AMA Symposium for Higher Ed

As you probably know if you’ve been reading this blog for a bit, I maintain a Google calendar of higher ed events and conferences where I keep track of anything interesting for web and marketing teams.

It’s a useful tool, but sometimes a good old post does the trick as well – especially when it highlights deadlines for registration, call for proposals and other interesting information like registration fees.

• 2009 CUPRAP Annual Spring Professional Development Conference – March 11-13, 2009
  Mainly targeted to the higher ed PR and communications professionals of Pennsylvania, this conference takes place in the Hershey (yes, like the chocolates) Hotel in Hershey, PA. I’ve been invited to present the first part of a workshop about online communities on March 11. Mike Richwalsky from Allegheny College will present the second part of this workshop.
  Member: $250; Nonmember: $315; Student $65
• CASE Annual Conference for Media Relations Professionals – March 19-20, 2009 in Atlanta, GA
  Members $565, Nonmember: $800
  Register online
• Analytics 360 3-Webinar Series – March 24-26, 2009
  How to track and measure (and show to your boss) the ROI of your online initiatives
  This webinar series will feature 3 great higher ed analytics experts: Shelby Thayer, Joshua Ellis (both from Penn State) and Karlyn Morissette (Dartmouth College)
  HEE Members: $300 per connection (HEE membership is open and free to people working in institutions)
  Register online by March 16 at www.higheredexperts.com/analytics360.
• CASE Communications, Marketing and Technology Conference – April 15-16, 2009 in Boston, MA
  Members $670, Nonmember: $935
  Register online



• Web Redesign Bootcamp (On A Dime Edition) 3-Webinar Series – April 21-23, 2009
  What you need to know before jumping into a redesign project
  This webinar series will feature 3 great higher ed web redesign experts: Stewart Foss (eduStyle), Tonya Price (WPI) and Nick DeNardis (WSU and EDU Checkup).
  HEE Members: $300 per connection (HEE membership is open and free to people working in institutions)
  Register online by April 9 at

www.higheredexperts.com/webredesign.

• Writing Right for the Web 2-Webinar Series – May 5-6, 2009
  How to get better at Web writing
  This webinar series will feature 2 great higher ed web writers and teachers: Mary Beth Kurilko (Philadelphia University and former Temple University) and Tim Nekritz (SUNY Oswego).
  HEE Members: $240 per connection (HEE membership is open and free to people working in institutions)
  Register online by April 27 at www.higheredexperts.com/writingright.
• EduComm 2009 – June 16-18, 2009 in Orlando, FL
  Organized by the magazine University Business, this conference will also cover cloud computing, sustainability, social networking, best business practices, etc.
  Early Bird: $495 Advanced: $545 On-Site: $595
  Register online by April 24 for the early bird pricing. I have a discount code of 10% off the registration fee for you if you plan to go, email karine@collegewebeditor.com to get it.
• Stop the Presses 3-Webinar Series – July 7-9, 2009
  This webinar series will feature 3 online magazine editors who went digital or even paperless with their publications: John Lofy (University of Michigan), Bonny Griffith (Ithaca College) and Karl Bates (Duke University).
  HEE Members: $300 per connection (HEE membership is open and free to people working in institutions)
  Register online by June 29 at www.higheredexperts.com/stopthepresses.



• EduWeb 2009 – July 20-22, 2009 in Chicago, IL
  This year, the opening keynote is Dimitri Glazkov from Google. Dimitri used to work for a higher ed CMS vendor and is an excellent speaker. He will talk about the next big thing. There’s also a new track this year “Get it Done” managed by Karlyn Morissette and Matt Herzberger. You can still submit your proposal before March 20.
  Early Bird: $550, Regular: $650
  Register online by June 8 to get the early bird pricing.
• HighEdWeb Conference – October 4-7, 2009, in Milwaukee, WI
  The call for proposal isn’t open yet is open as of March 6, 2009.
  Anticipated Early Bird: $500
  You’ll be able to register online starting May 1st, 2009
• AMA Symposium for the Marketing of Higher Education – November 15-18, 2009 in Boston, MA
  The call for paper is open until April 3, 2009. If your proposal get accepted, you’ll get one free registration.

Have I missed any good conferences?
Please let us know by posting a comment.

I had some time at the Chicago O’Hare airport before my flight and was lucky enough to find a power outlet and a $7 wifi connection. So, I took the time to write a couple of my thoughts – fresh from the over – after attending the AMA Symposium this week.

