Around the O, the UO’s primary news and information website, hit a milestone in 2016 by amassing more than 1 million page views, an increase of almost 50 percent over the previous year.
The numbers reflected the growing reach of the UO’s communications operation as well as rising interest in the university, its researchers and its students. Around the O serves as the information hub for campus, providing news and feature stories aimed at both internal and external audiences.
The digital news platform underwent a major design update in early 2016, part of an increased emphasis on raising the profile of the UO’s academic and research activities under President Michael Schill that included the creation of a new University Communications division. Vice President for Communications Kyle Henley, who joined the UO in September 2015, leads the division.
“The University of Oregon is filled with amazing students, faculty and staff who are doing, achieving and discovering every day in fascinating and exciting ways. Around the O is about telling those stories,” Henley said. “The solid growth demonstrates that people want to hear and know about the accomplishments and successes that occur on campus.”
The website racked up some other impressive numbers. It published 121 stories that received more than 1,000 page views each, which also was almost 50 percent more than the previous year. And 28 stories had more than 3,000 page views each, more than double the number in 2015 and more than in 2015 and 2014 combined.
Greater engagement with social media is another area where Around the O showed significant growth. Facebook referrals to the website almost tripled last year, rising to 175,945 from 60,744 the year before.
As part of the Around the O news website design update, University Communications also revamped its weekly e-newsletters that it sends to campus and community partners. These regular emails provide a synopsis of the top Around the O news stories, curated for various audiences, and reach nearly 60,000 people.
On Tuesdays, the Workplace e-newsletter is sent to more than 7,000 UO faculty, staff and graduate employees, sharing information employees need to be successful on the job. Each Wednesday the university shares academic and research breakthroughs, student success stories, innovative teaching and campus events in the signature edition of the newsletter.
On Thursdays, students receive news and information in the Student Edition to help them thrive and enjoy their educational experience. Bi-weekly e-newsletters on Mondays also inform people about the happenings on the UO Portland campus.
“While this represents a solid start, this is just the beginning of a comprehensive effort to rethink the way we communicate and demonstrate the impact this university has on our region, the state of Oregon, the nation and the world,” Henley said. “We are going to continue to build on this foundation with more photography, video, social media-friendly content and other programming that demonstrates the positive influence of our of community of Ducks.”