ICPC: Client Detail Report Tasselmyer

Digital Strategy Guide

SEO & Social Media

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ICPC: Client Detail Report Tasselmyer

TABLE OF CONTENTS
 Table of Contents .........................................................................................2

 Executive Summary .....................................................................................3

 Online Reputation Analysis .........................................................................4

 Usability Reputation Analysis .....................................................................6

 Social Media Plan ........................................................................................7

 SEO Audit ..................................................................................................12

 Conclusion .................................................................................................13

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ICPC: Client Detail Report Tasselmyer

Executive Summary
We have created a digital strategy guide for the International Collegiate Programming
Contest (ICPC) to help improve your web presence, search engine optimization (SEO), and your
social media strategy. Building a sustaining social media presence takes a lot of time and
sustained effort. To get more information on each section, please refer to table of contents on
where each topic lies within the analysis.

Usability Test

My group performed a usability test of the current website for the International Collegiate
Programming Contest. We found that the website ran very well and was easily accessible
without a need for many changes.

On the top left corner of the page, there is a drop-down option that shows you a menu of
four different and then multiple subcategories with self-explainable tabs. Categories are a
powerful tool that help establish a proper site structure that is meaningful. The website’s
navigation remains consistent throughout the site, as do the colors and visual aspects.

The desktop version of the website has an adjustable width that allows for users to easily
navigate through the page. This flexibility creates an enjoyable experience for users and
the site makes finding information straightforward. The site is set-up to accommodate
mobile users and the text is large and easy to read, while also including all of the same
information as the desktop site. For this reason, we agree that your website is responsive,
properly set-up, and welcoming to all potential users.

Social Media Plan

You are present on all major social media platforms but your presence on them could
benefit from reinventing the messages that you share. In order to get the best idea of what
a contest like yours should provide through social media, we recommend what is called
social listening. Make a list of other STEM events that have regional competitions and
look at their social media pages. See the type of content that they post, frequency of
postings, and what platforms they’re present on. Judge what type of posts garners the
most comments and likes on Instagram, retweets, replies, and favorites on Twitter, and
who has something to say on Facebook. Are the posts frequently shared by other users?
How does that stack up to your own profiles?

Following your examination of other companies, we recommend taking a look at your

current strategy to view what is best working for you. In our social listening exercise for
your social media pages, we often found that the ICPC News accounts did not receive
lots of comments and posted content that wasn’t directly related to the event. In our
opinion, we would recommend reinventing your social presence and posting content that
relates more to competitions, even though those receive less engagement than other posts.

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ICPC: Client Detail Report Tasselmyer

Posting content that promotes the competition, posting countdowns until the next regional
competition that takes place. Since you are aiming to build event participation and
friendly competition amongst participants, it is worth posting general countdowns for all
regional events that take place to encourage people to look at the results following that
event. Discuss the events and hype up the teams that are returning successful members
from previous competitions. In order to encourage posts and trackable results, use a
specific hashtag for all regional events, such as #ICPCregionals. For a deeper social
media analysis, you can refer to the tactics and specifics sections in the social media plan
guide.

Search Engine Optimization (SEO) Audit

We conducted an SEO audit, which looked at how well your website to help determine
how well your site is being indexed on Google. Using an SEO tool, we determined your
website is not being properly indexed, and only turning out three results, which is an
issue. To remedy this, we advise adding indexable content in the code and onto the site
itself.

While being indexed is an optional feature when it comes to SEO, for a global event, it’s
important for a site to be widely accessible and to continually rank high within a search.
Your website has a clean and easy-to-navigate set up, so it makes sense to want users to
be directed to the home page of your site all the time, though it’s not advised.

Another positive to your site is that the logo links back to the home page and there is also
the option to be redirected to the event’s social media profiles in a new tab. In a smaller
screen size, the social media links are only available at the very bottom of the page and
not at the top too, though we do not find that to be problematic. What is a problem is that
your socials do not show up when you search for your event, which means users need to
go onto your direct event site to find those accounts? It is important to have access to
social media accounts when searching for site information because it’s an easy way to see
directly what the event is about. More information about your SEO can be found under
the SEO Audit title.

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ICPC: Client Detail Report Tasselmyer

Online Reputation Analysis

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ICPC: Client Detail Report Tasselmyer

We performed an online reputation analysis for the ICPC. This was done by searching
for the website in Google through a logged off IP address (so that our individual search
preferences didn’t alter the results). Included below is a list of the top 30 search results that we
found, who made the page (1st or 3rd party), and what the sentiment was.

