Understanding The Current New School Archives Website and Instagram Performance Through Digital Analysis

April - May 2023

The New School Archive is an essential resource for researchers and students/faculties/staff from the New School/Parsons to gain access to archival materials and information from the department. It includes Archives (main page), Digital Collections, and Finding Aids. Its complex and comprehensive website tries to provide as much information as possible to benefit targeted audiences from various materials, including photographs, documents, and audio recordings. To better understand how users navigate through those three web platforms and what the user journey is like, we conducted four weeks of data analysis through Google Analytics.

Moreover, social media platforms are powerful tools for people to promote and attract more traffic. The New School Archive is concerned about its past Instagram performance and wants to find out the reason behind inconsistent user engagement and slow increase in followers. Thus, we also conducted a series of data analyses through Meta Business Suite and competitive analysis based on social media metrics.

CLIENT

The New School Archive Department

CONTRIBUTION

Analysis: summarize and analyze Instagram performance; export Google Analytics Data to Looker Studio and create Dashboard Reports.
Team Collaboration: Keep timely communications with the client; weekly meeting set-up; team task assignment; team progress pusher

TEAM

Nahee Kim, Roey Wang, Tanisha Razdan, Van Nguyen

What Should We Know Before Conducting Data Analysis?

We interviewed the New School Archive department to discuss the project scope and objectives around their website and web analytics. Our goal was to answer the following questions:

1

How do the three department sites interact with each other?

2

Does the website have anything that hinders users from accessing their wanted resources?

3

How to increase Instagram account user engagement?

We analyzed the New School Archive's Google Analytics and Instagram data to answer our research questions and pinpoint areas of improvement.

Web & Instagram Data Analytics

Findings

Recommendations

Methodology

Web Overview

We utilized Google Analytics to analyze three websites: The New School Archives and Special Collections, Finding Aids, and Digital Collections. Additionally, we created a dashboard on Looker Studio for an in-depth examination.
By developing a dashboard on Looker Studio, we successfully centralized data visualization, customization, real-time updates, and interactivity for website analysis. Aggregating data from sources like Google Analytics allowed us to display specific metrics and visualizations, facilitating informed decision-making.

Example of Google Analytics & Looker Studio Dashboard

Data Period Analyzed: Jan 2022 - May 2023
Primary Metrics Analyzed:

Sessions: Avg. Session Duration, Pages /Session, and Number of Sessions
Users: New and Returning Users and Device Category
Behavior: Bounce Rate, Unique Pageviews, Source / Medium, Avg. Time on Page and Page Path Analysis

Instagram Overview

We utilize the Meta Business Suite to analyze the New School Archives Instagram account performance from January 2022 to May 2023. We look at the overall account performance regarding the number of followers, Instagram reach, likes, comments, post frequency, and audience demographics to help gain a comprehensive understanding.

Example of Meta Business Suite

Data Period Analyzed: Jan 2022 - May 2023
Primary Metrics Analyzed:

The average number of reach is 556
The average number of engagements is 109
The Instagram account has 1600 followers, which is higher than usual
55 content interactions lean on the lower side. Typically, this figure should be 116
10 published contents lean on the lower side. Typically, this figure should be 26

What Do We Find & Will Recommend For The New School Archive Website?

The New School Archives and Special Collections

Key Findings:

1. High traffic on the homepage: The homepage is one of the most visited pages on the New School Archives website, indicating that it is an important entry point for users.

2.Scrolling behavior: Despite a high number of users visiting the homepage, many of them do not scroll down the page.

3. Search feature usage:

The search feature on the homepage is popular among users, highlighting the importance of providing an accessible and efficient search tool to help users navigate the website and find relevant information
Returning users tend to use the search feature more frequently than new users. This could indicate that returning users are more familiar with the website and are actively seeking specific information.

4. High traffic on the special collections page:

New and returning users show high interest in the special collections page, suggesting that this website section is particularly appealing and valuable to our audience
Notably, 2/3 of returning users are strongly interested in the special collections page. This finding underscores the importance of maintaining and updating this section to retain user engagement and loyalty

Recommendations:

1. Enhance user experience with search filters and tracking: Incorporate appropriate filter categories and monitor user behavior with segments in Google Analytics to understand how different users interact with your search engine.

