it will be more efficient for them
personally to create posts on social media regarding the content. A decentralized structure
will also replace the burden for solely one person. The content will become more personal,
relatable and unique compared to a one-dimensional voice.
Having an organization that
trusts its team members to manage the corporate social media presence potentially has
more scope to gain value.
Other benefits include:
Maintaining self-sufficiency
More efficient decision making
Empowering employees
Ease of expansion
Building diverse relationships
In summary, a decentralized structure will allow for the most effective content posting on
each social platform. It will give time for unique headlines, descriptions, shortened links and
other best practices for posting on social platforms. Another consideration is a hybrid of
both centralized and decentralized structure. A decentralized structure could be used for
posting content on all social media platforms. While a centralized structure could be used to
monitor comments, stay active by retweeting and participating in other engagement
activities.

11

The best practices are as follows:

Facebook
Post on Facebook during the afternoon slump between 1- 4 p.m. This results in the
highest average click-through rates, peaking at 3 p.m.
Use images.

Dont be annoying. Only post one to two times a day and limit all posts to four to six
times a week.
12

 Keep it short and sweet. Facebook posts should not exceed 80-characters. Aim for
40-character posts because they receive 86 percent higher engagement compared to
lengthier ones.
Generate comments. Ask questions that contain the words
should
,
would
, and
who
.
NOT
why
and
how
because they require readers to think more.

Respond to comments
.
Cater to your readers and make them feel involved by
responding quickly to comments, this will help create a relationship.

13

Twitter
Tweet Monday through Thursday from 9 a.m.-3 p.m., peaking from 1-3 p.m.
Use images.

Use a call to action and tailor messages to your target audience.

Dont use abbreviations and misspelling just to fit the character length.
Dont be afraid to use mentions. It will prompt people to engage with you.
Consider using Vine.

14

The ideal Facebook post

15

The ideal Tweet

16

The ideal Instagram post

17

Social Media Example

Current post to Facebook.

18

Edited Facebook post.

Posted at 3:30PM

What does the 2.5% budget cut mean for UW-Oshkosh?

http://bit.ly/1JASPnh

Social Contests
After research, we recommend using social contests to engage and create interaction with
readers. This will create a stronger bond with consumers and ensure a loyal following. It
will also allow the Oshkosh Independent to serve as a place for community opinions and
personalized news stories. These social promotions include; vote contest, photo caption
contest, photo contest or an essay contest.
A free software that can help you conduct these contests is
Wishpond
.
Here
are some of
Wishponds client case studies.
19

Vote Contest
According to Krista Bunskoek at Wishpond,
A vote contest is easy to use for readers, which
maximizes engagement. They are also a great way to gain interaction by letting your readers
voices be heard. Running a contest through Facebook or Twitter creates exponential growth
opportunities. Once a participant votes, it shows up in their Twitter or Facebook feed,
inviting their followers to vote too.
This will generate buzz for the OI. Especially for people who are not directly following the
OI. An example, the OI could use a vote contest to ask readers what they want to hear about.
Asking them to vote between a newly approved construction project, restaurant review or a
new business opening on Main Street.

Photo Caption Contest

For users, a photo caption contest takes a bit more effort, as you are asking them to create
a written caption for your photo. However, if your photos resonate with your readers, you
will likely get many entrants. A strong outcome of this contest is creating more user
engagement, which can develop a closer connection with your photos, story and online
newspaper (
Bunskoek).

20

The OI could effectively use a photo caption contest by asking readers to create a caption for
a photo of a child doing something goofy during a sports game. Maybe he is sitting down in
the outfield instead of paying attention to the baseball game.

Photo Contest
Photo contests are great because of the ease of sharing and user generated content.
However, they do invoke more effort from entrants, requiring entrants to submit their own
photos. It also lets your readers be more a part of the story, by letting them share their own
photos (
Bunskoek).
The OI can greatly benefit from a photo contest as it would create an
abundance of content at events. For example, an event like EAA would be impossible for one
writer to cover, but with the help of user generated content it could be covered. A hashtag
would be used to aggregate the material so a winner could be chosen.