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ICPC: Client Detail Report Tasselmyer

Our findings showed that a majority of the websites listed were of neutral sentiment, due
to the information they included pertaining to the competition. Most websites contained
basic information, including dates of the regional qualifying contests and location in
which they would take place. Of the 50 total results that were collected, three of them had
no sentiment because they were not related to the competition`. However, they were all
advertisements related to programming software, which indicates the contest is a
particular niche that when people know, they know. In news reports that discussed the
contest, it was often referred to as “prestigious” and referred to as one of the best
programming competitions in the world.

Usability / Page Speed Report

We conducted a usability test of the current website for the contest. We found a few
aspects of the site that could use improvement, though a majority of the site’s desktop
functions were working well.

As soon as you get onto the homepage, you are provided with options to be redirected to
event information, history, and ways to prepare for the event. This navigation remains
consistent throughout the site, as do the colors and visualizations.

We have broken down the things we feel need improvements into three different
categories: Essential, Important, and Desirable.

 Essential Changes
o Site is extremely slow on mobile devices
o Website redesign so it shows up for bot crawlers to get properly indexed
 Important Changes
o Schedule is from previous year and not relevant anymore
 Desirable Changes
o Some menu subcategories open a new tab for users but not all. Create a consistent
menu redirection to improve website flow.
o Explain why you need to sign up on the site to create a profile

From Google’s “PageSpeed Insights,” the ICPC website has a rating of 85/100. As
mentioned earlier, your website is poorly indexed and needs an entirely new setup in
order to be more easily found among world-wide users. To optimize page speed, we
recommend minifying your code and reducing the number of times your site gets
redirected. Another suggestion we have is to optimize the images you are using on your
site. Name your images descriptively and in plan language in your code and reduce the
file size of your images. Users will care more about accessing your website even faster,
though it may mean reducing image content from “High Quality” to “Good Quality.”

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ICPC: Client Detail Report Tasselmyer

The same test for page speed was applied to the ICPC mobile version, scoring a measly
score of 7/100. It is evident from this score that you anticipate users to access your
website primarily through desktop. However, if you want to create a more seamless
online presence, it’s of high importance to create a more mobile-friendlier website that
can be easily linked to on all social media platforms. With a score of 7, your entire
mobile code needs a revamp and we suggest following the above recommendations to fix
this. Your mobile page speed is reliant on servers and without a properly indexed site,
you’re increasing the likelihood of users to lose interest in viewing your website because
it is too slow and difficult to access.

To help guide your new website design and functionality, we determined three tasks that
the average user may look to do when visiting the ICPC website. These tasks are learning
about the contest, how to get involved in the contests, and what the dates of the contests
are. Finding out what the contest is extremely accessible, and information that is found
directly on the homepage. Determining competition information scored even higher than
the home page did in terms of page speed, loading at a rate of 91/100. Finding the dates
of regional competitions was of equal ease. All three categories, however, continued to
score in the single digits for mobile versions, so our most important recommendation is
giving your mobile website a lot of attention.

Social Media Plan:

Interacting with users on social media via relevant influencers can be a great advantage
for niche events looking to build their reputation. Social media presence and personal
connections are what separate successful events apart from poorly advertised ones. Developing
a specific and realistic plan for what kind of content to post on social media can boost user
knowledge on specific events and spark growth. Most brands do not succeed because they fail to
interact with those who are engaging in conversations relevant to them.

Social Listening:
Social media is a fast-moving, high intensity space. No matter the product or event that
you’re promoting, it’s vital to have a strong social presence to capture the attention of
your intended audience. More importantly, they may already be talking about you on
social media. Social listening is the process of monitoring social media platforms for
mentions of your brand to understand what is being said about your events, services, and
competitors.

Whom to Listen To:

Feedback from your social audience is of highest importance to the growth and notoriety
of the programming contest, though it isn’t the only thing that you should be cognizant
of. Taking advantage of your widely-known followers that share relevant information
related to your contest is crucial to promoting event success.

How to Listen:

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As mentioned above, you should look at influencers who are discussing your event and
the impact that mention has had for you. Social media platforms have easily accessible
metrics to determine who mentions your brand and how they interact with you. We used
the Twitter’s analytics software, Twitonomy, to gain insights on followers who
mentioned the programming contest.

