Insights on Admissions Marketing

More information and answers on blogging.

Today, I had the pleasure of co-presenting in a webinar with our friends from OmniUpdate.  We shared information on starting and managing a successful campus blogging program, as well as a solution OmniUpdate provides for blog management.  For those that are interested, I will make sure to share a link to the recording of the webinar when it is available.  (or, you can check the James Tower web site for more information.)

There were a number of questions that were asked during the presentation that we just couldn't get to in the time alloted.  As a result, I thought I would share some thoughts here. 
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Q: What will a high school student view as more legitimate - a blog on a college-sponsored site, or something on a public site, like typepad or WordPress?

A:  As I advise clients, the decision of what platform to use is more about what your needs are , what your personal preferences are and how much you desire to spend.  Beyond that, the platform is not what gives your blogging program legitimacy in the eyes of users.  Legitimacy comes from ensuring, as much as possible, an experience that is first person and genuinely from a student/faculty/admissions perspective.  Be honest with your audience and don't just regurgitate what they can find on other areas of your web site or in your publications.
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Q: I agree that 'access' is of interest to everyone (e.g. Ss access prospective Ts). Access to what though...

A:  Access to a viewpoint that isn't the perfect, polished and refined view that is shared in other communications.  This doesn't mean a negative counterpoint to what your standard marketing information is.  Rather, it is access to a different perspective on the campus and student experience from those that are living it or contributing to it.
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Q: Also will speak beyond "advocate" - purpose for blogs? As w. "Milestone" blogs (as w/ new building construction) - then becomes archive of a process / successful project from specialist pov.

A:   This can be a very effective means/tool  for  teams to  maintain a archive of process.  In fact, we have done and continue to do take this approach with some client projects.  We unfortunately, did not have the time to address this application of blogging...and the audience may not have been the correct one for this message.
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Q: What forms of modest compensation have been successful in attracting individuals to your blogging teams?

A:  There are as many different approaches to this as there are universities and colleges.  Some will provide a digital camera or other "gift" as compensation.  (a digital camera is a good approach, because it can also allow your bloggers to post pictures to their posts.)  Other institutions have taken a "pay per post" approach or included bloggers as work study type positions.  Another approach I have liked is the awarding of gift cards, either as payment or as part of an incentive plan to recognize active involvement and great response to a blog.
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Q: Do you have examples of successful graduate admission blogs?

A:  I honestly don't have a lot of examples to recommend in this regard, but one you may want to check out is "Life in the Lab" from the University of Nebraska Medical Center.  It has a number of contributors on a rolling basis.
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Q: How do you handle bloggers who aren't around for a long time, for example in an extended learning/off campus setting? Is there a way to deal with that turnover?

A:  Your best way is to simply get started.  It will be more work for you to be recruiting on a regular basis, but your audience will understand that these individuals are only around for a short time, because that is the experience they will have as students of your institution as well.

I hope you find these answers to be helpful to you as you consider your own blogging programs.  Have a great day!

Questions during the presentation this afternoon

During today's presentation, a question was raised regarding "How do you get started?"

I certainly understand and so I wanted to offer a few suggestions.  Relative to blogs, please make sure to check out my full presentation regarding starting a blogging program, which you can download here.

In addition, I will try and cover other areas in more depth later, but here is some "low hanging fruit".

From the presentation:

"Use a RSS Reader-with so much information this tool will allow you to keep up with the flow as well as check out your competition."

RSS feeds can be a powerful tool for processing information from a multitude of locations for quick and easy access.  The easiest way to begin using RSS is via your own browser.  If you are using Internet Explorer 7.0, anytime the page you are on has an RSS feed, the RSS icon in your menu bar will light up.

See this example from the Seattle University Home Page

From there, you can click on the icon which will open the RSS feed window.  From there, you can click on Subscribe to this feed.

Once you have subscribed to a feed, it is accessible under the same location as your "Favorites" area for your favorite web sites.
Click here to view.

This is one of just many, many ways to access RSS feeds.  My personal favorite is by setting up your own i-Google page.  To set up yours, just click on the iGoogle link in the upper right hand corner of www.google.com
See the Google Home Page

More on this and other topics later.  Goodnight! 

Latest bit of blogging wisdom

Here is a small piece of wisdom in maintaining an informational blog....when you go on vacation, let everyone know so they don't think you just aren't posting new entries!  :-)

Yes, I was on vacation last week.  Not that anyone should care, but it is rather rude of me not to let you all know.

While I am working on a few new entries, I am also getting caught up on a number of items.  So, in the meantime, I wanted to make you aware that Shelly and the crew at eduWEB have been kind enough to post many of the presentations from the recent conference for download.