Social media and applications have finally made it to the Executive Office

Social media took its fair (large?) share of this year’s program at the AMA Symposium for the Marketing of Higher Education. While I haven’t heard anything earth-shattering in the presentations I attended (minus maybe some of the results from this recent survey), it was great to see that marketing and communications executives – which made up a big part of this conference attendance – were listening and seemed very interested in the possibilities offered by these new channels. I was also surprised to see how many (not hundreds, but probably a few dozens) of these marketing/communications professionals and executives have even started to use Twitter. Remember, we’re not talking about folks working exclusively on the Web, so there’s definitely great progress.

Two years ago when I presented with Joe Hice an introduction about Web 2.0 at the CASE conference for communication and marketing senior professionals, the interest was there, but social media was considered as some obscure tech novelty. It’s not anymore. It’s now recognized as being part -if not the major one yet – of the marketing mix of higher ed institutions.

It’s the Community, Stupid! – but the Economy might get in the way

Since I presented the closing keynote at the eduWeb conference last summer, I keep telling everybody that it’s all about the community. However, the hidden general theme on the conference floor – the economic downturn (crisis? recession?) – will bring real challenges to communication and marketing functions in institutions.
Earlier this week, Michael Stoner wrote a blog post about a survey his company did with 150 communication, advancement and marketing executives about the top challenges they will face in 2009.

Not surprisingly, more than half of survey respondents cited financial constraints or budgetary problems as the top challenges facing their departments—and nearly every respondent included financial concerns among the top three challenges. Citing such obstacles as “unexpected budget constraints,” “insufficient funding levels,” and “budget cuts,” respondents described a lack of necessary resources to reach institutional goals in fund raising, printing, web development, and more.

As one respondent put it, “At a time when electronic media should be in a heavy stage of growth and evolution, progress will likely be hampered by shrinking budgets at our institutions.”

If this hasn’t come your way yet, just be prepared to be asked to do more or the same with less money, time and probably team members.

Do you have good tips to achieve just this using technology?

As I mentioned earlier, I’m still looking for good sources for an upcoming University Business column, so feel free to post any ideas (the ones you can share that is) or email karine@collegewebeditor.com

Since it’s been a challenge to get the list of all the AMA Symposium blog posts on what I thought could become the higher ed conference content aggregator, here it is for your convenience (if you were at the conference, blogged about it and your posts are not listed, just email karine@collegewebeditor.com).

This is probably the first time that the AMA Symposium for the Marketing of Higher Education has been covered so much by bloggers (even if we were just a handful blogging) and by twitterers. The blog posts are listed in reverse chronological order.

Day 4 and beyond:

• AMA Symposium: Good news and bad news for higher ed web marketing to wrap up the conference
• Karlyn’s reflections on AMA08
• Live Blogging AMA08: Storytelling as Best Practice
• Live Blogging AMA08: The Doctors are In

Day 3:

• AMA Symposium: Get the stats on the role of social media in college choice
• Social Networks, Teens, and College Information
• Live Blogging AMA08: Authentic Uses of Social Media and the New Web
• Advancements and Academic Reputation Outcomes on the Web – AMA08
• Live Blogging AMA08: Avoiding the Long Road to the Middle
• AMA Symposium: The DePaul Quad, a Social Networking Website for Parents
• Live Blogging AMA08: Four Strategies to Drive Online Giving
• AMA Symposium: How undergraduate and graduate prospective students use the Web in their school search
• Live Blogging AMA08: Millennials Go To College
• AMA Blog: Millennials Go to College
• AMA Symposium: Missed one of the sessions with the highest attendance and about email marketing? Register for the webinar!

Day 2:

• Live Blogging AMA 08: Roundtable – Meshing Corporate Experience and Higher Ed
• AMA Symposium: Update Monday 3:30pm
• AMA Symposium: How to communicate effectively and efficiently to your internal audience
• Live Blogging AMA08: Measuring Naked Conversations – Social Media Measurement in Higher Education
• Building an institutional brand: Education Redefined at Ball State
• AMA Symposium for Higher Education – Taking Email to the Next Level
• AMA Symposium: Carnegie Mellon University 2.0 with a web redesign, viral videos, blogs, facebook application and the Pausch Effect
• Live Blogging AMA08: Extending Your Brand
• AMA Symposium: Why higher ed marketing teams need to start focusing on web analytics and measurement
• Live Blogging AMA Higher Ed Symposium: Continuously Improve Business Results From The Web

Day 1:

• AMA Symposium: Blogging Boot Camp Workshop Slides and Links

This session is presented by Richard Hesel from the Art & Science Group.

