Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Program
The Smithsonian Institute's Asian Pacific American program works to better reflect the Asian Pacific American (APA) experience through Smithsonian exhibitions, programs, and research. It strives to improve the public's appreciation of the crucial roles that Asian Pacific Americans have played in American history and, simultaneously, empowers APA communities in their sense of inclusion within our national culture.
Challenges:
- As with any non-profit organization, Smithsonian APA's online team was stretched thin by all the tasks assigned it.
- In order to expose target audiences to the educational/informational materials on their site, the organization desperately needed to increase the visibility of their brand, but was constrained from pursuing traditional marketing methods due to cost.
- The group's main digital property ( http://apa.si.edu/ ) displayed good search engine rankings, though there was still considerable room for improvement.
- The real search engine problem for the APA group was with its existing and emerging satellite websites.
- The APA group had existing Social Media platforms, but again were stretched too thin to both update these sites as needed and leverage them to recruit new fans.
Solutions:
- Engage Brands performed an extensive analysis of the group's various branded websites, producing a comprehensive report detailing current SMO/SEO standings along with steps our team could take to remedy critical deficiencies and drive significant traffic to the site.
- Because the Smithsonian Institute manages all of its IT in a centralized manner, the Engage Brands team made all necessary recommendations and provided the appropriate html code to the group. This allowed them to perform the actual physical work on the site. It was a great solution, and kept the client's IT team both happy and in the loop.
- The Engage Brands team carried out an extensive online branding initiative for the Smithsonian APA, including high level SEO, link building, and social media optimization.
Main Site:
http://apa.si.edu/
