Category: eduweb2008

#eduweb2008 Closing Speaker

Here we go! Last one! Good thing too, my brain is full.

Karine Joly, editor of www.collegewebeditor.com.

Twitter is the star of eduweb2008 for sure.

“The Medium is the Message.” Marshall McLuhan second time i’ve seen this quote in the last two weeks.

“The conversation is killing the messenger, the message and the recipient.” Karine Joly

You can’t catch up, keep up so stop trying.

The big question is, “What is important?” This goes back to what Mark Greenfield said: “aggregate and filter.”

Conversations are the best relationship builders, but here are a lot of conversation s out there trying to build relationships.

Groundswell at least the second time this book has come up. Definite must read. (here are the damn italic gremlins again)

7 things to think about: (I forget what the title is but there are 7 of them)

  1. What can you do for them!!!!! YES!!!! This is so true and often overlooked by non-natives!!!!!!!!!!!
  2. What do you want? (GD Italcs)
  3. If you build it they will they will come. NOT TRUE! If you build it WITH them, they will come
  4. Exclusive content starters
  5. Listen, Identify, Empower – once the most active community members have been identified, they should be empowered.
  6. Call them back on their terms
  7. Meet you new bosses – The community is your new boss

They know more than you do!

Club Red @ U of Nebraska. Brad Ward says it’s sexy!

Last word:
www.collegewebeditor/secret

#eduweb2008 New Media

Nicely done. Quick intro into what Datamark does, and then onto the presentation.

I’m liking this!

Rule #1 Ask for forgiveness after the fact!
I’m right on with this. Do it an deal with the consequences after the fact.

I continue to hate Blogger’s Italics issues in Firefox.

The admission staff should be on Facebook. I have mixed feelings about this and whether or not we should be totally on there. I think it depends on age. It would freak me out to see my director and/or my VP on there. I don’t think it’s worthwhile to have them on there. Just more work and no value. Young admission officers, yes. They definitely should be there.

I also feel strongly that people who are making marketing decisions regarding new media and Facebook should be on there and embedded into the culture. Otherwise they’re making decisions on a technology that they don’t understand. Blind leading the blind sort of situation. If you don’t have a Facebook profile, you don’t get a vote. There I go getting all worked up again.

I really need to blow up that useless Office of Admission Facebook page. I need to talk with ACP about creating a general page.

Yup! You can’t market on these things! I wonder how he recommends directing traffic to these things?


Pannel discussion #eduweb2008

Good morning!

Well….This is a very we developer heavy. Might be over my head.

Holy Sh**! Eric just responded to a question about video, and I thin I passed out after the first 3 words. Waaaayyyyy over my head.

Section 508. Had no idea what it was. According to Mark G. There hasn’t bee a lot case law re: this issue. This might be something to keep an eye on…..

The commercialization of higher education and higher ed marketing. Good or bad? Both I think. Not all marketing is evil.

Aggregate and filter! There are a ton of tools out there but which ones are valuable?

Totally agree. In order to understand the tech, you have to be on it playing with it. I find this hard to do sometimes when people walk by my office and see me on Facebook and Twitter, etc. they don’t get that it’s part of the job.

#eduweb2008 Admission Life Cycle

Christopher Ferguson, Dir. of Admission at Wilmington University.

Interesting. He went to a real estate company for the virtual tour.


Ning, interesting that they have it open to anyone not only accepted students. I’m not sure about how I feel about this. Get a kid who applies and then is denied…

What is Blogger’s problem with Italics? It won’t shut them off. Starting to get annoyed by it.

It’s been a long day of live blogging. Clearly, this post has not been very enlightening. Sorry, I’m fried. (::DAMN ITALCS!!!::)

#eduweb2008 High School Students Tell All

Presented by Bill Royall and Pam Kiecker

The Wealth of Stealth: the stealth market place. Website and other internet resources (think first contact application) -from the Lawlor Group

A few of the top most important information resources for students:

  1. Admission website
  2. Virtual tour
  3. Student blogs
  4. Online chats
  5. Instant messaging
  6. Personalization of website

Insights:

  • College websites are used for information not entertainment
  • Functionality: must be easy to use
  • Two click rule – it’s even more important now that there

Most frequently used sources during colelge search:

  1. Websites
  2. Other students/peers
  3. Letters from colleges
  4. Email messages from specific colleges

.edu websites are used more than any other. They are the most trusted and are used by all h.s. ages

Heavy traffic time winter break of their Sophomore and Junior years!!!!

They are searching for:

  • Can I get in?
  • Major?
  • Can I afford it? (GD financial aid again)

Seniors use website for:

  • Make an informed decission on where to apply
  • Develop a strong application
  • Make the FINAL choice

Everyone is on Facebook, but I’m surprised that the high school numbers are low. I’m not surprised that they’re not using it to get information on colleges.

