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Website performance & comms engagement

2022

CDPC: Digital, Comms and Engagement

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Contents

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Data for FY23/24

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FY23/24 year to date

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Site content

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2022-2023

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Website traffic for FY 22/23

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March engagement

Website

  • Expected drop in traffic during the holiday / winter period when less activity is published

Social media

  • +2 Facebook followers
  • a forward calendar of events has enabled us to schedule social messages ahead of time, making for easier management

What are we doing differently

  • adding additional dates to calendar - all available dates for the Mobile Library are now listed in our events and our future planned events are listed

*The more clearly we produce an annual calendar, the more we can schedule social media to gather interest and increase engagement

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December engagement

Website

Continues to follow the same trends:

  • many revisiting users
  • even split between desktop and mobile users
  • news most visited section

Social media

  • 374 Facebook followers
  • significant increase in reach and visits since April when website was relaunched and new content available to share

What are we doing differently

  • scheduled posts - begun prescheduling reminders for the Christmas Brunch and Mobile Library visits
  • adding additional dates to calendar - all available dates for the Mobile Library are now listed in our events

*The more clearly we produce an annual calendar, the more we can schedule social media to gather interest and increase engagement

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Things to improve

In addition to projects outlined for the new financial year, I’d like to look at:

  1. Adding parish steward information and cleaning request to website

Phil & Steve provided information for a new informative page about the role of the parish steward and a request form for residents to complete. Creating this new page and form is underway, to be launched in January.

2. Adding all relevant activities to events page

Decide future events date as much as possible, to add to the calendar and launch in January.

3. Monthly update for the wider area

The Tidworth “Our Community Matters” newsletter, and other similar area newsletters, contain valuable information. I’d like to find a useful way to provide a roundup through a monthly blog post.

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November engagement

Performance data

Since our last meeting, the website has reached 473 unique visitors with 938 page visits.

Our top acquisition traffic (how people get to our website) is continues to be:

  • direct - 59%
  • Google - 23%
  • facebook - .08%

Top viewed pages continues to be:

  • news
  • Get in touch

Increased viewership to our village, our councillors, clubs, our community pages.

What that tells us

  • people are actively using the site
  • it is increasingly a destination for local community connection (as we see from increased views on village and community relates pages

*I think the homepage needs a redesign to more easily direct people to the content they’re searching for, based off the insights we’re gathering.

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Since our last meeting

  • July 2022 meeting, it was agreed that we would maintain our existing website hosting plan with Squarespace, moving our domain and email hosting through Gandi. This is now complete and all members have access to their new email.

  • We stated we would set up free Google Workspace accounts for all council members. But, as very few council members are using their council email, this has been paused until there is more need.

  • Thanks to feedback from the resident survey, we adjusted the homepage to include quick links to meeting agendas and meeting minutes, to sit alongside the already present news links.

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Website engagement

Performance data

Since our last meeting, the website has reached 547 unique visitors with 612 page visits.

Our top acquisition traffic (how people get to our website) is:

  • direct - 50%
  • Google - 26%
  • facebook - 20%

Top viewed pages:

  • news
  • Get in touch
  • events

What that tells us

  • people are visiting the site and continuing to use the site
  • news posts are a useful way to share information, especially when coupled with social media
  • residents are trying to get in touch with us, I have concerns that Councillors are not checking their CDPC emails

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July

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Contents

  1. Website data
  2. Social engagement
  3. Survey engagement

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Website engagement

Performance data

Since launch, the website has reached 960 unique visitors with 1,100 page visits.

Our top acquisition traffic (how people get to our website) is:

  • direct - 39%
  • facebook - 37%

Top viewed pages:

  • news
  • events
  • modification of byway news story
  • our councillors

What that tells us

  • people are visiting the site and continuing to use the site
  • news posts are a useful way to share information, especially when coupled with social media
  • there are many opportunities ahead of us to continue optimising use of the website

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Social media engagement

Performance data

We began sharing news stories to Facebook to increase website traffic and awareness with our audience.

  • reach is up 722% (the number of people who saw any content from your Page or about your Page)
  • our Jubilee post reached 806 people
  • a news story about the new byway reached 1,500+ and the most engaged post, with comments and shares

What that tells us

  • we’re reaching more people who will find out content relevant
  • we have an opportunity to share more frequently with people
  • people find our information useful

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Survey engagement

Performance data

Our website survey received 19 total responses, which informed the design and content of our website. This survey is now closed.

We have a resident survey currently live which was shared in The Courier.

  • 15 responses so far
  • many useful ideas we’ll collate, share and discuss at a future meeting
  • open until September

What that tells us

  • people want to engage with the council
  • there’s a community energy to help make improvements
  • we have an opportunity to promote the survey through social media for more engagement.

We’ll do regular social media pushes for this survey. We had intended to promote it this past weekend, but it would have been the same day as the unfortunate road accident. We know residents feel strongly about the road, which we’re already seeing in the survey responses. To avoid an emotional response from poorly timed social media, we’ve delayed an initial promotion for a week.

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Next steps

  • Cllr K Earle has also begun developing a communications policy, building on existing work from other councils and the LGA, that includes social media use, both for the council and individuals speaking on behalf of the council

  • Cllr K Earle will work with other councillors to source, develop and share news and updates about ongoing work