Why this research?

studentPOLL is quarterly survey done since 1994 about different issues with a national sample.
Now, sample is done through The College Board and their SAT takers database.

90% of every college-bound students visits social networking websites (97% of African American)
84% have a profile page (93% of African American)
Why don’t they have it?
Parents 28%
Don’t have time 46%

Facebook and MySpace dominate
79% on Facebook (55% for Hispanics), 69% on MySpace (Hispanics 88%)
60% Facebook the most often visited with MySpace far behind 38%

70% visit site at least once a day, 32% 3 or more time

Why do they use social networking websites?

86% to stay in touch with friends they rarely see
80% with friends they see regularly
61% to talk about homework with classmates
41% have friends they met for the first time on a site (Hispanics and African American are more likely)
18% claim that they met their closest friends on the site

Only 7% report attending an event sponsored by a college they are interested in, 9% an event related to college admissions.
56% for parties.

What about privacy?
69% extremely or somewhat concerned that private information on their profile might affect their chances of admission to college.
59% that employers might use this information
50% keep private everything on their personal profiles
64% have changed the default privacy settings
83% are careful because their parents or other adults might see it.

22% looked for college pages on social networking sites
18% used sites to gather information or impressions about colleges (looking for friends, comments, students groups, pictures)
16% would be more interested in a college where a friend attend, 48% somehow interested

Campus visits have still the biggest influence (72% much more interested)
College websites 47%

Some conclusions from Richard Hesel

• No digital divide on uses of SNS with college-bound students
• SNS not a primary or effective marketing/communications tool for prospective students
• Direct marketing through SNS may be seen as an invasion of private space and become counter productive
• Greater commercialization of SNS may further dilute potential value as college communications tool
• Focus on nuanced personal social connections
• Use of SNS as a communication tool may be more effective with minority students

Get all the details of this survey results on the presentation PDF file (attention, this is a big PPT file)

This session is presented by Deborah Maue, Assistant VP for Marketing Strategy at DePaul University.

DePaul hired a Word of Mouth Marketing Agency to try to tell the story more effectively, using its internal audience more effectively as ambassadors. The WOMM plan was built on DePaul’s core values.

They decided to build a social community for people who had a strong affinity for DePaul.
Parents were chosen for the pilot project.

The Quad was launched in August 2007 and targeted to parents of undergraduates (first new freshmen, then deposited freshmen, juniors and seniors and in Jan 2009 DePaul will invite parents of admitted students)

Why Parents?
Strong affiliation with the institution emotionally and financially
Scary time in their lives
Parents are a credible source of higher ed information for other parents

Brad Ward did an interview a few weeks ago about the topic and shared some of the screenshots via Flickr he took from the Quad:

(To see full-size photos, click here)

Results?

1,863 registered members (30% of invited)
2,794 visits per month
1,100 unique visits per month
Forum Participation 2.25%
Email open 45%
Poll participation 1%

Popular Topics
Campus safety/security
Health services
Empty nest syndrome
How/how much to communicate
How to support students without meddling
What’s going on that they don’t know about (career services, advising, student services)

10 things DePaul learned

1. You have to remind members of the value of coming back
   2 to 3 email per week: new content, new parents issues being discussed
   General parenting tips, site updates and did-you-know type of content
   With regular emails, traffic increased
2. It’s about them, not about you
   After launch, they allowed parents to suggest discussion topics
   Parents didn’t want to talk about the pillars, but their experience
   DePaul realized this community could only be a community for parents, couldn’t be scaled to include other audiences
3. More lurkers/readers than participants
   2.5% members are content creators, then content readers and raters
   There are super users, extremely active posters: “The Parents of The Parents”
   DePaul engaged them as bloggers.
4. If you ask feedback, do something about it
   Thank people for their feedback – even if it’s negative
   If you can solve the problem, do it. DePaul did it with an issue around their Health Services
5. Even if people have something negative to say, most will find a nice way to say it
   People are respectful of the institution and want to help
   Offer the possibility to contact you directly (Ask DePaul) so if they have something bad to say they will be able to do it directly
6. Don’t use cash incentives
   Send thank you emails
   Send free stuff to top posters
7. No need to build it from scratch
8. People join communities to connect with each other
   Encourage people to submit pictures
   First discussion topic should be introductions
   Make it easy for parents to connect off-line too (150 said they would like to do it)
9. This takes a lot of time
   It requires a daily commitment from several offices
   Community management shouldn’t be outsourced
10. Figure out your specific goals
    Difficult to measure word-of-mouth

Communities are a great way to do ongoing market research
DePaul just launched its second social community: Kellstadt Link.

