Driving Readership among Millennial Women

In a person’s twenties, she transitions from being under her parents’ roof and on their dime. She learns to do things like date, work a nine to five job, feed herself, and even do her taxes. These changes can lead to what is commonly known as the quarter life crisis. Those young adults, who are feeling down, confused, or just bored, increasingly turn to the internet to connect with a community of like-thinkers. In the last five years, many websites geared toward millennials—and specifically 20-something women—have gained popularity.

One of the reasons these sites have been developed and are highly trafficked is that 95% of millennials go online (Pew Internet). In addition, the average female over 15 years old spends 8% more time online than her male counterpart (Abraham, 2010).  Two of these frequented websites are Forever Twenty Somethings (FTS) and Thought Catalog (TC). Though both sites tackle similar content, they take different approaches to reaching their audience through layout and functionality and visual design with varying degrees of success.

Forever Twenty Somethings: Overview of Content and Audience

The title alone of Forever Twenty Somethings gives the website a clear purpose: to reach people in their twenties. Though this site doesn’t solely target women, the vast majority of its audience is female, which is clear in the female friendly color scheme and the list of blogs in the blogroll (featuring sites like Her Campus, Girls in Their 20s, and NEXT for Women, among others). The content of the site includes articles on life, love, career, health, style, and entertainment. Milennials are 43% more likely read blogs than older users (Zickuhr, 2010), which is what sites like this are counting on. Some articles are satirical, some are goofy, some are serious, and some are a combination, and all of the articles are written by people just like the reader: millennial, and majority female.  

The article, “Singles Vs Couples: Why Can’t We All Just Get Along,” is written by a woman in her twenties posing a serious question to other millennials: “As we get older, is it possible to remain good friends with someone who is single when you are in a relationship?” It is a great example because it’s all-inclusive in that it appeals to both single people and those in relationships. Every person falls in one of those two categories; therefore, every person will potentially find this article relevant. Yet it is written through a female lens.

Using one woman’s opinion as a platform to solicit other opinions creates a community in which millennials can discuss an issue that matters to them. Discussion appeals to women in particular, because they tend to use the internet as a way to engage with others (Abraham, 2010). Thus, it’s no surprise that the majority of commenters on Forever Twenty Somethings is female. FTS successfully satisfies the desires of their readers by providing relevant, inclusive content via a discussion platform.

Thought Catalog: Overview of Content and Audience

            Like Forever Twenty Somethings, Thought Catalog targets millennials through quirky, often thought-provoking articles on topics like love, life, and current events. In a recent TC article the writer says, “Most of our readership is interested in dating and/or advice about women/men and relationships.” Though TC targets all millennials, according to Alexa, females are greatly over represented as readers on the site (Alexa, 2014).

            Chelsea Fagan, a millennial and regular contributor to TC, recently wrote an article titled “13 Simple Dating Rules We Should All Start Following.” Though “13 Simple Dating Rules” is gender neutral, the tone and content of the post seems to be geared toward women. The difference between a post like this and a post like “Singles Vs Couples: Why Can’t We All Just Get Along” from FTS is that TC’s article is exclusive. It applies only to people who are single and dating. It also does not ask for other opinions or lend itself to discussion. Other TC articles do this, but to a lesser extent than the typical FTS article.  However, both sites are able to gain and maintain attention by posting relevant content that is interesting, entertaining, and often humorous.

Forever Twenty Somethings: Discussion of Layout and Functionality

Poor website layout and functionality can lead to higher bounce rates and a lower number of views per visitor. Bounce rates do not mean everything, and should be analyzed with a grain of salt, but they can serve as a useful indicator for how certain pages of a site are doing compared to others. Number of views per visitor allows us to see how well connected content is, if it’s easy to navigate, search and share, and find related content.

Forever Twenty Somethings is easy to navigate from the topics listed in the navigation bar. Each topic in the navigation also has a drop down menu that further clarifies the subjects a user can browse. Thankfully there are no popup windows, which tend to irritate and distract readers leading to a higher bounce rate (Eubanks, 2013).

A slider, most likely a Wordpress plugin, draws the user’s attention to the most popular recent posts by featuring a large image accompanied by teaser text. The site directs readers to posts others have liked in the past with the hope that readers will like these pages and spend more time on their site, which lowers their bounce rate. The only negative thing about the homepage in terms of functionality is that the slider takes quite a while to load. The Webmaster may have uploaded images with too many pixels, which causes it to run slowly. A 2012 New York Times article said, “People will visit a Web site less often if it is slower than a close competitor by more than 250 milliseconds.” Two hundred and fifty milliseconds is less than a blink of an eye. FTS may want to increase their bandwidth or decrease their photo file size to eliminate slow load times.