21

Essay Contest
Essay contests are well suited for newspapers because the possibilities are broad
(
Bunskoek).
The OI could use essay contests to produce more content from eager
individuals or to produce feedback on community events. An essay contest to encourage
youth readership could require high school students to submit their best news article about
an event at their school. The winning entry would be published on the OIs website.

Measurement For More Effective Content

Measure shares and other data on Facebook and Twitter. This is a useful way to indicate
what viewers enjoy reading the most, what content is resonating with the audience and
what the OI should be covering. Content is a driving factor for website views and increasing
interaction. The more shares a post receives the more word-of-mouth the OI is gaining. This
22

would allow possible exposure to the uninformed community members. Also, record data
by tracking the social websites metrics. Each site provides metrics (including Wordpress)
on page visits, post views and more. This will become useful when brainstorming content
ideas and attracting more viewers.

23

Appendix D
Social Media Strategic Plan
This plan lays out tactical objectives, content types, metric tools and customized action
plans to be used to help guide the Oshkosh Independent (OI) to reach its primary social
media goals.
Objectives
1. Brand Awareness
a. Interact with other established businesses to gain awareness from their
followers.
b. Utilize free advertising and influence through social media.
c. Be present on a variety of social platforms to appeal to a larger group of
people.
2. Website Traffic
a. Create social content using links that direct readers to the website to learn
more.
3. Community Interaction
a. Create engaging social media posts to encourage follower interaction through
likes, shares and comments.
4. Advertising Sales
a. Maintain and grow social media presence to become more appealing to
companies looking to buy advertising space.
Current Social Media Assessment
1. Facebook
a. Presence: Page created
b. Activity: 2 to 3 posts a day
c. Engagement: 634 page likes
2. Twitter
a. Presence: Page created
b. Activity: 3 tweets since December
c. Engagement: 10 followers
3. Pinterest
a. Presence: Page created
b. Activity: None
c. Engagement: None
4. YouTube
a. Presence: None
b. Activity: None
c. Engagement: None
5. Instagram
a. Presence: None
b. Activity: None
24

c. Engagement: None
Content Types
1. Images
2. Video
3. Articles
4. Links
Metric Tools
1. Google Analytics
2. Hootsuite
a. Monitor home page, tweets, mentions, retweets and news feed on Twitter
b. Monitor posts, likes, comments, share, photos, videos, home page and news
feed on Facebook
c. Automatic posting
3. Specific Platform Measurement tools
a. Facebook
i. Facebook Insights
b. Twitter
i. Twitter analytics
c. Instagram
i. Statigram (Mobile App)
d. Youtube
i. Youtube Analytics
e. Pinterest
i. Pinterest Analytics

25

Twitter
Action type

Best Times to Post: 12p.m. to 6p.m.

Details
How Often

Increase follower
count
Follow users back

Create uniformity among all social

media pages
Follow people back who follow OI

Ongoing

Identify relevant
people to follow
Tweet/retweet

Search for relevant people and

businesses to associate with
Create engaging posts and content

5 new likes a
week
2 to 4 posts a
day

Community
engagement

Respond to comments and

questions from followers

5 to 10
comments per
day

Facebook
Action type
Appeal to potential
followers

Like and share

relevant company
pages and posts
Facebook posts

Community
engagement

Ongoing

Best Times to Post: 1p.m. to 3p.m.

