Yesterday in Baltimore, Penny Bouman, Manager of Enrollment Publication and Communications, and Craig Westman, Interim Dean of Enrollment Services, Ferris State University, presented “Do U YouTube? Social Networking and Its Impact on Recruiting and Its Impact on Recruiting and Marketing.”
This is Christian Burk’s third and last scheduled post.
Definition of “brand”
"A brand is not a name or positioning statement . . . a brand is the culmination of all the experiences people have with an organization. A brand is an experience." Bob Sevier
You don’t know where people are getting information when1/3 of all applicants are secret shoppers, as was the case with Ferris State last year.
The traditional four Ps of Marketing are now the 4 Cs of Mass Marketing (creation, cost, categorize, campaign).
Social networks
"Collective intelligence" – the whole is greater than the some. (Reminds me of the “Wisdom of Crowds”). Wikipedia, for instance
Citizen Marketers by Jackie Huba. We have no power to control the message (this is a mantra of this conference). The only thing we can do is post as many good messages as possible. We need to understand citizen marketers, then. “Message control is obsolete. Marketing control is futile. The citizen marketers are here.” Jackie Huba, co-author, Citizen Marketers.
Not just telling the right story but telling the story right. Get marketing speak out of the stories. Tell what is really going on. Tell it straight, as though talking to one person.
- style – language is a window into the story
- truth – just tell the truth. Let them see what the storyteller sees.
- preparation – practice. Wherever it might be out there, someone will see it.
- delivery – graphics are like the body language, conveying the message of the words even stronger.
Examples:
Vince Ferrari and AOL, tries to cancel AOL account. Wanted to cancel account. 21 minutes on the phone cancelling, 6 minutes on hold, rest of it was their trying to make him keep his account. Posted on his blog. National news picked it up. Soon he was on TV with Matt Lauer.
Chevy Tahoe commercial contest. Chevy created the video and the music, gave people the opportunity to add text and edit.
Environmentalists made a parody of the Chevy Tahoe commercial. Chevy kept them on the web. Tahoe sales went up 40%.
YouTube
On YouTube type college video contests, you’ll find some of the ones they are referring to. Universities are starting to include students in the conversation. Students are creative and are willing to help.
- Wash U did one for their career center.
- Appalachian State University. Soooo cheesy. Supposedly used when out on the road and succeeded but on YouTube it is a joke.
Supposedly, the video hasn’t hurt. Actually, it’s more like a slideshow. It has had over 300k hits. - UVSC did a spoof of the video HOT HOT HOT. Used their fire protection program as a background for theirs.
- Schreiner Unversity in Kerrville, Texas. Has 3 short videos.
Funny and pretty well-done.
Check out good and bad examples.
Most of them use humor, which colleges often shy away from.
Blogs
- Ball State has one of the best. Spent on $24k, mostly on promotion. IT, Admissions and Communications all worked together. Very organized and highly successful. Now doing Vodcasts. Not all pretty stories, either.
- U of Chicago, they show how they scan applications.
iPhone (how much can you do?)
- post videos of your institution
- Make a fight song ring tone
- Event calendaring (delivered to cell phone)
- Orientation
- eTickets to campus events
- Text messaging
Games
James Pall Gee, guru of games in education, prof or Reading at U of Wisconsin at Madison. “A game is an intricately designed world that encourages certain sorts of action, values, and interactions.” Isn’t that higher ed?
Games first came out of higher ed. Space Wars first came with mainframes. Nolan Bushnell, student at U of Utah, was inspired by Space Wars, started Atari.
Gamers
“Digital Natives are accustomed to twitch-speed, multitasking, random-access, graphics first, active, connected, fun, fantasy, quick-payoff world of video games, MTV on the internet.”
- Have a LAN Pary. Ferris State had LAN party at their admissions office as a recruitment device. They play online games in teams.
Interaction without boundaries. They put the video as a recruitment tool on YouTube. - Search your own website for gamers, lan parties, video games and gamer RSOs. Kids were able to get prizes out of the corporations, Sony and Walmart. Had a lot of female gamers, too. High scores, socially engaged, service oriented. They are talented students and can help recruit.
- Incorporate humor. gotduck.com, William Woods, Duck is guide.
- Use story elements.
LAN Party
- Planning – they figured out what game to play (Call of Duty 2), set up database in meeting room.
- Place – Thurs Evening on ambassador program.
- Prizes – Students at Ferris got some donated prizes and bought some others
- Promotion – used a telephone calling system to send messages
- Process – had to register and have food. Had to set up teams, randomly assigned.
- Picture this! – Had pics/video taken
- Post – Posted them online, YouTube
Have to be able to assess actively, the costs and benefits, getting the ROI. Ferris uses EMT (not sure what that is) for their central database.
If you don’t have buy-in from an administrator, buy them a Nintendo DS and Tetris and Brain Age. They will be addicted.
“I’m certainly not advocating that everyone should spend all their time in the virtual world,” he replied. “What I’m saying is that things in the virtual world are going to become a mirror by which we will see ourselves more clearly.” Edward Castronova, Synthetic Worlds, Ludium II Conference 2007
Thanks for blogging from EduWeb – very useful stuff!