University Communications launched World of Wonks, the latest phase of the American Wonks website on Oct. 1.
Like its predecessors, World of Wonks is devoted to spreading the word about the WONK campaign but with some new additions.
Visitors to americanwonks.com see a map underneath the title “World of Wonks” on the front page. They can then search for members of the AU community by interest, location, AU status (student, alum, staff member, etc.) or school at AU. Visitors can also create their own profile and put themselves on the map via Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn or a registration page.
When visitors click on an AU wonk, they will find a section for achievements, employment information, a short bio and the AU school to which they belong.
Some users include links to their websites or Twitter accounts within their profiles so that others with similar interests can get in touch with them.
“We wanted people to be able to tell their whole story and their AU story within their profile,” Web Communications Manager Jonathan Hussey said.
Joshua Kaplan, AU’s sustainability outreach associate, was one of the first alumni to join the site and has been satisfied with his experience so far.
“It seemed like a good opportunity,” he said, “I thought it was a neat concept, kind of like a LinkedIn feel.”
Kaplan said he thinks it will be a great networking tool for the AU community.
The new site received 18.6 percent of the visits the old site got in a year during its first 20 days, said Assistant Vice President of Marketing Deborah Wiltrout.
“It’s introducing the campaign and AU to new people,” Hussey said.
A team of six members of University Communications and one student worked last summer to come up with the concept of the new site. Designer for University Publications, Evangeline Montoya-A. Reed, designed the site itself.
“Everything related to the campaign was done in house,” said team member and Associate Director of Media Relations Maralee Csellar.
Other features of americanwonks.com include background information on the campaign and a challenge section through which visitors can take quizzes designed by wonks.
The World of Wonks application is the key feature of the new site, but some form of the website has been around since the start of the campaign, Csellar said.
The initial site was very minimalistic and mostly worked to define the term “wonk,” Csellar said.
Last spring, a second version of the American Wonks site went public and the creators introduced the challenge portion of the site.
“All of our advertising encourages others to test their knowledge against AU Wonks,” said Assistant Vice President of Marketing Deborah Wiltrout.
The ads allowed people to take the challenge quizzes within the ads, Hussey said.
“We had more interaction with those online ads than you see with other online advertising,” he said.
Even President Barack Obama’s former digital media strategist Rich Mintz took a challenge created by an Astrophysics Wonk and tweeted about how hard it was, Csellar said.
“I’m pitting myself against AU’s astrophysics wonk - not doing so hot #americanwonks,” Mintz tweeted July 15.
The newest version of the site became available to the public Oct. 1 in order to coincide with the rest of the new marketing materials for the campaign, Wiltrout said. These included the buying out of the Federal Triangle Metro Station’s advertising space and the premier of the WONK television spot.
“We wanted to bring our World of Wonks alive in a way,” Hussey said, “The ads drive people to this site where they can engage with the World of Wonks.”
While there has been an effort to market the site both externally and internally, there is still work to be done, Wiltrout said.
“We still have more work to do in terms of reaching out a little broader,” she said. “It will be a continuing effort to build this up.”
rzisser@theeagleonline.com