Using this data in Microsoft Excel, we eliminated irrelevant details, such as the Twitter
user’s biography and language spoken. From there, we examined the remaining metrics
and determined that the number of followers, favorites on Tweets, and the “Listed”
column, were all worth pursuing to see which garnered the highest numbers.

According to Twitonomy, a “listed” value explains how many times that specific user has
been placed into a group of relevance to them by other users. This metric is of high value
to our data analysis because individual tweet factors aside, we were able to determine the
overall relevance of a specific user to the masses. To further organize this data, we took
the users listed in the top 30 and compared them to the top 30 users who garnered the
most favorites and then did a cross comparison to sort for unique hits. This cross-
referencing not only have us notable Twitter users who made reference to the ICPC but
also users who Tweeted about the contest and also garnered an impressive number of
favorites.

Determining the most influential Twitter users to the contest will help to understand who,
what, and why people are talking. Twitter is an excellent platform for users to partake in
conversations and connect with people they won’t typically connect with. Threads are an
interesting way for users to share multiple pieces of information without bogging down
users with too much information and reaching out to the influencers that are included in
the image below would be an excellent way to spread and increase brand awareness.

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The above list includes 10 users who have Tweeted about ICPC in the past and are of
high relevance to the brand. Each user is related to media strategy improvements, STEM
education, and/or developer and computing communities. These are key influencers to
ICPC because they know of the event have large influence on Twitter based on their
number of engagements, followers, and number of lists they have been placed into.

What Records to Keep:

Data is the new backbone to business and every data metric is in high demand and
available if you know how to access it. However, you do not need to crunch every
number to determine the success of your social media and websites. On Instagram, your
site is registered as a business which is good. Those insights provided to businesses
extend beyond the value of a like or comment. Your #MotivationMonday posts get the
most engagement but test out hashtags that are more unique to your brand. The same goes
for Twitter – see who begins using those hashtags along with your own account. Also,
create more shareable content, such as promotional videos and programming “how to”
videos. You can easily track views on videos and we feel that content will foster more
communication and interactions.

You can also examine how many visits your website receives via redirects from social
channels. To do this, set up an account on https://bitly.com/, enter the ICPC website
address, and then post this generated link on your social media channels. Bitly will track
certain data, such as page views and statics to let you know what is useful to your
website.

Goals:
We’ve created a set of goals for your social media plan to help you best optimize your
online presence.

Action:
To create an effective social media presence through posting relevant content on Twitter,
Facebook, and Instagram on a regular basis.

Justification:
The main purpose of your social media postings should be to excite your followers about
the event and foster a sense of community amongst the programming competitors. If your
audience sees exciting and related content posted on a regular basis to boost overall
interest, users will be more likely to follow and participate in the event.

Audience:
The intended audience consists of anyone in the world who is enrolled in a degree
program at the sponsoring institution. In the 2019 competition year, any person born after
1996 is eligible to participate. Any student who has competed in five Regional Contests
is not eligible to compete, nor is any student who has competed in two World Finals.

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These limitations are important to note when intending to reach a specific audience
because that creates a target age demographic.

Desired Effects:
We hope for the International Collegiate Programming Contest to see more online
engagement from age-specific users, more followers on social media, and more event-
related content.

KPI’s:
We have established some Key Performance Indictors (KPI’s) to set your event up for
measurable results and ways to know when your implemented tactics are successful.

1. More shares/likes on social media to measure engagement, specifically Facebook

2. Increase the number of young followers on Instagram profile
3. Post short, event-related videos across all platforms
4. Establish a consistent content posting schedule
5. Increase page views on website

Process:
To reach the goals we have established for you, we suggest a process that will generate
social media materials for your event that are in line with what appeals to younger
audiences and communicates your message more effectively.

Principles:
In order for your followers to express more interest in the content that you’re posting, you
should post more event-related content. Because the regional competitions take place
over a duration of time, and leads up to the World Finals, posting images and videos that
stimulate excitement for the event will boost engagement. According to a Pew Report
published in 2018, 71-percent of Instagram’s most active users are between 18 and 29-
years-old. Since the primary audience is of a specific age range, we suggest using
relevant and quirky hashtags, such as #ICPCRegionals and #ICPCgeeks to establish a
more exciting social environment.

