How Imperial College London improved performance on every metric with Shorthand
Imperial College London boosted site traffic by 142% and dwell time by 50% through immersive feature stories and a beautifully digitised alumni magazine.
Goal
Share university stories through premium, immersive content.
Problem
CMS wasn't built for longform features or replicating the print magazine experience online.
Solution
Adopted Shorthand for digital publishing:
✓ Rich feature stories ✓ Immersive magazine ✓ Built for the whole team
Goal
Share university stories through premium, immersive content.
Problem
CMS wasn't built for longform features or replicating the print magazine experience online.
Solution
Adopted Shorthand for digital publishing:
✓ Rich feature stories ✓ Immersive magazine ✓ Built for the whole team
Andrew Youngson is the News and Campaigns Content Manager at Imperial College London, and led the editorial aspects of bringing Shorthand to the university.
Before adopting Shorthand, Imperial published feature stories through the bespoke CMS used for the university’s news site.
Our Shorthand stories are performing on every metric that we've been measuring.
As Andrew explains, the CMS worked well for news, but it wasn’t built for the kind of longform storytelling Imperial wanted to create.
“The stories inevitably looked the same as our shorter stories, and didn’t provide that immersive reading experience. By immersive, I mean not interrupted by all the skyscrapers, headers and banners that you would have on any of our other platforms. For our feature stories, we were looking for an uninterrupted experience.”
Andrew Youngson is the News and Campaigns Content Manager at Imperial College London, and led the editorial aspects of bringing Shorthand to the university.
Before adopting Shorthand, Imperial published feature stories through the bespoke CMS used for the university’s news site.
As Andrew explains, the CMS worked well for news, but it wasn’t built for the kind of longform storytelling Imperial wanted to create.
“The stories inevitably looked the same as our shorter stories, and didn’t provide that immersive reading experience. By immersive, I mean not interrupted by all the skyscrapers, headers and banners that you would have on any of our other platforms. For our feature stories, we were looking for an uninterrupted experience.”
Why Imperial College London chose Shorthand
After trialling several options, Andrew and the team chose Shorthand, a platform he’d been following for years. Shorthand was already known for work with customers such as the BBC and Sky News, and Andrew was interested in how the platform could support the university’s own storytelling.
'Mission to the Sun' showcases Imperial-built equipment used in the European Space Agency's Solar Orbiter mission.
'Mission to the Sun' showcases Imperial-built equipment used in the European Space Agency's Solar Orbiter mission.
“We ended up choosing Shorthand for a few reasons. I subscribed to the Shorthand newsletter and knew that the platform could be used to make some amazing immersive stories.”
“Then there was the platform’s ease of use. This was critical for us, given how many different people produce stories across multiple teams.
“Our IT team was also pleased that we could easily host and publish stories from our own servers. It’s also important for us to work with a company with longevity, and Shorthand just seems to be on a real upward trajectory.
“Finally, there was the support that the Shorthand team gave us through the procurement process. This was incredibly important to getting the project over the line, and gave us confidence in the platform.”
Andrew was delighted to get Shorthand up and running as a storytelling platform. “It was absolutely brilliant to be involved in something from the ground up, and that we were determined to do right.”
And Imperial’s determination paid off — storytelling with Shorthand has delivered impressive results.
Better performance on every metric
Andrew says the team saw a “significant bump in average time on page” when compared with stories published on Imperial’s news site. Over an eight-month period, “the average read time on Shorthand stories was 3:41, as compared to 2:38 for stories on our news site,” he says.
“It’s over one minute longer that we’re getting on average for time on page. So that’s fantastic.”
“We're seeing really good engagement across the board.
Our IT team was pleased that we could easily host and publish stories from our own servers.
“Our Shorthand stories are performing on every metric that we've been measuring ourselves on, such as scroll depth, clicks on page, and click-throughs on social media. The targets and stretch targets have been met on all our content.”
Andrew recommends paying close attention to analytics, as this is immensely helpful when reporting to budget owners and other decision-makers. “It’s important to be armed with the facts to justify the investment we’re making in this content.”
Better performance on every metric
Andrew says the team saw a “significant bump in average time on page” when compared with stories published on Imperial’s news site. Over an eight-month period, “the average read time on Shorthand stories was 3:41, as compared to 2:38 for stories on our news site,” he says.
“It’s over one minute longer that we’re getting on average for time on page. So that’s fantastic.”
“We're seeing really good engagement across the board.
Our Shorthand stories are performing on every metric that we've been measuring ourselves on, such as scroll depth, clicks on page, and click-throughs on social media.
“The targets and stretch targets have been met on all our content.”
Andrew recommends paying close attention to analytics, as this is immensely helpful when reporting to budget owners and other decision-makers. “It’s important to be armed with the facts to justify the investment we’re making in this content.”
Support through the onboarding process
The journey to storytelling success started early. Support through what could have been a complex onboarding process made things “really, really easy”.
“We had a lot of specific requirements, but the team at Shorthand bent over backwards for us so many times,” says Andrew.
The procurement process at Imperial involved many stakeholders. “The Shorthand team knew exactly how to keep the process moving forward. It absolutely made the difference for us. We were appreciative of the flexibility and also the structure that they offered in the process of onboarding.”
This support, together with training from Shorthand’s team, cut confusion and empowered members of Andrew’s team to pick up the tool easily.
