I joined NewsLocal Community Newspapers in August 2011 as Digital Production Manager. My first task was a large rebranding exercise. I was responsible for 23 websites along with Facebook and Twitter accounts for each masthead. I coordinated with the online news producer, 23 editors and around 180 journalists and photographers.
I built www.newslocal.com.au from concept to wireframe to finished product using online tools, Adobe Photoshop and Dreamweaver, delivering a site faster than an external agency could do given the timeframe and saved the company money.
I managed the digital rebranding of Cumberland Newspapers to NewsLocal including the masthead logos on the Where I Live sites, the eNewsletter, redesign of 22 Facebook pages and Twitter redesigns for 22 mastheads. The resulting social media presence was a coherent experience of the brand for readers and updated the user experience in line with rejuvenation of the print product.
I established an editorial social media policy and implemented a social media register in order to track the 170 staff with accounts and manage business risks.
I developed a digital media business case process for the company in order to obtain stakeholder engagement and sign-off and to ensure coherent objectives and exit strategies existed for all new products.
I coordinated the Facebook timeline roll-out and training for 22 mastheads. All Facebook accounts were ready at the time of the deadline or before and all staff were familiar with the new requirements.
I completely rebuilt analytics reporting spreadsheets to allow auto-sorting on multiple criteria. Reports that took days to produce now take a few hours.
I participated in the NewsLocal Digital Strategy working group, wrote the bulk of the NewsLocal 2012 digital strategy document and presented to the executive team.
I conducted a department-wide skills audit to establish digital training needs among editorial staff and produced a report for senior management.
I identified technology issues with image processes, coordinated with NewsMachine coders to establish new process and oversaw rollout of requisite technologies and access for 170 staff, saving time in uploading web stories.
I identified an issue with the Pinterest terms and conditions that allowed the company to sell our images and implemented a process to watermark all large photos to be placed on Facebook, Twitter or other social media or web sites that might be pinned by ourselves or other users.