Posts filed under 'YouTube'
In his presentation at the 2008 AARAO Conference earlier this month, Academica Group’s Ken Steele pointed out the benefits of utilizing social media in student recruitment. Web 2.0 is not about technology, but its use to fulfill people’s desire to connect and be heard. At the bare minimum, PSE institutions should monitor what’s being said in social networks, where students, applicants and alumni are driving the conversation. Ken recommends schools consider using Facebook, blogs, YouTube, podcasts and banner ads. Download Ken’s Slides
Melissa Cheater
eStrategy Consultant, Education Marketing
Academica Group Inc.
Full Cycle Marketing for Higher Education™
131 Wharncliffe Road South, Second Floor, London, Ontario
tel 519.433.8302 ext. 226 1.866.922.8636
fax 519.433.8062 melissa@academicagroup.com
email | web | blog | facebook | twitter | del.icio.us | skype: MelissaAcademica
Check out our new application for the Facebook platform, “SkoolPool,” that helps potential students track their consideration set and share it with their friends. www.skoolpool.com
June 20th, 2008
George Bernard Shaw once said, “The problem with communication is the illusion that it has been accomplished.” Such is the case for traditional forms of advertising when it comes to prospecting a student population. High school students just aren’t getting the message because they are becoming unplugged from TV, radio, print, and even email. They TiVo or DVR past commercials, and get their news, sometimes inaccurately, through online social communities like MySpace and Facebook. Information, both good and bad, spreads like wildfire via blogs, RSS feeds, chat and private email sent through social networks.
What’s a college to do? Embrace the change!
Your website is still your most valuable marketing asset. And, when used in combination with some truly amazing Web 2.0 technologies, one of the most powerful as well. Consider for example:
1. RSS feeds are an extremely effective and easy-to-add form of communication. Feeds can be directed by students to their preferred medium, such as a cell phone (through text messaging) or to a Facebook account; these can even be used to communicate urgent messages in a crisis situation. I’ll expand further on the value of this feature later.
2. It’s never been cheaper and easier to record and post video to a college website. Rich media is engaging, commonly shared, and expected by your audience.
3. Online chat gives your staff the unique opportunity to speak one-on-one with a student, perhaps providing that nugget of information that might just be the key to influencing his or her enrollment decision.
A content-rich and well-managed higher education website will contain some, if not all, of these features. If your website has not progressed that far yet, you’re not alone–most sites aren’t there yet either. But, keep moving forward. Remember the old saying, “A journey of a thousand miles begins with the first step.” Start a pilot today of just one new Web 2.0 technology!
Lance Merker
Guest Blogger, May 2008
CEO
OmniUpdate, Inc.
lance@omniupdate.com
May 20th, 2008
In my last post, I left with the idea that stimulating regular visits to your blog can be about “wanting more.” The cliffhanger approach to blog posting is certainly one method that works. The fact that you are reading is proof itself. But there’s more. And, last time I promised you three more tips to keep your audience coming back. So, here they are…
Tip #1
Give them what they want!
If your institution is blogging as a means of communicating with prospective students, current students, and others of the “millennial generation,” don’t force institutional messaging into blogs. Create an environment where students themselves can participate (in a controlled manner) in the blog posting. Believe me, your student bloggers will know what topics are most interesting to their peers. Now this might seem very obvious, but it’s not as simple as it sounds. The software and contractual controls you put in place should ensure that you can monitor and veto blog posts before they are live on the web (as marcom professionals it’s your responsibility to the institution). But, don’t get trigger happy with the veto button. Work with your student bloggers to ensure they know where you must draw the line, yet let them be creative with the subject matter to ensure it’s
relevant and interesting to the audience you’re trying to reach.
Tip #2
Embed Videos
The popularity of plopping YouTube videos right into blog posts should come as no surprise. Blogging is very much a Web 2.0 phenomenon and mixed media is a big part of the equation. Offer your bloggers a way to add videos — and if YouTube is just not acceptable (I’ll talk more about that later), then offer ways to convert and upload video files directly to your server. Don’t be afraid of video, embrace it.
Tip #3
Use the 1 in 5 Rule
For every five bloggers you recruit, you’ll only get one that keeps it going. Believe it or not, for all the concerns your administration might have about “appropriate” content issues, the biggest problem you’ll have is a lack of content. Most of your bloggers will disappear on you. And, worst of all, you won’t know which ones until it’s too late. The most enthusiastic, the best writers, or the ones you’re certain will be great are the ones you’ll probably lose first. The solution is to get lots of bloggers. If you figure you’ll have one in five who make it, you won’t be disappointed later.
Ok, let me get off my blogging horse, and get to one of the biggest issues of online communications!
Ah, but for that, you’ll need to wait until next time…
Lance Merker
Guest Blogger, May 2008
CEO
OmniUpdate, Inc.
lance@omniupdate.com
May 7th, 2008
If your school is suffering from image problems or you know that people have a hard time finding your campus you may have tried just about everything to get people to notice. TV spots. Print ads. Mailings. Hip interactive web sites. You may have even gotten desperate enough to make some really bad videos (
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pVENWl8uBeg). Let’s face it: brand recognition is a tough thing to buy. But if you’ve been through the ringer trying to get prospects to notice you don’t despair…try flogos!
What’s a “flogo?” A flying logo! (
http://www.flogos.net/) Inventors and special effects gurus Francisco Guerra and Brian Glover have discovered a way to make simple shapes out of a mixture of soap and helium and can send them flying just about anywhere you want. They last up to an hour and can be sent flying into the air from just about any location as long as its a location that can house their super-secret “flogo generator.” And considering that these babies can fly as high as 20,000 feet, you can only imagine the impact that they’d have at your next open house, sporting event, or homecoming day!
What kinds of flogos can they make? They claim to be able to make just about any shape, but the examples (
http://www.flogos.net/downloads.html) they provide on their site seem to indicate that this is a keep of “keep it simple, stupid.” But even if you can’t get your complicated heraldic school crest “flogoed,” think about the possibilities for getting your initials in the sky, the shape of your mascot, or even a simplified version of your President’s head (provided that he or she has a distinctive enough shape).
At this point flogo’s seem like they’re in the “beta” stage, and pricing isn’t available. Even if there are a few bugs to be worked out, I’m sure that we’re all going to see flogos flying over our heads in the pretty near future.
April 17th, 2008
For the past few months I have been following the exploits over at Juicy Campus and more recently some of the reaction to it. If you haven’t read Juicy Campus, it is a little bit like Twitter for the lascivious college set (that actually sounds a little more thrilling than it actually is). I am not quite sure what to make of JC as we all move closer and closer to bringing more open web apps into our dot edu spaces: see the new University of Maryland homepage, which grants a chunk of real estate to You Tube, iTunes, etc. I think that is a good thing for sure, but where does the line exist between those community apps and Juicy Campus or Rate My Professors? I suspect we mostly have enough common sense to draw that line on our own.
There was quite a bit of talk over controlling message in dot edu spaces at last summer’s conference. The overwhelming theme at the conference was to open up dot edu to these more open web apps, but I fear that web-based petrie dishes like Juicy Campus will further crystallize that fear we see in the eyes of communications directors and admissions officers when we talk about opening our web presence.
So, yikes. What do you all think?
Ted Simpson
March Guest Blogger
Director, Technologist, Dragoman & Project Manager
Maryland Institute College of Art
tsimpson@mica.edu
March 6th, 2008