Details
How
Often
Maintain regular posts and make
the page unique by adding an
about me and update other
important information
Search for local businesses to
interact with
Create engaging posts with a
variety of types of content

Respond to follower posts and

comments

Ongoing

At least 5
times a
week
At least one
post per
day

As many as
possible

Metrics/ Tracking

Day/Time/
Week

% Of weekly new
followers
% of weekly new
following
# of Likes

Once a week

% of
impression
feedback
engagement
% of
impression
feedback
engagement

Metrics
% of weekly new
followers

30 minutes a
day
10 minutes a
day
2 to 4 times
daily

30 to 45
minutes a
day

Day/Time/
Week
Once a Week

10 minutes a day

# of average
posts per week
# of Impressions
Comments
Likes
Shares
Ongoing

10 to 30 minutes
a day

20 minutes a day

26

Action Type
Create a
presence
Create pins/
re-pin
Follow
relevant
business pages
Engage with
community

Pinterest
Details

Best Times to post: 8p.m. to 11p.m.

How Often
Metrics

Create boards and a profile

Ongoing

Upload/ photos and create

call to action captions to
pin
Search for other businesses
profiles or boards and follow
them
Respond to any comments

1 to 2 times a
day

% of weekly
new followers
% of re-pins
and comments

5 times a week

% of following

Ongoing

% of feedback/
engagement

Instagram Best Times to post: After 3p.m. off work hours

Action type
Details
How
Metrics/
Often
Tracking
Increase
follower count
Follow users
back
Identify relevant
people to follow
Photos

Community
engagement

Create uniformity among

all social media pages
Follow people back who
follow OI
Search for relevant people
and businesses to associate
with
Create engaging posts and
content

Ongoing

Respond to comments and

questions from followers

5 to 10
comment
per day

Ongoing
5 new
likes a
week
Ongoing

Day/Time/Week

% of weekly
new followers
% of weekly
new following
# of Likes

Once a week

% of
likes and
comments
% of
Comments and
re-grams

At least once per day

30 minutes a day
10 minutes a day

30 to 45 minutes a day

27

YouTube
Action type
Post videos

Gain subscribers

Community
engagement

Details

How
Often

Metrics/
Tracking

Day/Time/Wee
k

Video will feature an

event the reporter is
covering
Post relevant,
informative content

Ongoing

Once a week

Respond to comments
and questions from
subscribers and general
commenters

5 to 10
comments
per day

# of views,
comments,
Ratings
% of weekly
new
subscribers
% of
views and
feedback

Ongoing

30 minutes a day

30 to 45 minutes a day

28

Appendix E
SEO Success Factors
There is a science to SEO. Search engines reward pages with the right combination of
ranking factors. In order to receive high SEO the Oshkosh Independent (OI) needs to ensure
that the content generates the right type of signals to search engines. Here are questions to
ask about the OI in order to measure and then improve factors attributed to successful SEO.
Questions below were derived from
this infographic
.
Key:
Blue
: most important
Red:
damaging
Not one good factor can increase SEO, it needs to be multiple factors.
Factors on-the-page
Content
Quality: Are pages well-written and have substantial quality content?
Research: Have you researched the keywords people may use to find your content?
Words: Do pages use words and phrases you hope theyll be found for?
Engage: Do visitors spend time reading or bounce away quickly?
Fresh: Are pages fresh and about hot topics?
Thin: Is content thin or shallow and lacking substance?
Ads: Is your content ad-heavy, especially above the fold?
HTML
Titles: Do HTML title tags contain keywords relevant to page topics?
Description: Do meta description tags describe what pages are about?
Headers: Do headlines and subheads use header tags with relevant keywords?
Structure: Do pages use structured data to enhance listings?
Stuffing: Do you excessively use words you want pages to be found for?
Hidden: Do colors of design hide words you want pages to be found for?
Architecture
Crawl: Can search engines easily crawl pages on site?
Duplicate: Does site manage duplicate content issues well?
Speed: Does site load quickly?
URLs: Are URLs short and contain meaningful keywords to page topics?
Mobile: Does your site work well for mobile visitors, on smartphones and tablets?
Cloaking: Do you show search engines different pages than humans?
Factors off-the-page
Links
Quality: Are links from trusted, quality or respected websites?
Text: Do links pointing at pages use words you hope theyll be found for?
29

Number: Do many links point at your web pages?