While I had previously posted my powerpoint, I also wanted to share the audio portion of the presentation.  The .wav file posted on eduWEB was a little large, so I have done a quick re-compression to MPEG-4 for those that are interested and got it down to 17MB.

You can listen to the audio version here.....or watch along with the Powerpoint presentation.

(I know...still big...but it is an hour long presentation.)

Please use Quicktime to listen to this version.

More to come soon.  Thank you for your patience.

It's a Blog Eat Blog World

Good morning!

Since I had a number of individuals ask me for my Powerpoint from the presentation yesterday, I thought the best option would be to share it with you VIA my blog.  That way all interested individuals, whether you were able to attend or not, would have access to the information.

You can obtain a .zip file of the Powerpoint (almost 3MB) by clicking on the link below.
Download blog_eat_blog2007eduweb.zip

Everyone that shared their business card with me will be sent an email to let them know the file is available.  If you are not one of these individuals and just would like the information, please leave your name and institution in the comment box, if you don't mind.  I would just like to know who you are if possible.

Enjoy the final day of eduWEB!

The power of less than 1%......

Earlier today, I asked:

"If you have an example of a PROSPECTIVE student that misbehaved in an outlandish fashion via your website to the point that you considered shutting a solution down, I would be very interested in hearing your story."

I don't have a story, but I have some perspective.

In a May 15, 2007 story in the Chicago Daily Herald, Ben Jones of MIT is quoted as follows:

"Allowing outside comments was a priority at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology because it allows prospective students to ask questions anonymously they might not otherwise bring up, said Ben Jones, communications director for MIT's admissions' office.

He estimates 50 inappropriate comments have been deleted from more than 28,000 postings."

If I am doing my math correctly that means out of every post ever placed on the MIT blogs, only .0017, or approximately .17% of posts where deemed inappropriate by MIT personnel.

Now maybe MIT has a higher threshold for what they deem as appropriate, compared to your institution.  However, I find it interesting...if that percentage were to hold true at other institutions, would those schools make a marketing/recruitment decision based on the actions of fewer than 1% of all prospects?

Blogging for Higher Education

This week I am also speaking at the Wisconsin ACAC event in Green Bay.  I am, in fact, currently waiting for my flight out.  I will let you know if any interesting dialog comes of the presentation, which as it so happens is about blogging and how to make it work on your campus.

If you happen to be at the Wisconsin ACAC on Friday, the presentation is around 10am.

As a teaser, I leave you with this thought.  I often hear from an institution that they don't have time or resources for blogging.  This always perplexes me.  Since a very effective blogging program can be implemented for very little to no money whatsoever, the only impediment for most is the time they would have to spend, or ask others to spend in maintaining the blog.

If a student comes to campus for a visit and everyone is busy, doesn't someone make the time to take them on a tour?  Why isn't this the same mentality we bring to more effective engagement with prospects on the web; where we can reach more people even earlier in their decision process?

Writing for the web....it isn't just for marketers any more...

(from Merriam-Webster)
Coherence:  1 : the quality or state of cohering: as a : systematic or logical connection or consistency

So, what does coherence have to do with writing for the web?  Everything!  Achieving coherence when writing for the web is all about two things:  content and context.  Content is supremely important, in that if you don't have anything worthwhile to say, you probably shouldn't bother or expect others to care.  However, determining if something is worthwhile is difficult without context.  In the right context, almost anything can be viewed as worthwhile.

For example, an online recap of a day on campus is great if a current student does it, but may not be if the college president does.  Similarly, your college president may blog regarding legislative issue that affect educational quality, while you probably don't want your baseball coach doing that as well.

This is what makes writing for the web and especially blogging, so difficult for so many institutions.  There is a simultaneous fear of saying the wrong thing or saying nothing at all.  So, many institutions make the leap, but don't really consider what they are trying to say (content) or even who they are trying to communicate with (context).  They have students maintain blogs, but either confine their activities or select individuals that do not have adequate time or may have nothing to say.

This summer, I will be speaking at a number of national and regional conferences on the topic of blogs  (I will post a full schedule at a later date, which will include the James Tower "Technology in Student Recruitment" conference to be held in Nashville.)  I plan on sharing insight into how to successfully integrate blogging into a communications strategy and the things to be aware of as you begin to maintain your own blog.

If you have any questions, or topics you think would be especially helpful on this issue, please don't hesitate to ask.

And, for those of you looking for a new, free tool for creating online slide shows, check out www.slide.com.  In addition to making a slide show for your campus or for personal use, there are other neat features you can check out.
Ciao'