I’m also surprised to see such a high the numbers were for those accepting of colleges on Facebook. I wonder if the students really understood what they were being asked. I also wonder about what kids picture when they’re asked about colleges being on Facebook.

More insights:

  • Website is important.
  • Connect with current students
  • Despite what you may think, students want more information not less. Email sin’t as dead as you’ve heard. This makes sense especially when considering how much Royall uses email and the incredible response rates they get in direct mail.
  • Students are saying, let me have it all and then I’ll sort through it and get what I want

Bill just suggested a financial aid estimator and how it can help enroll students!!!!!!!! No more!!!! I can’t take it!!!!!!!!

#eduweb2008 E-Mail Marketing for Higher Ed

Kyle James, webmaster @ Wofford College

Consistency is key. branding should be similar to the over all branding of your site.

Wish we had a dog for a mascot.


What to send?

  • New releases (check)
  • Weekly newsletter i.e. athletics
  • Data mining blog posts
  • Promoting Website features

Good idea from Kyle: Find an alum who is already blogging about what they do and piggyback onto it.

Content

  • Subject line (a must have)
  • Small bite sized chunks
  • link back to site
  • multiple content options
  • Pictures should ad to content but not dominate

Use Google anylitics in emails.

http://bronto.com

I’m a little grossed out by the feet on our website.

#eduweb Brian Niles, "Recruiting 2.1"

Lot’s of talk about population trends and the economy. Scary stuff. He did mention wasteful travel.

Stay away from fads. i.e. Second life and crappy facebook applications

Where’s the big picture? Are we doing this just to do it or is there a plan in place?

Email: What we use to talk to old people

IM/SMS: What we use to talk to our friends

(YES!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!)

64% believe that advertising is dishonest or unrealistic. Taglines. The marketing speak.

>25% of first contacts are at the point of application. >13% start searching at the 8th grade.

How to reach these kids? Where are they getting there information?

In 2004 75% of students researched colleges online. Really old study. Must be way higher now.

Damn Financial Aid Estimators again. 90% of parents want one. We continue to get killed by that one.

Funny, I don’t see those IM #’s. I never get IM’s from kids.

Quality: Define it! How is your program different! Think of the question, ‘how is your english program?”

Graduate student blogs. The whole damn website needs to be blown up and focus on recruiting students.

Biola for parent programs. It’s a great page and hits on a lot of stuff we’ve been talking about in our communications meetings.

Transforming a College George Keller

I’ve got a lot of reading to do. http://linkbun.ch/hh0


WVU roommate assignments in February(!!!). The ability to connect with your future roommate can help make the sale!

Travel, where are we going and why? I don’t think we’ve cut it enough in our office…

Book list:
The Overacheivers
Beyond Disruption
X Saves the World
How to Drive your Competition Crazy
Fast Company ( I need to subscribe to this for the office)
Don’t Make Me Think

Presentation available at knowledgecenter.targetx.com

#eduweb2008 Buzz, Brands, and Babes

Sexy title.

Sean Carton, CSO from idfive. sean.carton@idfive.com

6 trends of change

  1. The consumer is in the driver’s seat
  2. Everything is digital
  3. Real time now = when I wnat it
  4. Bye, bye centralization
  5. The future is always on (wireless)
  6. Peace out desktop

It should be standard practice to search around for what they’re sayng about you. I think we’ve lucked out here.

Memes – a unit of cultural information. Richard Dawkings The Selfish Gene

Malcolm Gladwell, the Tipping Point- You just need to reach the ten people who will be the ones to make it grow and then it will be viral.

Duncan Watts One-to-one – disagrees with Gladwell.

******Honesty***********************

I was talking about this yesterday. I really think that this web 2.0 movement will force conversation from the marketing speak to honest conversations.

Keep it honest
Multiple channels
Frequent updates

This is more to the point that you can’t always control your message and sometimes you have to let it ride. More passive Marketing.

Helicopter Parents

Presenter: Stephanie Geyer – Noel-Levitz

Parents say the darnedest things. Stephanie had us read various quotes from parents about their involvement in their kid’s college search.

I don’t think this will shock anyone out there: Parents fill out forms for their students and pose as students when they can. I know we see parents on the student chats @ SMC.

Here’s an important piece, “The more parent information the better.”

Some quick numbers:

90% either have or would chat online one on one with a counselor.

87% would or have email a counselor.

Virtual Tour is huge!

Social Networking:

I wonder how many parents are on facebook, etc. I wonder if a Parent social networking site would be useful if it was directed solely at parents.

Recommendations for colleges:
More detail into curriculum requirements
Financial costs/financial aid/percentage of students receiving aid
Application status

Not surprised here. 2 of the top five web content priorities for parents are financial aid related. I worry about this and our site.

Email is not dead for parents!!!! It’s in fact the number one way to connect with parents. That’s a real bad thing for us and our CMS.

Millennials go to College, must read.

To me, parents aren’t going away. Colleges should accept that. You can’t bite the hand that feed you.