Paid: Have you purchased links in hopes of better ranks?
Spam: Have you created many links by spamming blogs, forums or other places?
Trust
Authority: Do links, shares and other factors make site a trusted authority?
History: Has site or its domain been around a long time, operating in same way?
Identity: Does site use means to verify its identity and that of authors?
Piracy: Has site been flagged for hosting pirated content?
Social
Reputation: Do those respected on social networks share your content?
Shares: Do many share your content on social networks?
Personal
Country: What country is someone located in?
Locality: What city or local area is someone located in?
History: Has someone regularly visited your site or socially favored it?
Social: Have your friends socially favored the site?

30

Appendix F
Google AdWords
Why Utilize Google AdWords:
Google AdWords is Googles online advertising program. AdWords gives the ability to reach
new customers and grow businesses. Some benefits of using AdWords include:
-

Opportunity to attract more customers- customers who are searching for information OI
provides
- Efficient way to advertise locally
- Reach the right people at the right time
- Users only pay for results and can start with any budget
We have prepared a sample AdWords campaign. A campaign includes creating a target audience,
identifying a location, choosing where the ad appears, setting a budget, measuring the impact,
analyzing the results and making campaign improvements. We broke down an example campaign
into eight steps.
1. Creating an AdWords account:
A gmail account is needed to create an AdWords account (
www.google.com/adwords
).
Initially, certain settings are chosen, such as target location and budget. After the
account has been created, log onto the new account to start the first campaign. The entire
Oshkosh Independent (OI) website will only need one campaign. Settings that should be
chosen during the initial setup for an organization new to AdWords:
- Search network only
- Standard feature
- Local location emphasized
2. Target location:
Within the initial settings of creating an AdWords campaign, the OI will choose the
location(s) its ads will appear at. Oshkosh, Wis. was chosen because the OI only reports
for local audiences. Make sure the settings are set to only display ads to searchers
within the area.
- Oshkosh, WI
3. What is being advertised:
The OI will be asked to distinguish what product or service the campaign is
advertising for. A specific word or phrase must be picked. For this campaign, the
phrase
local news
was chosen.
- Local news

4. Setting a budget:
Each campaign should have its own budget. The OI has the ability to decide how much
it is willing to pay-per-click and per-day. The OI will only have to pay when its ad is

31

clicked on. As shown below, if the budget is set at $5 per day and it costs the OI $.10
(bid) for every click, the ad will stop appearing once the ad has been clicked on 50
times ( .10*50=$5) so the amount does does exceed the daily budget.
- $5 per day
- $152 per month
- 130-218 estimated ad clicks
A bid, distinguished as $.10 above, is the maximum cost the OI is willing to pay-per-click. It
will never be charged more than the chosen amount. The bigger the bid, the better ad
position the OI will receive on the Google search results. The budget can be changed at
anytime.
5. Ad content:
One of the most important parts in creating a campaign is writing the content of the ad.
AdWords sets specific limitations, much like a tweet on Twitter. There can only be two
lines of text that contain a total of 35 characters on each line, a headline and a line
containing the link. When viewers click on the link, they will be transferred to the OI
website. The link should send viewers to the landing page that covers the same topic as the
central keyword (explained later). A couple terms that are important to know:
- Keywords
: This is a specific word or phrase relevant to the content of the
website and/or article(s). These words are chosen to determine when and
where the ad appears. The OI could create a main(central) keyword for
each tab/topic included on its website.
- Ad groups
: Chosen keywords will be split up into groups. The keywords that
make up an ad group must all be relatable. A campaign typically includes
one or more ad groups.
Because links can get lengthy and there is a character limit, an option is provided to set a
different destination link from what is displayed on the ad. The home page of the OI can
be displayed on the ad, but when viewers click on the link, they will be directed to a
page within the website that best correlates to the central keyword of the ad- correlating
to what the viewer searched.
The central keyword or phrase should appear in the title of the ad. The two lines
containing the content should include a call-to-action and benefit. The ad should be
written in a concise, precise manner while using a catchy voice. Remember, highlight what
the OI can offer viewers. An ad for the OI may appear like:

