However, in the meantime, we realized that DoStuff had to do some pretty important stuff that came up during the episode. With this in mind, we've started a tradition known as "Friday Fundays." Every Friday, our intrepid dev team will devote the entire day to making improvements on the product. And while "Friday Fundays" might be a title with only 50% accuracy (hint: they do take place on Fridays), they've already been productive. Just check out our section on...
...Major Product Updates
More ad impressions!
Featured event ads now appear on user pages. All of those users going to popular pages like your Top Picks, or your giveaways page, or even checking in on a Tastemaker? Yep, those are all featured event ad impressions now. Note that in the short term these ads on your user pages won't be sticky in the way that featured event ads are sticky on your daily listings pages.
Pages and Users now searchable.
The "More" tab in your site's search results just added a lot...well, more. You can use your site's search bar to find all created pages, as well as any users that are designated as Tastemakers or "Promo Users" (aka Lists) in admin. Both will appear under the "More" tab, as well as within the rest of the results if you don't select a specific tab. Check it out-
SEO, yo.
SEO, yo.
We've made a bunch of changes that will help your site's pages appear higher in Google results. We created sitemaps for each metro, matched HTML title tags to page titles, wrote clear meta descriptions for your pages, and blah blah blah jargon. Basically, Google (and other search engines) should have a way easier time finding relevant pages on your sites and displaying relevant information to people searching.
Other Product Updates
An assortment of smaller (but still important!) product updates, bug fixes, and tweaks:
- Better shortcut navigation/content. When selecting a category from the shortcut dropdown on your site's homepage, that particular shortcut will stay selected even if you change which day/week/etc. you're viewing. Also, we've rejiggered how content is populated in these views so that if you're viewing a week of music-only events in Chicago, the site will display the 3 most popular music-only events for each day in that week. Same goes for any other category of events.
- Top Searches replaced with Featured Stuff. Nobody really interacted or clicked on the top searches in your site's footer. It's been replaced with your Featured Stuff links to hopefully improve site engagement.
- Front-end page creation permissions changed. So that you can have the utmost control of your site's content, we've restricted the ability to create pages on the front end to users with "manager" or "superadmin" permissions.
- Privacy policy change. To better understand our audience and position your sites more knowledgeably for advertisers, we're taking steps to enable demographic data in your Google Analytics accounts. To do this, we needed to update each metros' privacy policy to let users know we collect anonymous, non-personally identifiable demographic data.
- Facebook remarketing. We're just starting on a program that will allow you to specifically target Facebook ads to users that have already been to sites in the DoStuff network. This required adding another admin to each metros' Facebook page. So if you see a faceless Jordan Ripley appear, don't panic. Trust us, it's better than seeing Jordan's actual face attached to your account twice.
- Some bugs we fixed:
- There was an issue causing each page on metro sites to register 2 pageviews when users first entered on a site. This bug affected data from April 22-June 9. During this time, site pageviews in Google Analytics will be 1.5 to 2 times more than the actual pageviews. Things like bounce rate that are based on pageviews will also be affected, but visits/unique visitors remain unaffected.
- A recent bug that prevented front-end editing of events from saving for some users is now fixed!
- Search results on mobile weren't clickable. They are now!
Radmin
We promise, it's coming! The pending queues, approved event listings, artist and event scrapers, and band listings are in the polishing stages now. A sampling of metros got to play around in radmin during demo sessions, so stay tuned for the end of the episode and your intro to radness. Next up to unveil is a revamped ad creation and reporting system.
- Network Programs: The NBD team had a communications specialist come lead a sales workshop to hone in on our message on the brand and metro sales sides. And unless you've had your head buried in the ground, you've probably caught on that the Future Folk tour has officially been announced. The 10 city tour-de-aliens has kicked off with a must-see trailer. #FutureFolkTour #Hondo
- Metro Updates: Do210 (San Antonio, for those not keeping up on their area code studies) is joining us in Austin next week for bootcamp! We're all the excited to have our slightly Southern brethren join us and learn what the business is all about. On other fronts, the ball is moving forward with Las Vegas, Vancouver, Montreal, Louisville, Atlanta and Portland.
- Brand Developments: Next week, NBD will be presenting to the full agency team responsible for all Jim Beam brands. Beyond that, conversations continue to push forward with Spotify, Amex, Citi, and Porter Novelli (the PR reps for Durex, Timberland, and a bunch of other brands).
Network Updates
World Cup
You guys went nuts creating editorial for the World Cup, with every single U.S. metro putting something together. A few examples and their relative page popularity since the World Cup began:
- DoNYC: 2nd most popular page on site
- Do214: 3rd most popular page on site
- Do512: 3rd most popular page on site
- DoLA: 5th most popular page on site
Spring Awakening Success
Do312 wrapped up their Spring Awakening giveaway for Bud Light Platinum, and the winners couldn't be happier. One of the winners even went so far as to send in a picture of her braiding Steve Aoki's hair (below) and commenting:
I never win anything. Every contest, every raffle, EVERY OPPORTUNITY I get to possibly win something, I never do. You know what though? That's totally fine with me because I won the best weekend I could have ever asked for through DO312!
Props to Do312 for turning their fans into celebrity stylists and earning a nice chunk of sponsorship cash in the process.
Sound and Cinema Kicks Off
Do512's incredibly popular series of outdoor screenings premieres this week. Give the snazzy trailer below a view to see what Sound and Cinema is all about:
If you've got movie buff friends over in Austin for the summer, have them check out the lineup and pack a picnic for a movie under the stars.
Finally, winner of this update's "Scariest Event" competition is........
Do314 with this event! We're excited to see your "10 Bargains To Alter Your Body" sponsored list.
DoStuff Hire Needed
We're on the hunt for a Teacher, Talker, Trainer. Know of someone that would be good/lives in Austin/enjoys alliteration? Send them the job description, and have them email Kristin.
That's all for the weekly update! Have something you'd like to see in the update? Have something you really hate seeing in the update? Want us to stop sending out updates and just email you pictures of us wearing hyper-realistic baby masks? Whatever it is, let us know.
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