The best process to encourage engagement via social media will be through call-to-action
(CTA’s) posts, which is an invitation to users to share, like, and comment on posts.
CTA’s are usable across all platforms and be as simple as asking users to share content
you posted on Facebook with an answer to the question: “What’s your favorite part about
ICPC?” Incentivizing shares and likes by offering up prizes or helpful programming tips
as a reward would be an easy way to take CTA’s one step further.

Tactics:
For social media platforms, we recommend you go ahead and reinvent your social media
presence to gear it more towards a younger demographic. This demographic we are

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intending to reach is the largest growing group of YouTube users and videos are
reportedly the number one method of learning among people born after 2000.

The primary focus of content should be on Twitter and Instagram. Twitter is important
because it is a platform that fosters communication and encourages users to interact with
both text and pictures. Memes and parody postings continue to infiltrate news feeds of
users and it would be wise to capitalize on appreciated humor. Be careful to avoid double
posting content across multiple platforms, because oversaturation can lead to decreased
user engagement. Since your intended audience is a younger content, you should look to
curate original yet connected content across multiple platforms.
Your Instagram presence can include photos of setting up for a regional event and
employees having fun working hard to create an exciting experience. You can also
include 30-second long snippets of a new YouTube video that you just made, then link
the video in your Instagram biography. Using Bitly, you can then track how many users
went to your video because you posted it on a different platform.

Social media is an extremely dynamic space, with new trends leaving just as quickly as
they appear. Analysis and evaluation of your data should be done weekly in order to
generate useful insights of your overall monthly success. If you notice you receive more
engagements on a Facebook in a particular month, prioritize posts on that platform to
reach as many people as you can but also pay attention to when that attention drops off.

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SEO Audit
A search engine optimization (SEO) audit is a process to evaluate your event’s web
presence. We conducted this audit to get an overview of the current search engine performance
detailing your strengths, weaknesses. We examined several elements in our audit. We will go
through each element, describe what it is, and how successfully your website optimized that
element for search engines.

Results
I ran a search engine optimization audit on the ICPC website. Upon running this search, we
found that there were only three hits, which indicates your website isn’t getting properly indexed.
Indexing contains the information on all the websites that a search engine is able to find when
you search a particular topic. We understand that the target audience for the event are people
around the entire world, yet by coding your site in a manner that bots cannot crawl it, you are
potentially missing out on broad reach.

Link Accessibility
The way in which users navigate through a website is called link accessibility. If a user
can navigate from one page to another without struggling to get back to a different page,
that is a strong sign. The ICPC did not have any issues with optimizing navigation on the
wise. The drop-down menu is available at the top of every page you click on and users
also have the freedom to return to the home page at any time simply by clicking the
“ICPC.”

Overall, we judged that users can easily navigate throughout your website when
accessing it through desktop.

Depth of Architecture
Information architecture (IA) helps people to understand their surroundings and what
they are looking at. Your website contains extremely useful information that can be found
within a few clicks, indicating that users can easily find information they are looking for.

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Flat architecture is an important website structure because it helps search engines to

understand that the page users are accessing is important.

In our audit, we found that all of your pages are easily found through the main menu
navigation on the home page and those pages run quickly. You do not need to fix
anything for this SEO element.

Restructuring your website

Your website needs a complete overhaul to be successful. Because only three results are
turning up when a web crawl is conducted, that indicates not enough code was used to
signal where your site should be indexed. While your website has useful content, it does
not mean much because it is not getting pulled in a way that users are going to understand
it.

With this said, we think it is important to bear certain things in mind when you redesign
your site. First, keep your site moving fast to avoid click-aways. Forty percent of people
will give up on your page after three seconds of delay. Next, make sure that your
important content is properly labeled and that titles are descriptive, clear and useful. Title
tags are the biggest clue for what your page is about and it’s important to put the most
useful titles first. Overall, the content that currently shows up on your page is both
informative and visually appealing but is missing the mark for indexing.

Meta tags are used to describe content briefly and honestly and is code that is not seen by
website viewers, only bot crawlers. Preparing your website to get crawled is important so
that you explicitly state what you want indexed and what can be overlooked.

Conclusion
We hope that the International Collegiate Programming Contest will utilize the
techniques described in the above report to improve their digital presence. As a result of
this restructured digital presence, we hope to increase the popularity of not just the World
Finals event but also regional programming events that take place. By using the above
recommendations, the ICPC should be able to better connect with their target
demographic and build a stronger event base.

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