32

6. Choosing Central Keywords:

The right keywords will make or break the efficiency of the campaign. The keywords
chosen will determine when OIs ad is displayed and to whom. When someone
searches on Google, OIs ad could be eligible to appear based on the similarity of the
keyword(s) to the persons search terms. For example, if a user types live music in
Oshkosh within the Google search bar, OIs ad will appear on the right hand side (or
top if the bid is high enough) of the Google search results. This only works if the keyword,
or a close version, of live music in Oshkosh, was indicated in the campaign settings.
Keywords are indicated to targeted people within Oshkosh, Wis. that are searching for
information the OI can provide.
A great keyword list can help improve the performance
of the ads and help avoid higher prices. Poor keywords can ultimately cause the OI to
have higher prices and lower ad position. When choosing keywords, first search
it and see how many ads are already appearing on the right hand side or top three results
of the search results. If there are no-to-few ads appearing, and the keyword is in high
demand, then the keyword has potential to be successful. To find out how many times a
keyword was searched, use sources such as
wordtracker
.
Listed below are examples of central keywords we thought would be successful:
- Local news (no current campaigns)
- Oshkosh bars (no current campaigns)
- Oshkosh events (no current campaigns)
- Oshkosh live music (no current campaigns)
7. Ad Groups and Keyword Lists:
The OI should create an ad group for each central keyword. To create
an ad group, take the chosen central keywords and create additional, but relatable,
keywords for each. The keywords within each ad group should closely match the
central keyword (topic of ad group); it is important to keep tightly themed subjects for
each ad group.
Within each ad group, have at least three ads. Google will switch between the ads. This
is a good way to analyze which ads are performing better and receiving more
successful results. One ad should include a keyword from the keyword list. Include a
call to action or ask a questions within the ad to entice interaction. It is suggested to
have seven to eight keywords per ad group. Keywords can be added or changed at
anytime. Below, we developed a sample of ad groups and its keywords and ads.

33

Campaign-
Oshkosh Independent
AdGroup- Oshkosh Events
Local events
Oshkosh calendar events
Events in Oshkosh
AdGroup- Oshkosh News
Local news
Oshkosh sports
Oshkosh recreation
AdGroup- Oshkosh Music
Local live music
Oshkosh bands
Music in Oshkosh

Oshkosh Independent
Stay updated on local events
Updated daily to keep you informed

Oshkosh Independent
Do you know of events in Oshkosh?
Updated daily to keep you informed

Oshkosh Independent
Catch up on the latest Oshkosh news
A local website to stay informed

Oshkosh Independent
What is happening outside today?
Informing you on Oshkosh recreation

Oshkosh Independent
Oshkosh has live music tonight
Highlighting local bands

Oshkosh Independent
Where to find live music?
Keeping your weekend eventful

The chart below is an overview of each part within an adwords campaign:

8. Analysis:
This is an opportunity to evaluate weak performing parts of the AdWords campaign, and
make changes based on the collected data. AdWords has tools that automatically track the
campaign. Results include impressions, click through rates, average position on ad slots
and cost-per-clicks. These can be found on the campaign homepage. For detailed results,
click on the performance metrics tab, which will give ad preview and diagnostics. Results
will not be useful right away, wait a few weeks or months before analyzing it. Keywords
and ad performance can be watched daily to analyze which are better resulting in
impressions or clicks to the website.

34

Appendix G
All steps and guidelines in Appendix G are from
Google News Help Publisher Center.