2. Optimize the homepage for a better user experience

Emphasize Special Collections: Highlight the special collections page on the homepage using captivating visuals, call-to-action buttons, or featuring popular or recent additions due to its high user interest
Refine Above-the-Fold Content: Place key information and navigation elements above the fold, as users tend not to scroll, for an improved user experience in finding needed information

The New School Finding Aids

Key Findings:

1. Time Spent On the Home Page: As users land on the Finding Aids page, the average duration is considerably higher, which is 01:00 minutes, than others, indicating that the content on the page is engaging and holding the user's attention.

2. The user path below indicates how users go about it to find the information they seek. After toggling between the Finding Aids and New School Archives pages, it is seen that they use the search function to get to the required research.

3. The majority of website traffic, specifically 75.3%, comes from organic search engines, equating to 16,200 users. This indicates effective search engine optimization. Additionally, the second most significant traffic source is direct, with 18.2% of users, totaling 3,146 users, accessing the website by directly entering the URL.

The two columns, source and landing page, tell us where users navigated after searching for specific content:

It is important to note that the search engine directed 19,721 users to these landing pages
3146 of the users were directed to these landing pages after entering the URL

4. Returning users exhibit higher engagement with Finding Aids than new users, as indicated by a lower bounce rate. The difference in bounce rates between returning and new users is recorded at 16.18%, suggesting that new users are more likely to exit the page than returning users, who demonstrate greater familiarity with website navigation and content.

Recommendations:

1. Contextualize The Finding Aids:

Improve understanding of the page's function to reduce bounce rates
Integrate a video clip or brief tour on the landing page for guidance
Place the guidance prominently within the first fold of the page

2. What are users looking for?

Categorize "subjects" and "names" sections in a collection-relevant order
Provide context and background to help users navigate more efficiently and reduce frustration

The New School Archives Digital Collections

Key Findings:

1. Time spent on the homepage: Under item #2, the Digital Collections homepage shows a total user engagement of less than half the duration of the main Archives homepage.

2. Time spent on object pages: Object & people pages in Digital Collections have the lowest engagement rates and duration for user engagement.

Recommendations:

1. Contextualize the homepage: Help users understand the purpose of the Digital Collections homepage, particularly those who may be landing from direct traffic sources.

2. Optimize object & people pages: Linking to more related content and increasing the discoverability of backlinks (buttons or CTAs instead of hyperlinks) may increase the session length and user engagement for new users.

What Do We Find & Will Recommend For The New School Archive Instagram Account?

The New School Instagram Account

The New School Archives Instagram account does a good job in:

Categorizing important content based on their types and sticking them on the top, which is friendly to new audiences to get a general view of the account
Including relevant tags in the main content and images to increase the posts’ social media exposure
Engaging with audiences in the comment area to encourage more interactions

Key Findings:

1. The post frequency is not consistent:

There’s a big gap between November 2022 and March 2023 (no post during September 2022)
The overall post frequency is low (1-3 posts a month)
An obvious post-increase in March. This is the step that people should take and keep

2. Main Content Is Plain:

The current content size of each post is relatively small (~50 words) and not descriptive
The main content doesn’t fully match the pictures/videos
- Eg. The example uses the words “serving 90s jazz”, but the basic image doesn’t tell more story or resonate with the audience’s experiences. Including video clips or sound-related mediums to present would be better
The included tags could be more powerful
- Eg. The Hermes mask and the mentioned artists are not tagged under the post

3. Certain Topics Get More Likes:

Through analyzing posts that gained over 90 likes, we found out that:
- 4/13 posts are related to fashion design (two are among the top 5 most liked posts)
- 4/13 posts catch the trends and fit the hot topics at that time
- 5/13 posts relate to famous people
- 3/13 posts are tagged with @thenewschool

Recommendations:

