American Academy of Audiolgy | SENIOR MANAGER OF DIGITAL COMMUNICATIONS STRATEGY

BACKGROUND

Start Date and End Date: June 2020 - May 2023

I began working at the American Academy of Audiology in June 2020. From June 2020 to February 2021, I worked as a communications manager. My duties included assisting in website updates, membership communications, and working as project lead on search engine optimization strategy. Then, in February 2021, I was moved into the senior manager of digital communications strategy role. My duties include, but are not limited to:

• Assist Vice President of Communications and Membership with the management of the Academy’s overall digital communication strategies including web-related updates, content performance analysis and recommended optimization plans, communication strategies, social media strategies, public awareness initiatives, and more

• Create, update, and manage content on the Academy’s websites through the appropriate content management system (CMS)

• Manage content archival process

• Assist in developing detailed digital communication and public relations strategies that build on strategies currently deployed by the Academy

• Manage the integration of technology systems that integrate with Academy websites

• Project lead for Find an Audiologist initiative - encouraging members to update their dashboard to increase visibility, providing search engine optimization for website pages and directory

• Coordinate with senior director of membership on university brand awareness initiative - AuD Link Program

• Coordinate with senior director of membership on renewal communications

• Completed as project lead on website migration and launch - merging three websites into one and one additional website to another platform while providing a holistic approach to content including search engine optimization. (February 2021 - June 2021)

• Developed 32+ page standard operating procedure document to hand-off to incoming website staff.

Notable Projects and Tasks

In June 2020, the Academy Enterprise embarked on a website refresh for the following entities: the American Academy of Audiology (Academy), the Student Academy of Audiology (SAA), the American Academy of Audiology Foundation (AAAF), and the American Board of Audiology (ABA).

Between June 2020 and February 2021, I aided the digital content manager on the Academy’s four website refreshes. This included working with a website development company to migrate the Academy, AAAF, ABA, and conference sites (all previously separate websites on Drupal) into one platform (WordPress), each area needing to all have separate branding, and also migrating the SAA website from Drupal to WordPress. In February 2021, I was placed as the interim project lead on the new website projects and continued to be project lead through the launch of the websites in June 2021.

Post-launch of Academy Enterprise websites, I lead or am currently managing the following projects and tasks. Please note all tasks and projects are not listed.

• Supervising and/or executing website updates for the Academy, AAAF, ABA, and SAA

• Coordinating projects for website content updates

• Auditing and optimizing content per website performance reports, staff needs, and SEO best practices

• Building website performance reports and parsing out details for in-depth performance reviews and over the top details for staff

• Communicating with website development partner for larger website functionality updates that internal staff can’t accomplish

• Developing project timelines for content updates and website functionality tasks to meet the Academy Enterprise’s needs

Find an Audiologist and Consumer Content Initiative

I started working on the Find an Audiologist initiative in June 2020. The goals for this included:

• Member engagement - updating member dashboard

• Consumer content migration - moving content from howsyourhearing.org to Academy website

• Search engine optimization progress for consumer content and directory

Member Engagement

To reach our member engagement goal, I outlined two series of emails. The first series highlighted the Directory and its benefits. The second series highlighted testimonials from authority figures in the profession, including Past-Academy President Catherine Palmer. As of February 2021, 1,447 members have updated their dashboards.

Consumer Content Migration

To aid in the Academy's search engine optimization efforts, I lead the consumer content migration over to the Academy website. This included documenting all content for review, assisting in the development of website pages, image selection, and updating pages as necessary.

Search engine optimization progress for consumer content and directory

In June 2020, I implemented a keyword research process for keywords related to the Directory, consumer content, and current websites. I am happy to say that the Academy has made significant progress. My work on the Find an Audiologist Initiative has seen significant updates to the Directory and positive growth for keywords, including page one Directory rankings for Find audiologist, Find an Audiologist Near Me, and more, as well as consumer content rankings for keywords, such as What is an Audiologist.

Accreditation Commission for Audiology Education (ACAE)

In March 2022, I and the Academy’s digital content and web specialist embarked on a website refresh for the Accreditation Commission for Audiology Education (ACAE).

During this refresh, I:

• Gained access to more than four accounts that were previously locked or missing credentials

• Decreased hosting costs by 76%

• Developed and managed a six-month website refresh timeline and tasks

• Developed stakeholder interviews and managed responses to incorporate into website plans

• Prepared for and led all meetings and recap emails

• Developed audience personas

• Prepared URL audit

• Developed sitemap and information structure of new website

• Oversaw website hosting migration and plug-in purchase

• Gathered all content, audited, and worked with key staff to review and update

• Developed wireframes and mockups using Figma

• Oversaw approved mockups applied to staging website

• Deployed content to staging site

• Executed and managed three rounds of quality and assurance testing

• Oversaw website launch and two post-launch quality assurance tests

• Set up Google Analytics, Google Search Console, and Ahrefs accounts

The website refresh was successful and was behind one-month due to external circumstances

Practice Guidelines and Standards Revamp

The Practice Guidelines and Standards area houses important documentation and resources that audiologists use to maintain their practice and interactions with consumers and patients. In 2022, I managed the revamp of the practice guidelines and standards area.

This included:

• Collaborating with Academy staff on functionality and design demands; provided insight into what was possible with Academy’s website

• Communicated with web vendor on requested functionality and design demands; continued managing communication with web vendor until project completion

• Developed initial main Practice Guidelines and Standards layout, individual clinical document page layout, and the category archive page layout to send to web vendor

• Gathered and organized more than 70 clinical documents for Academy staff to audit

• Developed Google document template for each clinical document that included areas for description, key points, publication date, document status, document type, document topic, and additional resources

• Assisted senior manager of guidelines and publications in updating the necessary content in Google document templates

• Deployed all clinical documents and guidelines to WordPress template

• Managed multiple rounds of quality and assurance testing with Academy staff and necessary committees

• Executed final publish (vendor pushed initial layout live), and then I made secondary layout changes, and completed redirects

The main practice guidelines and standards page provides users with the ability to review a full list of documents, see the most recently published, endorsed, and retired guidelines and documents, as well as filter and search through all documents by keyword, date, status, document type, and topic.

Each document page includes a description, key points, publication date, document status, document type, document topic, additional resources, information on how to get involved, and the three most recent guidelines that are related by topic.

AuD Link Program

The AuD Link subscription is a small revenue generator on the Academy website - Doctoral Program page and subsequent state pages. I was tasked with reaching out to the universities listed on that page in order to generate subscription renewals between 2020-2022.

HEARCareers Marketing

Between February 2021 to October 2021, I worked with the senior director of membership on the marketing efforts for the Academy's job center, HEARCareers. At the beginning of the year, I developed a 12-month outline that utilized:

• Targeted emails

• Social media posts

• Job posting promotions