Google News
Design and content guidelines
Make a site with a clear hierarchy and text links. Every page should be reachable
from at least one static text link.
Offer a sitemap to your users with links that point to the important parts of your site.
If the site map has an extremely large number of links, you may want to break the
site map into multiple pages.
Keep the links on a given page to a reasonable number.
Create a useful, information-rich site, and write pages that clearly and accurately
describe your content.
Think about the words users would type to find your pages, and make sure that your
site actually includes those words within it.
Try to use text instead of images to display important names, content, or links. The
Google crawler doesn't recognize text contained in images. If you must use images
for textual content, consider using the
ALT
attribute to include a few words of
descriptive text.
Make sure that your <title> elements and ALT attributes are descriptive and
accurate.
Check for broken links and correct HTML.
If you decide to use dynamic pages (i.e., the URL contains a "?" character), be aware
that not every search engine spider crawls dynamic pages as well as static pages. It
helps to keep the parameters short and the number of them few.
Review our recommended best practices for
images
,
video
and
rich snippets
.
Technical guidelines
To help Google fully understand your site's contents, allow all of your site's assets,
such as CSS and JavaScript files, to be crawled. The Google indexing system renders
web pages using the HTML of a page as well as its assets such as images, CSS, and
Javascript files. To see the page assets that Googlebot cannot crawl and to debug
directives in your robots.txt file, use the
Fetch as Google
and the
robots.txt Tester
tools in Webmaster Tools
Allow search bots to crawl your sites without session IDs or arguments that track
their path through the site. These techniques are useful for tracking individual user
behavior, but the access pattern of bots is entirely different. Using these techniques
may result in incomplete indexing of your site, as bots may not be able to eliminate
URLs that look different but actually point to the same page.
Make sure your web server supports the If-Modified-Since HTTP header. This feature
allows your web server to tell Google whether your content has changed since we
last crawled your site. Supporting this feature saves you bandwidth and overhead.
Make use of the robots.txt file on your web server. This file tells crawlers which
directories can or cannot be crawled. Make sure it's current for your site so that you

35

don't accidentally block the Googlebot crawler. Visit,

http://code.google.com/web/controlcrawlindex/docs/faq.html
, to learn how to
instruct robots when they visit your site. You can test your robots.txt file to make
sure you're using it correctly with the
robots.txt analysis tool
available in Google
Webmaster Tools.
Make reasonable efforts to ensure that advertisements do not affect search engine
rankings. For example, Google's AdSense ads and DoubleClick links are blocked from
being crawled by a
robots.txt file.
If your company buys a content management system, make sure that the system
creates pages and links that search engines can crawl.
Use robots.txt to prevent crawling of search results pages or other auto-generated
pages that don't add much value for users coming from search engines.
Test your site to make sure that it
appears correctly in different browsers
.
Monitor your site's performance and optimize load times. Google's goal is to provide
users with the most relevant results and a great user experience. Fast sites increase
user satisfaction and improve the overall quality of the web (especially for those
users with slow Internet connections), and we hope that as webmasters improve
their sites, the overall speed of the web will improve.
Google strongly recommends that all webmasters regularly monitor site
performance using
Page Speed
,
YSlow
,
WebPagetest
, or
other tools
. For more
information, tools, and resources, see
Let's Make The Web Faster
.

Quality guidelines
These quality guidelines cover the most common forms of deceptive or manipulative
behavior, but Google may respond negatively to other misleading practices not listed here.
It's not safe to assume that just because a specific deceptive technique isn't included on this
page, Google approves of it. Webmasters who spend their energies upholding the spirit of
the basic principles will provide a much better user experience and subsequently enjoy
better ranking than those who spend their time looking for loopholes they can exploit.
If you believe that another site is abusing Google's quality guidelines, please let us know by
filing a spam report
. Google prefers developing scalable and automated solutions to
problems, so we attempt to minimize hand-to-hand spam fighting. While we may not take
manual action in response to every report, spam reports are prioritized based on user
impact, and in some cases may lead to complete removal of a spammy site from Google's
search results. Not all manual actions result in removal, however. Even in cases where we
take action on a reported site, the effects of these actions may not be obvious.
Quality guidelines - basic principles

Make pages primarily for users, not for search engines.