1. Keeping A Consistent Post Frequency

Engage internally with content creators and establish a shared social media calendar for consistency.
Set a specific minimum of monthly posts (at least one per week)
Conduct quarterly check-in meetings for topic adjustments
Update stories more frequently
Conduct further research on hot topics, trends, and festivals to enhance post-planning

2. Improving Content Strategy

Shorten the main content to ~100 words and focus on storytelling
Make the content more relevant with accompanying pictures/videos
Strengthen the use of tags for better impact

Example of Good & Bad Content For The Same Topic
(Both posts are about a talk on “Do Women Dare?”. The left green one has a story-telling main content, while the right one only talks about the basic background information about the subject and speakers. )

3. Increase Exposure:

Capitalize on popular trends by increasing posts during peak periods.
Share fashion design-related collection content during fashion week.
Enhance collaboration with other departments.
Encourage main departments like the New School/Parsons School of Design to post archive-related information during orientation, mid-term, or final terms to increase visibility.
Conduct further research, interviews, and questionnaires with students, faculty, and staff to understand audience perceptions and expectations.
Utilize celebrity/influencer endorsements to boost social media traffic.
Consider creating a series on traditions like inviting professional designers to critique students' work, dating back to 1919, to engage with hot topics and notable figures.

Example of Using Celebrity Influence to Increase Exposure

Final Thoughts

“I believe we will probably open up more positions based on your insightful report.”

-KATIE MARTINEZ, ASSOCIATE DIRECTOR OF DIGITAL ARCHIVES

After presenting our final presentation, Looker Studio Dashboard, and final report to our client via Zoom, the associate director of the New School Digital Archives told us she was impressed by our findings and found our recommendations to be helpful. Our thoughts open up a new gate for her to rethink their current website’s content and layout. Moreover, the Instagram findings let them realize that an official account cannot only be run by one person. It requires a team of people to work together to ensure higher social media exposure.

It was fascinating to take a deeper look at how Google Analytics can be integrated with a website to provide quantitative feedback about visitors' experiences with a university's archive website. I hadn't had much experience with web analytics prior to this project, but I was able to gain a much better understanding of how web analytics metrics and key performance indicators align with an organization's goals. I also recognized the value of being able to track the overall performance of an official Instagram account by seeing its engagement rate, post numbers, content, and benchmarking data.

If I were to continue working on this project, I would definitely want to conduct usability tests on changes such as the redesign of the main page. I would also want to see how the new school students/faculty/staff perceive its archive Instagram and what content they expect to see from that social media platform.

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Ruoyu Wang

Understanding The Current New School Archives Website and Instagram Performance Through Digital Analysis

April - May 2023

CLIENT

The New School Archive Department

CONTRIBUTION

Analysis: summarize and analyze Instagram performance; export Google Analytics Data to Looker Studio and create Dashboard Reports. Team Collaboration: Keep timely communications with the client; weekly meeting set-up; team task assignment; team progress pusher

TEAM

Nahee Kim, Roey Wang, Tanisha Razdan, Van Nguyen

What Should We Know Before Conducting Data Analysis?

We interviewed the New School Archive department to discuss the project scope and objectives around their website and web analytics. Our goal was to answer the following questions:

1

How do the three department sites interact with each other?

2

Does the website have anything that hinders users from accessing their wanted resources?

3

How to increase Instagram account user engagement?

We analyzed the New School Archive's Google Analytics and Instagram data to answer our research questions and pinpoint areas of improvement.

Web & Instagram Data Analytics

Findings

Recommendations

Methodology

Web Overview

Example of Google Analytics & Looker Studio Dashboard

Data Period Analyzed: Jan 2022 - May 2023 Primary Metrics Analyzed:

Sessions: Avg. Session Duration, Pages /Session, and Number of Sessions

Users: New and Returning Users and Device Category

Behavior: Bounce Rate, Unique Pageviews, Source / Medium, Avg. Time on Page and Page Path Analysis

Instagram Overview

Example of Meta Business Suite

Data Period Analyzed: Jan 2022 - May 2023 Primary Metrics Analyzed:

The average number of reach is 556

The average number of engagements is 109

The Instagram account has 1600 followers, which is higher than usual

55 content interactions lean on the lower side. Typically, this figure should be 116

10 published contents lean on the lower side. Typically, this figure should be 26

What Do We Find & Will Recommend For The New School Archive Website?