The right hand column of the homepage includes: a search bar, RSS feed, ads, and social media buttons. All of which make it easy for users to browse, share, and search. According to Pew Research Internet, millennials are 83% more likely go to use social networking sites than older users (Pew, 2010). Having social sharing readily available on each blog post and in the sidebar allow users to connect with the site and share its content with just the click of a button. This in turn leads to more eyes on the site.

The posts on the homepage are separated by horizontal rules, which make for easy reading. FTS seems to be missing internal and external links on many, if not all, of its posts. That means that once readers have finished a post, they have nowhere to go. FTS could benefit from adding links to their content and other blogs or websites in their posts. Adding internal links will make their content seem more connected and allow the reader to browse relevant articles, which increases views per visitor.

Thought Catalog: Discussion of Layout and Functionality

Thought Catalog is a more difficult to navigate than Forever Twenty Somethings. There is no navigation bar, other than links to the About page and TC’s twitter feed. There is also no search function on the homepage. The only way to view content, aside from just browsing through their recent posts, is to scroll to the bottom of the page where they list the popular articles of their frequent contributors.

Though navigation is lacking, social media sharing opportunities abound on TC, as they do on FTS. In the sidebar on each article there are different buttons for social media sharing that show how many others have shared the article. The user can also go straight to the comments section to read what others have to say and participate themselves. At the end of each post TC has a tag line that says “You should Follow Thought Catalog on Facebook (or Twitter) here,” just to reinforce their presence on social media.

In addition to providing many social media sharing opportunities, TC does a fantastic job of internal and external linking on their posts, unlike FTS. Each post has a banner at the top that features the most recent “thought” and a list of more from TC and of more from the web at the bottom of the page. In addition, in the text of the post TC links to their own and other’s content through hyperlinked keywords or phrases. All of this linking serves to increase views per visitor.

Forever Twenty Somethings: Discussion of Visual Design

            Continuity of branding, contrast, and use of images are all very important to the design of a website. FTS has a large banner that is static on every page, which serves as branding for the site and their social media pages. It is fun and colorful, but not busy enough to be distracting. Three of the four images used in their branding represent the central goals of Forever Twenty Somethings: a site for recent graduates (cap image) to discuss (chat image) life and love (heart image). The fourth image, a champagne glass, doesn’t really factor into the goals unless it is supposed to represent “life,” but hopefully that is not the case. It would be prudent for FTS to change that image to better represent their goals.

Contrast is vital to a website because it makes images and text standout and draws readers to specific areas of content. FTS still uses a light grey background and should consider moving to an all white background. White backgrounds are easier to read from and they allow for more contrast between text and images on the site. The green from their banner is used for hyperlinks throughout the site, but FTS would be more visually appealing if they used one (possibly two) more colors from the banner throughout the site.

Using images is important for clicks and shares and adding a visually stimulating element to a website. Nearly every post on FTS is accompanied by a photo or gif that represents the content. This is imperative since 39% of women age 18-34 say they are more likely to click on online content if it has a photo (EMarketer, 2012). Having photos also makes posts better for sharing, especially on Facebook where posts with photos generate 53% more likes and 104% more comments (Corliss, 2012).

Thought Catalog: Discussion of Visual Design

            Thought Catalog uses branding, contrast, and images differently than Forever Twenty Somethings. TC’s branding is simple and similar on pages and social media sites, as FTS’s is. However, TC’s branding may be too simple. It’s black text in Georgia font on a white background. There is no image or graphic that distinguishes it. However, the artlessness of the banner and branding allows the images on the site to standout.

TC primarily uses images to drive browsing on their homepage. These images are accompanied by a catchy title and a sentence describing the content with keywords to draw attention. TC uses video in addition to images to attract more views and shares. Millennials are 80% more likely to go online to watch video than older users, so TC is catering to its audience by providing clips (Zickuhr, 2010). Only six articles are listed on every page, and they are evenly spaced out, which makes the site easy to skim.

On individual TC pages, ads appear in the banner at the top of the page. This is distracting and looks like spam. From a design perspective, they would benefit in moving ads to the right sidebar of every page—like FTS—rather than it being the first thing readers see. Moving the ads may lower bounce rates.

Forever Twenty Somethings and Thought Catalog moving forward

Both Forever Twenty Somethings and Thought Catalog have a strong following of readers. However, TC is quite a bit more popular than FTS. This is a bit surprising when we look back on the differences in navigation and search, but not as surprising when we think about TC’s superior use of internal and external linking and use of images in their visual design.

Moving forward both sites need to invest in responsive design for better mobile and tablet use. Eighteen percent of millennials exclusively use mobile devices to access the internet and 67% say they use both mobile phones and desktop computers (Lella, 2014). Currently neither site is optimized for mobile use. Because both FTS and TC’s main audiences are millennial, and specifically millennial women, it is imperative that they make use of mobile traffic. The real question is why two sites built and run by millennials are not already making use of responsive design.