Don't deceive your users.
Avoid tricks intended to improve search engine rankings. A good rule of thumb is
whether you'd feel comfortable explaining what you've done to a website that
competes with you, or to a Google employee. Another useful test is to ask, "Does this
help my users? Would I do this if search engines didn't exist?"
36

Think about what makes your website unique, valuable, or engaging. Make your
website stand out from others in your field.

Quality guidelines - specific guidelines

Avoid the following techniques:
Automatically generated content
Participating in
link schemes
Creating pages with
little or no original content
Cloaking
Sneaky redirects
Hidden text or links
Doorway pages
Scraped content
Participating in
affiliate programs without adding sufficient value
Loading pages with
irrelevant keywords
Creating pages with
malicious behavior
, such as phishing or installing viruses,
trojans, or other badware
Abusing
rich snippets
markup
Sending
automated queries
to Google

Engage in good practices like the following:

Monitoring your site for

hacking
and removing hacked content as soon as it appears
Preventing and removing
user-generated spam
on your site

If your site violates one or more of these guidelines, then Google may take
manual action
against it. Once you have remedied the problem, you can
submit your site for
reconsideration
.

37

Appendix H
Traditional Advertising Recommendations
Along with online advertising, we suggest a form of print advertising. Most online news
sources start from a physical newspaper, so when they switch over to online news they
already have a large follower base. When speaking with the founder of the OI, he expressed
how he wanted to reach the uninformed community. This community was defined as
people who dont read the news online or at all, and members who are not aware of the arts,
events, food, music and more within Oshkosh, Wisconsin. After focusing on the community
who is online, we thought about how we could reach the Oshkosh community that is
unaware of the OI and doesnt subscribe to local news sources. One suggestion we have is to
create a monthly event calendar/flyer to distribute at local businesses and restaurants. This
flyer would be hosted and developed by the OI, but sponsored by some of the local
businesses. The businesses that sponsor the calendar could place their ad or logo on the
bottom of it. Events could include what band is playing at Gardinas on Friday night, etc.
Also, we suggest that OI try to work out some special deals with these businesses to be able
to offer special discounts or coupons on the event calendars or even on the website. An
example of this could be Holiday Pub and Grill, offering a special discount coupon located on
the OI article, about their bloody mary review, to those who read the OI article. This not
only would draw people to the OI website to read the article and get a discount, but also
create business for the Holiday Pub and Grill, benefiting both parties. According to
research
from the Newspaper Association of America, 57% use newspaper media for shopping,
planning and purchasing decisions in an average week. This calendar would attract an
aspect of the target audience, stay in the readers minds, associate the OI as a source for
local events and news, and inform them on the website and where they can learn more.

38

Sources That Support Objectives

Internships Popularity
Popularity among students continues to increase. In order for young journalists to market
themselves, they need to have developed skills and knowledge of the industry.
Infographic: Internships Survey and 2014 Internship Trends, Jan. 23, 2014:
http://www.internships.com/eyeoftheintern/news/idc-news/internships-survey-2014-int
ernship-trends/
Top 4 Trends for Internships,
Meghan Tankersley
, Jan. 29, 2014:
http://www.globalexperiences.com/blog/4-internship-trends-2014/
Social Media Plan and Policy for Best Business Practices
Simply put, reach users on platforms they already use. Dont make it hard for users to find
you, they are more likely to engage with your brand if you make it easy.
92% of Marketers Say Social Media is Important for Their Business, Shea Bennett, 2014:
http://www.adweek.com/socialtimes/social-marketers-study/501621
How to Turn Data Into Content Ideas, Victoria Hoffman, May 6, 2015:
http://www.socialmediatoday.com/marketing/2015-05-06/how-turn-data-content-ideas-a
nd-avoid-content-marketing-flops
The 5 most important Components of Social Media Content Strategy , Robert Caruso, Dec. 9,
2013:
http://www.steamfeed.com/5-most-important-components-social-media-content-str
ategy/
The Top 10 Benefits of Social Media Marketing, Jason DeMers, 2014:
http://www.forbes.com/sites/jaysondemers/2014/08/11/the-top-10-benefits-of-social-m
edia-marketing/
The best and worst times to post on social media, Sarah Gillett, September 25, 2014:
http://www.fastcompany.com/3036184/how-to-be-a-success-at-everything/the-best-andworst-times-to-post-on-social-media-infograph
The Importance Of Developing A Powerful Content Strategy, Guest Autho
r
:

