Similar to my need to take the Advanced Web Analytics for Higher Ed course, I also took the Web and Social Media Writing for Higher Ed course offered by Higher Ed Experts and taught by Sofia Tokar of the University of Rochester.
As I wrote for the course alumni testimonials section,
This course is a terrific way for web writers (and their supervisors) to improve their understanding of web writing best practices in the context of writing for higher ed websites and digital/social media marketing. This course will provide you with the foundation to produce actionable guidelines and templates for web writers to make their web writing more engaging and more consistent.
The learning objectives encompass basic and more advanced ways to adjust to writing for online audiences for higher ed.
Learning objectives for the course included
- Write using a conversational style
- Organize online writing effectively
- Create effective microcontent, including tweets and headlines
- Optimize content for mobile devices
- Use lists and tables to make writing easier to scan
- Use images, video, and infographics as part of your content
- Optimize a page for search engines
- Create an effective program page that will bring in search traffic
- Create a user persona that aids in web writing
- Define an appropriate tone for a higher ed website
- Use basic story techniques in web writing
- Create content optimized for sharing on social media
- Explain ways to apply content strategy techniques to create better writing across a website.
- Apply content strategy tools to social media content
- Use web analytics to assess the quality of web writing