The New School Archives and Special Collections

Key Findings:

1. High traffic on the homepage: The homepage is one of the most visited pages on the New School Archives website, indicating that it is an important entry point for users.

2.Scrolling behavior: Despite a high number of users visiting the homepage, many of them do not scroll down the page.

3. Search feature usage:

The search feature on the homepage is popular among users, highlighting the importance of providing an accessible and efficient search tool to help users navigate the website and find relevant information

Returning users tend to use the search feature more frequently than new users. This could indicate that returning users are more familiar with the website and are actively seeking specific information.

4. High traffic on the special collections page:

New and returning users show high interest in the special collections page, suggesting that this website section is particularly appealing and valuable to our audience

Notably, 2/3 of returning users are strongly interested in the special collections page. This finding underscores the importance of maintaining and updating this section to retain user engagement and loyalty

Recommendations:

1. Enhance user experience with search filters and tracking: Incorporate appropriate filter categories and monitor user behavior with segments in Google Analytics to understand how different users interact with your search engine.

2. Optimize the homepage for a better user experience

Emphasize Special Collections: Highlight the special collections page on the homepage using captivating visuals, call-to-action buttons, or featuring popular or recent additions due to its high user interest

Refine Above-the-Fold Content: Place key information and navigation elements above the fold, as users tend not to scroll, for an improved user experience in finding needed information

The New School Finding Aids

Key Findings:

1. Time Spent On the Home Page: As users land on the Finding Aids page, the average duration is considerably higher, which is 01:00 minutes, than others, indicating that the content on the page is engaging and holding the user's attention.

2. The user path below indicates how users go about it to find the information they seek. After toggling between the Finding Aids and New School Archives pages, it is seen that they use the search function to get to the required research.

The two columns, source and landing page, tell us where users navigated after searching for specific content:

It is important to note that the search engine directed 19,721 users to these landing pages

​3146 of the users were directed to these landing pages after entering the URL​​

Recommendations:

1. Contextualize The Finding Aids:

Improve understanding of the page's function to reduce bounce rates

Integrate a video clip or brief tour on the landing page for guidance

Place the guidance prominently within the first fold of the page

2. What are users looking for?

Categorize "subjects" and "names" sections in a collection-relevant order

Provide context and background to help users navigate more efficiently and reduce frustration

The New School Archives Digital Collections

Key Findings:

1. Time spent on the homepage: Under item #2, the Digital Collections homepage shows a total user engagement of less than half the duration of the main Archives homepage.

2. Time spent on object pages: Object & people pages in Digital Collections have the lowest engagement rates and duration for user engagement.

Recommendations:

1. Contextualize the homepage: Help users understand the purpose of the Digital Collections homepage, particularly those who may be landing from direct traffic sources.

2. Optimize object & people pages: Linking to more related content and increasing the discoverability of backlinks (buttons or CTAs instead of hyperlinks) may increase the session length and user engagement for new users.

What Do We Find & Will Recommend For The New School Archive Instagram Account?

The New School Instagram Account

The New School Archives Instagram account does a good job in:

Categorizing important content based on their types and sticking them on the top, which is friendly to new audiences to get a general view of the account

Including relevant tags in the main content and images to increase the posts’ social media exposure

Engaging with audiences in the comment area to encourage more interactions

Analysis: summarize and analyze Instagram performance; export Google Analytics Data to Looker Studio and create Dashboard Reports.
Team Collaboration: Keep timely communications with the client; weekly meeting set-up; team task assignment; team progress pusher

Data Period Analyzed: Jan 2022 - May 2023
Primary Metrics Analyzed:

Data Period Analyzed: Jan 2022 - May 2023
Primary Metrics Analyzed:

3146 of the users were directed to these landing pages after entering the URL

Example of Good & Bad Content For The Same Topic
(Both posts are about a talk on “Do Women Dare?”. The left green one has a story-telling main content, while the right one only talks about the basic background information about the subject and speakers. )