http://www.inboundnow.com/the-importance-of-developing-a-powerful-content-strategy/
The importance of Social Media Policy for Businesses and Organizations, Bizzuka, 2013:
http://www.bizzuka.com/company-blog/the-importance-of-a-social-media-policy-for-busi
nesses-and-organizations
What Are The Best Times to Post on Social Media Neil Patel January 2, 2014:

39

http://www.quicksprout.com/2015/01/02/what-are-the-best-times-to-post-on-social-me
dia/
Why is Social Media Important for Small Businesses?, Lori Mattern:
http://bmighty2.com/why-is-social-media-important-for-small-businesses/
Social media strategy sample:
http://www.tidyform.com/download/social-media-strategy-sample.html
SEO for Online Success
You can have one of the best looking websites on the Web, it can be flashy with the most
gorgeous layout, but if it doesnt mean anything if no one visits your site.
7 Ways That SEO Is Uniquely Important For Entrepreneurs. (2015):
http://www.forbes.com/sites/jaysondemers/2014/06/04/7-ways-that-seo-is-uniquely-im
portant-for-entrepreneurs/
Shaoolian, G. (2015). Search Engine Optimization Is Ever-Changing: 2014 SEO Trends You
Need to Know:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/gabriel-shaoolian/search-engine-optimizatio_b_5506912.
html
The Importance of SEO for Online Business Success! (2015):
http://seoblogger.co/importance-of-seo/
Google News and AdWords
This is a good way to reach the uninformed community. Individuals can get content from
your website without even searching for the website url.
AdWords Help, Keywords and Ad Group, 2015:
https://support.google.com/adwords/answer/6323?hl=en
Get Your Ad on Google Today, Google AdWords, 2015:
http://www.google.com/adwords/?sourceid&subid=ww-ww-et-sign-up&clickid=sn-3x-ogus-04272015
How to Create a Profitable Google AdWords Campaign (From Scratch), KissMetrics, 2013:
https://blog.kissmetrics.com/profitable-google-adwords-campaign
How to get the most out of Google AdWords for 2015, Tips and Tricks HQ, 2015:
https://www.tipsandtricks-hq.com/how-to-get-the-most-out-of-google-adwords-for-20157728
How To Set Up a Successful Adwords Campaign, Herman Drost, 2006:
http://www.isitebuild.com/google-adwords.htm
40

Webmaster Guidelines, 2015:

https://support.google.com/webmasters/answer/35769
11 Tips for Improving Your AdWords Campaigns, Pronto Shine Online, 2015:
https://www.prontomarketing.com/2015/01/11-tips-for-improving-your-adwords-campa
ign-performance/
Traditional Media Advertising
To target different consumer markets who may not be tech savvy or are loyal to local
businesses, traditional marketing may be most effective.
How To Choose the Right Traditional Media For Your Business, iMarket Soulutions:
http://www.imarketsolutions.com/traditional-marketing-solutions/marketing
How America Shops and Spends 2014 reveals how readers rely on advertising found in
newspaper media and the changing ways advertising is being consumed, Sean OLeary,
September 11, 2014:
http://www.naa.org/News-and-Media/Press-Center/Archives/2014/America-Shop-Spend
s.aspx

41