Training that’s “gold dust”
“The fact that Shorthand offers regular training sessions is absolute gold dust to somebody in my position,” he says.
“The training is great. Nobody's ever come to me confused.
“People can immediately start learning about the platform, without having to wait for us to offer our own internal training. It means people can maintain that enthusiasm they have for telling great stories.”
A flexible digital storytelling platform
A key benefit of Shorthand, Andrew says, is that it allows anyone on the team to create strong content without being a designer or developer. “There's a really strong structure in terms of the content blocks that you can choose from. These really strong, tried-and-tested building blocks allow anybody to come in from scratch and tell great stories. The real creativity with our digital storytelling comes out of that foundation.”
The fact that Shorthand offers regular training sessions is absolute gold dust.
Andrew uses the example of Shorthand’s Reveal section. “It’s a really simple and easy-to-use feature, but it has so many different applications. Our team is really able to bring their creativity to Shorthand and flourish.”
This has also made it easier for Andrew to onboard new people to Shorthand. “There's a confidence there in the platform that even brand new people immediately have. And that makes my job so much easier.”
Support through the onboarding process
The journey to storytelling success started early. Support through what could have been a complex onboarding process made things “really, really easy”.
“We had a lot of specific requirements, but the team at Shorthand bent over backwards for us so many times,” says Andrew.
The procurement process at Imperial involved many stakeholders. “The Shorthand team knew exactly how to keep the process moving forward. It absolutely made the difference for us. We were appreciative of the flexibility and also the structure that they offered in the process of onboarding.”
This support, together with training from Shorthand’s team, cut confusion and empowered members of Andrew’s team to pick up the tool easily.
Training that’s “gold dust”
“The fact that Shorthand offers regular training sessions is absolute gold dust to somebody in my position,” he says.
“The training is great. Nobody's ever come to me confused.
People can immediately start learning about the platform, without having to wait for us to offer our own internal training. It means people can maintain that enthusiasm they have for telling great stories.
A flexible digital storytelling platform
A key benefit of Shorthand, Andrew says, is that it allows anyone on the team to create strong content without being a designer or developer. “There's a really strong structure in terms of the content blocks that you can choose from. These really strong, tried-and-tested building blocks allow anybody to come in from scratch and tell great stories. The real creativity with our digital storytelling comes out of that foundation.”
Andrew uses the example of Shorthand’s Reveal section. “It’s a really simple and easy-to-use feature, but it has so many different applications. Our team is really able to bring their creativity to Shorthand and flourish.”
This has also made it easier for Andrew to onboard new people to Shorthand. “There's a confidence there in the platform that even brand new people immediately have. And that makes my job so much easier.”
A better digital magazine built with Shorthand
While Andrew was looking for a better reading experience for feature stories, the design team were looking for a better way to publish their biannual magazine.
“The magazine goes out to a huge distribution list of our alumni,” Andrew explains. “It’s a major piece of work for the College, with a huge investment in resources. The work we publish in that magazine is top-level storytelling with bespoke photography and illustrations.”
However, the team producing the magazine had one major problem. “It was almost entirely in print. While our audience loves the print experience, there were no great ways to replicate this experience on our existing channels.”
As Andrew explains, the content was too visually rich to simply publish on Imperial’s news site or main website. And publishing the content with a PDF magazine reader “wasn’t the same at all. It wasn’t even a scratch on the proper reading experience.
“We knew we needed to find a better way to digitise this content and make an enjoyable, engaging experience. Shorthand was the perfect tool.”
Expanding features and more stories to tell
Andrew says one of the secrets to the success of Imperial College London’s Shorthand stories is the strong process the team has in place. “We developed a content strategy, a mission statement, and a process for how stories are developed. And that continues right through from publishing to analytics and reporting.
People can immediately start learning about the platform, without having to wait for us to offer our own internal training.
“Shorthand is an easy platform to work with — and even quickly produced stories look great. But that doesn't mean you should take shortcuts.
The best stories on Shorthand are always the ones you've spent time loving and crafting.”
Andrew still feels there is more to achieve. “There’s still so much great work to do with Shorthand. There are new features coming out that we’re excited to use, and the team is learning all the time. That’s the great thing about digital storytelling — there’s always more exciting ideas to explore.”
However, the team producing the magazine had one major problem. “It was almost entirely in print. While our audience loves the print experience, there were no great ways to replicate this experience on our existing channels.”
As Andrew explains, the content was too visually rich to simply publish on Imperial’s news site or main website. And publishing the content with a PDF magazine reader “wasn’t the same at all. It wasn’t even a scratch on the proper reading experience.
“We knew we needed to find a better way to digitise this content and make an enjoyable, engaging experience. Shorthand was the perfect tool.”
Expanding features and more stories to tell
Andrew says one of the secrets to the success of Imperial College London’s Shorthand stories is the strong process the team has in place. “We developed a content strategy, a mission statement, and a process for how stories are developed. And that continues right through from publishing to analytics and reporting.
“Shorthand is an easy platform to work with — and even quickly produced stories look great. But that doesn't mean you should take shortcuts. ”
The best stories on Shorthand are always the ones you've spent time loving and crafting.
Andrew still feels there is more to achieve. “There’s still so much great work to do with Shorthand. There are new features coming out that we’re excited to use, and the team is learning all the time. That’s the great thing about digital storytelling — there’s always more exciting ideas to explore.”
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