References

Abraham, Linda Boland, Marie Pauline Mörn and Andrea Vollman (2010). Women on the Web: How Women are Shaping the Internet. ComScore Inc.

EMarketer (2012). Online Content Exploration Varies by Demographic. Retrieved from http://www.emarketer.com/Article/Online-Content-Exploration-Varies-by-Demographic/1009507

Eubanks, Nick (2013). Reduce Bounce Rate: 20 Things to Consider. Retrieved from http://searchenginewatch.com/article/2237250/Reduce-Bounce-Rate-20-Things-to-Consider

Kathryn Zickuhr (2010). Generations 2010. Pew Research Internet Project. Retrieved from http://www.pewinternet.org/2010/12/16/generations-2010/

Alexa (2014). Retrieved from http://www.alexa.com/siteinfo/thoughtcatalog.com

Lohr, Steve (2012). For Impatient Web Users, an Eye Blink Is Just Too Long to Wait. New York Times. Retrieved from http://www.nytimes.com/2012/03/01/technology/impatient-web-users-flee-slow-loading-sites.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0

Bacic, Harris (2014). 3 Major Web Design Trends. Forbes. Retrieved from http://www.forbes.com/sites/allbusiness/2014/01/14/3-major-web-design-trends-for-2014/

Corliss, Rebecca (2012). Photos on Facebook Generate 53% More Likes Than the Average Post. Hubspot. Retrieved from http://blog.hubspot.com/blog/tabid/6307/bid/33800/Photos-on-Facebook-Generate-53-More-Likes-Than-the-Average-Post-NEW-DATA.aspx

Lella, Adam (2014). Why Are Millennials So Mobile? ComScore. Retrieved from https://www.comscore.com/Insights/Blog/Why_Are_Millennials_So_Mobile

Chapter 6 of THE NEW RULES OF MARKETING AND PR

Chapter 6 of The New Rules of Marketing and PR, by David Meerman Scott, is about using audio and video to market products and services. The primary goal of making a video, he says, is to create goodwill with your customers.

What should your video include?

• Create a mini-documentary that tells an incredible story that is ultimately about your services/products.
• But make sure that it doesn't include product placement or interviews with employees, which gives the video authenticity.
• Allow your viewer to get lost in the story (of your making). 
• Use humor and/or drama in a video to give it the tone that makes it great for sharing. 
• Timing and originality is crucial. 
• Finally, treat buyers as human beings, whether they are customers or businesses.

Why is sharing important?

Sharing is important because when you have a video that is good for sharing--say it's funny or timely or in some way appealingly dramatic--that video can go viral, which means it can have millions of eyes on it. Which means millions of eyes on your company and its products. A resort in Queensland posted The Best Job in the World and encouraged applicants to send in video applications. This went viral and caused the whole world to stop and focus on Queensland for a moment. The resort didn't even post a video of their own. They had others do the work for them! All in all, there was a 34% increase in flight traffic to Cairn after the videos.

What can you do with podcasts?

Audio can be great, especially for obvious industries like the music business. However, it can also be used for average companies or people to market their products. Take the Grammar Girl for instance, she  has a podcast along with social media, which all help her market her book. She sells out of books at many of her talks/presentations by spreading the word online.

One important thing to take away from audio and video marketing is that it should be part of an integrated strategy, where you have outlets like Facebook, Twitter, a website, etc, for sharing.

Internet policy on identity

Aside from privacy policies, which are extremely important, internet policy on identity would be helpful. As it is, on many sites, people can post comments anonymously, which leads to trolling and people saying things online that they wouldn't in person. The problem with non-constructive negative comments online is that studies have shown the recipient of the negative comments can develop low self-esteem and in some cases can even become suicidal.

In The Circle, by Dave Eggers, a man develops TruYou, which standardizes all identity online. It puts an end to trolling and makes people accountable for all of the things they say or do online. In some ways this is scary, but it makes a lot of sense and solves a serious problem. Currently, some sites use things like Discus so that anyone who comments has to have an email attached to their comment. The downside of this is that anyone can set up a burner email account--even though it's a lot of trouble to go to for an anonymous comment.

Internet policy on identity could also lessen crimes that take place online. For example, uploading and downloading child pornography or selling sex on craigslist (these are things that happen!). What would you like to see included in an internet policy on identity? Do you think it would be a good thing to have?

Prompt for blog 6: Discuss one important policy issue for the Internet.

Ineffective Websites

Ineffective websites usually suffer from a couple of the 10 website design problems. The website design problems that I cannot abide by are busy color schemes (because they are distracting) and posts that look like advertising.

