2010 TABS Social Media Institute: Admissions

transcript

2010 TABS Social Media Institute

Photo credit: donnaidh_sidhehttp://www.flickr.com/photos/donnaidh_sidhe/1032985990/

New Rules of PR & MarketingDavid Meerman Scott

I credit David Meerman Scott’s, “New Rules of PR & Marketing” with shifting the way I think about communicating online.

The way we reach our constituents is changing from outbound communications to an inbound tract. With that comes a new level of honesty about our brands and our message. All of our online footprints are being created by the people around us- our job is to believe in our products and encourage the conversation.

Photo Credit: Thomas Hawk

Outbound marketing

“Outbound marketing is the traditional form of marketing where a company

initiates the conversation and sends its message out to an audience. ”

Credit: Wordstreamhttp://www.wordstream.com/outbound-marketing

So what does he mean by outbound marketing

“Inbound marketing is a marketing strategy that focuses on getting found by customers. This

sense is related to relationship marketing and Seth Godin's idea of permission marketing. David Meerman Scott recommends[3] that marketers "earn their way in" (via publishing

helpful information on a blog etc.)...”

Credit: Wikipediahttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inbound_marketing

“...create content that people actually want to see.”

For me it boils down to this... It got me to rethink the way I craft content.

“Show rather than tell”

“So how does this relate to social media?”

Hold onto this question. We’ll get to it soon, but lets step back for a second.

What is social media? Social media are primarily Internet- and mobile-based tools for sharing and discussing information among human beings.[1] The term most often refers to activities that integrate technology, telecommunications and social interaction, and the construction of words, pictures, videos and audio. [2]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_media

So lets take a step back and define social media.

A real conversation...

These tools allow for a real conversation between publisher & fans/friends.

...facilitated by multiple platforms

April 2009 May 2010 *July 2010

Source: Facebook http://www.facebook.com/press/info.php?timeline

Facebook saw over 300 million new accounts added in a little over a year.

April 2009 April 2010 June 2010

Source: eMarketer: http://www.emarketer.com/Article.aspx?R=1007271Business Insider: http://www.businessinsider.com/twitter-stats-2010-4#twitter-now-has-106-million-users-1

Twitter grew from 12 million in April 2009 to just shy of 106 million in April 2010 to a reported 190 million in June.

Racing to 2000 fans!Tweeting to1000 followers!

Social media participation is growing. Schools are actively pushing to build their networks.

Connect with our school!

We’ve created our channels and have begun to promote them - perhaps via email; on our sites.

All good steps in an effort to boost our networks and connect with a broad range of people who matter to our schools. How many of us feature “follow us; become a fan, connect; etc” twitter & facebook buttons on our sites or in our email signatures?

What do you do when you get there?

Big question is how do you engage your network as it grows?

Create & share compelling content.

You do this by creating & sharing compelling content that speaks to these fundamental needs.

Your school enjoys a fan base that, for lack of a better word, “consume” your narrative stream or long story. The object is to begin bringing applying families into this stream. This requires that you give fans and families substance- not necessarily formality, but substance- events, stories, narratives, happenings and achievement on campus. Show the ways students are growing and learning- real and substantive. Engage your fans by sharing the school experience.

Photo credit: shanebeehttp://www.flickr.com/photos/shanesworld/21584252/

How do we do this? I advocate that schools commit to a content library. One that isn’t as concerned about polish, but a library that catalogs a form of content that offers a birds eye view of what it’s like to “experience” your community.

Something that you as an admission office can add to & draw from at key points in the admission process to deepen your connection with prospective families. It can come in a variety of forms- blogs written by students, livestreaming events, student produced shows, videos filmed by kids, or blogs maintained by faculty.

Which methods you use most is determined by which media you can produce most consistently with reasonable effort and quantity.

Show rather than tell.

I like to live by these simple words whenever we create content - show rather than tell.

Photo credit: Northfield Mount Hermon Schoolhttp://www.flickr.com/photos/nmhphotos/4008777735/in/set-72157622454626351/

If you’re talking about your great art program. Show students drawing by the creek. Highlight their work on a regular basis.

Photo credit: Vermont Academyhttp://www.flickr.com/photos/31278469@N04/3919640397

If you’re excited about your school’s fall mountain day. Show students climbing to top. Interview them about the challenges of the climb and how the event impacts the school community. Let them connect the dots and their share it with your online communities.

We all talk about school spirit. Let your students capture it via short videos.

“Your fans love nothing more than to see what’s

happening & feel connected to your school.”

Your fans- students, parents, alums- love nothing more than to see & hear what their kids & their friends are doing.

It all comes back to building a library. Check out the content when you need it. Add to it throughout the year; keep it current. Use it to show what’s happening on your campus.

Photo credit: tray http://www.flickr.com/photos/tapps/3989627494

You don’t have to be a tech guru to produce content (from left to right- edSocialMedia’s Steve Ritchie & Ernest Koe; Hiram Cuevas, St. Christopher's School; Travis Warren, WhippleHill Communications).

Point is that I suspect that most everyone sitting in the room use social media in some form or fashion to journal daily life and stay connected with family, friends & organizations.

It could come in the form of twitter...

...or photo sharing sites like flickr...

or the most obvious of all... facebook...

When you think about it from an institutional perspective, you likely already have a wealth of content capturing campus experiences. It’s a question of aggregating it and checking out the content from your ‘library’ when you need it.

