Social Media Roundup: How Your Elections Drive Data

Election night is usually a pretty number-heavy affair, and it always seems like TV news outlets know a lot about what’s happening before a race is actually called.

They have a lot of information sources to work with—exit polls, reporters on the ground, and control rooms full of data crunchers.

Your association may not have a touch-screen wall, but your elections nonetheless are a wellspring of data. Learn more about it in today’s Social Media Roundup:

Understand Your Voters

Your org.held an election & you’ve got data. Here’s how you find the hidden value in that info: http://t.co/GfSWbGONlK  (opens in a new tab) #assnchat  (opens in a new tab)

— Survey & Ballot Sys. (@SBSDirectVote) June 9, 2014  (opens in a new tab)

Sure, your elections probably won’t drive the kind of data that you’ll see on CNN, but there’s plenty to dig into if you’re keeping an eye out, according to Survey & Ballot Systems’ Tim Masden  (opens in a new tab).

Masden suggests taking a good look at your analytics to learn more about the people voting—including where they’re coming from, what browser they’re using, and whether or not they’re using any advanced features in your voting software.

“Advanced election analytics reporting is similar to a census report—you can further understand active member demographics, how they’re interacting, when and why they’re doing it,” he writes. “This information is incredibly useful for planning future elections as well as high-level strategic planning.” (ht @SBSDirectVote  (opens in a new tab))

Content in Check

How one association tamed their content beast (by @amanda_jennison  (opens in a new tab) @assnmediapub) #assnchat  (opens in a new tab) http://t.co/AY0LzfQBrP  (opens in a new tab)

— Deirdre Reid, CAE (@DeirdreReid) June 9, 2014  (opens in a new tab)

A mess of content is no fun, especially when you’re the one who has to clean it up.

Such was the problem that the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) faced recently when it needed to reorganize 25,000 pages of content, many of which hadn’t been updated in over seven years and were riddled with broken links.

Over at the Association Media & Publishing website, Amanda Jennison goes over the process the association took  (opens in a new tab) to clear up the digital asset management process, including moving to Drupal and reconfiguring its content strategy to better handle the project on a wide scale. A big part of this process involves leadership buy-in.

“It’s important that your leadership team acts as the voice of reason during this process,” Jennison writes. “Be sure to keep them in the loop throughout the project phases so they can help you spread the word to all departments when needed.” (ht @deirdrereid  (opens in a new tab))

Have any content management horror stories you’d like to share? Throw ’em in the comments.

CNN’s Wolf Blitzer and Anderson Cooper, in their election nerve center. (CNN press photo)