Hashtag Feminism

I'm a big reader of feminist blogs and websites. In my active pursuit of new things to read, I have found a couple of sites that are suffering from poor design. For example: www.hashtagfeminism.com. This is a blog devoted to feminism from "others" voices using hashtags to create topics, which is a great idea with so much potential! However, the creator of this blog has broken the ultimate design rule: Never have white text on a black background. It is difficult to read and distracting.

Hashtag Femism also has posts that look like advertisements. I think some of that is because the blog is on a black background, and a lot of the images are also on black backgrounds, so the spacing is erratic. Also, the section on the right of the page is all streaming content from social media, which is a good idea, but the interface makes it look busy. There is simply too much information on that side.

Africa Calling

I work in communications for a maternal health initiative, and I'm constantly exposed to poor designs for non-profit companies that don't have much to spend on a website. They don't know seem to know that simple is better! Www.africacalling.ca suffers from a similar problem as Hashtag Feminism in that the background is busy and distracting. There also is no search function, which is a huge mistake for all websites. People tend to want to search rather than browse when they are online. Any site without a search function is missing out on substantial traffic. 

Do you have any examples of bad websites? What would you do to make them better?

Prompt for blog (5): Find two examples of ineffective websites. What makes these sites ineffective?

Spread of Mobile Internet Usage

As internet usage spreads across the globe, more and more people are looking for cheaper ways to get online. Mobile phones have begun to fill that gap. In a recent survey, "45% claimed that mobile phone is the gadget most people could not live without."

Phones are becoming a necessity in every country, even in developing countries. For example, there is a new movement called mHealth, or mobile health, which aims to spread "use wireless technology to improve health outcomes, reduce costs and create a new paradigm in health care delivery." Putting mobile phones with internet access in the hands of disenfranchised people (particularly women in developing countries) can help improve access to health care and thus improve quality of life.

The price of desktops and laptops deter certain people from purchasing them when similar services are available on phones (and tablets). And as more and more people access the internet via their mobile devices, sites are changing their designs to be more usable on the smaller screen.

Responsive design--or websites that readjust their design to fit the screen, whether it's a phone, computer, or tablet--is becoming more the rule than the exception. The fact that responsive design is so widespread is evidence that people are using their phones more than ever to get online.

Prompt for blog (4): Give an example of diffusion of Internet technology

Privacy Policies

According to Wiki How, "most businesses are not required by law to have a Privacy Policy." They are only required to have a privacy policy if the website collects personal information and or data from users.

Anytime a person signs up for something online, they usually check a box next to "I have read and agree to the Terms and Conditions." Since we live in a world of instant gratification, especially online, many of us click that box without even reading the document, which typically contains a privacy policy.

Many sites, like Google, are taking our personal information and using it to give us targeted ads, assess our GPS location, etc. About 50% of Americans worry about what kind of information is available about them online.

Though there are ways to limit the information that advertisers, sites, or the government, can find about you, you must invest time and energy resetting privacy settings, clearing internet histories and cookies. Not everyone knows that if they do not do this, they are giving others the right to use their personal information in a variety of ways.

Privacy Policies are typically convoluted. They often take the form of a short paragraph written in legalese buried in a long document. Not only do we need clearer policies, but we need mandatory privacy policies across the internet. For example, it should not be acceptable for cookies to exist in your browser unless you have activated them.

 What are your thoughts on privacy policies? Have you ever deactivated your cookies? Have you changed your privacy settings on social media?

If you answered no to the last two questions, you should take a moment to Google yourself. Are you surprised by what you find? Do you like what you see? Do you not like it?

Just like we all take steps to protect our belongings whether by a lock on the door or by keeping a hand on your wallet in the subway, we should take steps to protect our privacy in an environment that continually threatens it.

Prompt for blog (3): Give an example of a online problem. Are there any policies that can reduce this problem?

Top Three Social Media Sites

Social media was created to share information on a personal level. This is unique because people learn about products, services, news, issues, etc. from a hand picked group of people (that is people that they choose to follow). Over the last few years, many different forms of social media have been born to cover anything from professional networking to home decorating.

What are the top three social media sites?

1. Facebook has about 800,000,000 users. Despite the fact that their population is aging, they have more than three times the number of users of any other social media site.
2. Twitter has about 250,000,000 users.
3. Linkedin falls slightly behind Twitter with about 200,000,000 users. 

What does social media mean for the Internet?

If it weren't for the desire to share information, the internet would not have been created. Social media is a natural progression from that initial desire; it hones the Internet's intent by targeting people on a personal and social level.

Social media is widely used in business because it is an easy and direct way for consumers to engage companies in discussions. Various social media accounts are platforms for marketing, but they are also platforms for social change, advocacy, political agendas, etc. The uses are endless. Social media is the most important contribution the internet has made since 2000.

Prompt for blog (2): Discuss one important event in Internet history since 2000.