"When we blog, we tend to talk like humans. When we write home page

copy, we write like marketing brochures"

-Dharmesh Shah, Hubspot

Admission Timeline

School Visit& Follow Up

Browsing for Schools

Lets relate your content to the admission timeline to see how we can strengthen your relationships so that when an enrolled student steps on campus they feel like they’re already a connected member of the community.

By the way, this is an approximation of course- it may differ in your office - but it works. Lets take the timeline and see how we can apply the tools & content to enhance & support what you’re already doing.

Admission Timeline

This is an approximation of course- it may differ in your office . Lets take the timeline and see how we can apply these new tools to enhance & support what you’re already doing.

Admission Timeline

Student & Family Profile•New family to boarding school•Talented writer•Soccer goalie (collegiate talent?)•Interests in science with a particular focus on sustainability

Admission Timeline

•New family to boarding school

What do families want when they first come to your site? Proctor does a really nice job of weaving their content with that of their fans.

For those of you who don’t know this is Chuck Will’s blog at Proctor. He’s a leading voice and the institutional memory to a certain extent. He knows current student & parents, alums, you name it -they know him and he knows what the school stands for. His job is to capture that in words and pictures 2-3 times a week.

His posts capture the attention of prospective families and gives them a way to stay connected to what’s happening at Proctor- he helps them to envision what it’s like to be a Proctor student.

Northfield Mount Hermon’s NMHbook - a dedicated section of their site (www.nmhschool.org/nmhbook) that aggregates all of their social content providing an up-to-minute snapshot of what’s happening on campus both from the perspective of their faculty & students.

“Brian Rosenberg aka the President of Macalester College”

I don’t know if it started out this way, but this is one of the most effective outreach pieces I’ve seen. It was done by the President of Macalester College. Self-deprecating humor, showcased his campus, told you a lot about the school and what the feeling about the campus is like.

“I have received several hundred e-mail messages from alumni,

parents, current and prospective students, as well as from other

college presidents and from folks I simply cannot identify, and from

countries including Pakistan, Japan, Spain, Singapore, and China

—where one alumnus, from the class of 1950 no less, managed to

circumvent the national blockage of YouTube and get the video

directly from the college's server. Amazing.”

The Chronicle of Higher Educationhttp://chronicle.com/article/What-I-Learned-From-YouTube/65141/

“Yet positive responses to our annual-fund solicitations spiked after

the video's appearance, reminding us that reputation, institutional

pride, and general good will can have as significant an impact on

development efforts as projects that are more deliberately focused on

raising dollars—and are far more expensive.

With this project, I have begun to learn about the nature and power

of the social media that are reshaping the way we communicate

with one another and should be reshaping the way organizations of

all kinds communicate.”

The Chronicle of Higher Educationhttp://chronicle.com/article/What-I-Learned-From-YouTube/65141/

Admission Timeline

Photo credit: Pumbaa80http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Soccer_ball.svgInterest in Soccer

Interest in Soccer

Talented writer

Interests in science with a particular focus on sustainability

How many schools in this room participate in the Green Cup Challenge? How many share your videos with prospective students & families, especially those who’ve demonstrated an interest this area?

Show rather than tell

Every example of content that I showed you came from outside of the admission/communication office. It’s a product of the classes, daily life, athletics and each does an excellent job of showing what it’s like to experience your schools. Perhaps even more so than a highly tailored marketing piece.

The Maestro

How do I orchestrate this sort of campaign?

Jesse Bardo

Last year Jesse Bardo was tasked with managing social media in their admission office.

NMH started out fast posting basic updates. Sports scores, travel schedules.

www.nmhschool.org

Jesse understood that a web site is fast in terms of posting information, but that social media offered a faster, more focused opportunity to connect with fans of the school.

Social media provides an opportunity to publish instant information to large networks. But Jesse knew that he needed to do more than publish scores and travel schedules to excite their fans. He used these new tools to plug people into the incredible stories popping up on campus each day.

Newspaper

English Dept

Science Dept

Math Dept

He built a network of people on campus. Folks feeding him stories about the goings on on campus.

His ‘sources’ loved seeing their stories appear on facebook, twitter, flickr, etc. The excitement fed their desire to provide Jesse with more information.

Majority of tweets or facebook updates point to an item of substance. Giving the fan or follower more to consume and additional reasons to connect.

*1641*As of December 1, 2010

Great numbers supported by compelling, meaningful content. Makes the relationship that much stronger.

30% increase in interviews from

2008-2010

Great numbers supported by compelling, meaningful content. Makes the relationship that much stronger.

Exercise:• Lets break into (three?) groups

• Consider the organicThrough the lens of social media think about the opportunities on your campus that speak to your school’s culture & values. Is there a budding Chuck Will? Are there academic classes or extracurricular programs that already produce terrific content?

• Write down 3-4 examples & shareConsider how you could build on & translate each into compelling social media outreach.

• Lets share the top 5 examples from each groupVote on the opportunities that you think have the makings of the next social media all-star campaign? What make them special? How do you envision rolling out & sustaining each?

Exercise:•Break into three groups•Show rather than tell•Build on something that already works

www.edsocialmedia.com

Stay Connected!Peter BaronAdmissionsQuest

Email pbaron@admissionsquest.comPhone (617) 623-4212

Twitter twitter.com/peterdbaron twitter.com/admissionsquest twitter.com/edsocialmedia

Vimeo vimeo.com/boardingschoolsYoutube youtube.com/user/BoardingSchoolsFlickr flickr.com/photos/30990415@N02/

Site admissionsquest.comedSocialMedia edsocialmedia.com