This session is presented by Young Shin, President of Princeton Review Marketing Services.

3rd annual national survey of webite use in undergraduate and graduate school search.

Survey made during the active search (3hr/week) phase
20,000 students over past 3 years during winter.

When did you start your search?
Before 28% in junior year of HS
40% during junior year (from 34% – +6% increase)

Active search starts well ahead of 12 months before application.

Stealth applications (application as first contact with school) on the increase
43% will submit an app before any prior contact with the school. They spend a lot of time researching on their own.

Top sources for grad school research
75% websites of college
71% admissions websites
69% third-party portal college websites (61% last year)
33% Printed pieces from colleges (38% last year)
30% third-party printed materials (28% last year)

Less paper is better.
However, responses vary greatly depending on the type of schools (Law School, MBA, Medical School, etc.)

How frequently do you visit the website?
Over half visits at least 2 different grad school websites per week.
75+ of those surveyed spend at least 15 minutes per visit (4% increase compared to last year)

Top sources for undergrad school research
83% portal websites
79% college website
66% admissions website
49% printed pieces (60% last year)
41% email communications from colleges (61% last year)

75% + of sensiors spend at least 15 minute per visit (+4% increase)

Top features for grad school students
Admissions requirements
Financial aid, tuition
Academic program section
Scholarshop section

Students blogs went down from 2.9 last year to 2.1 this year

Top features for ungrad school students
Admissions requirements
Financial aid, tuition
Scholarship section

Students blogs went down from 2.7 last year to 2.2 this year

Seniors find the printed materials to be the more valuable

Top enrollment factors for grad school
School accreditation
Reputation in filed of study
Over reputation
Quality of faculty and instructions

Top enrollment factors for undergrad school
Reputation in field of study
Overall reputation
Programs
Quality of facutly and instructions

Lack of information and bad navigation are among the top frustration sources for students searching for schools.

Lessons learned

• Everyone is online, the website is the most valuable research source for students
• Students continue to search early, but not earlier
• Make sure critical information is readily accessible

As the AMA conference chair, Elizabeth Scarborough explained in her blog post yesterday, Karlyn Morissette’s session attracted a full packed room yesterday at the conference for her session about email marketing:

Karlyn Morissette, Web Producer at Dartmouth, had a packed house for her session on taking email to the next level. She framed her presentation with Barack Obama’s email campaign and talked about why it was so effective. I’m pretty sure Karlyn’s session had the highest attendance of any track session so far.

Missed this hit (or the AMA conference altogether)?

Register by tonight for the webinar series, Email Marketing 360, including a very similar session presented by Karlyn and another presentation given by Carmella Manges from St Edward’s University about email analytics.
You can register at www.higheredexperts.com/emailmarketing360 for only $240 for both webinars secheduled on December 2 & 3, 2008.

Questions or need more time to register?
Email karine@collegewebeditor.com

This session is presented by John Roberts, director of Internal Electronic Communications at Furman University.

Internal audiences (faculty, staff, etc.) helps institutions define their brand outside of campus, especially with the recent paradigm shift in communication.

According to the Families and Work Institute, the main factor in employee satisfaction is “providing and understanding and supportive work environment.”

10 years ago, Furman had a newsletter and communication took place in informal settings in the hallways, at lunch, etc.

Then, they launched FUnet, an internal news website (I would give you the web address, but it requires a username and password – weird for a news website even if it’s an internal one IMHO)

They require login information so everybody commenting on stories is identified by name automatically – to prevent anonymous posting.

It’s produced (written and shot – for videos and photos) by a team of students. Roberts has a background in journalism and acts as the editor of this online publication.

87% of employees report they check the website once a day.

But, not everybody has access to the web on campus (facility, cafeteria, etc.)
At Furman, this group represents a third of the employee.

So, Furman launched the FUnet Flusher, a flyer – more than 200 copies – available in restrooms across campus and designed as a piece of… toilet paper. Gets a lot of positive feedback on campus.

They also redesign Inside Furman and switched it to a quarterly format with an appealing design.

Some good advice for internal communications

• Find your voice and keep it real
• Use employee photos because it help people make connections, crop them in creative ways
• Write about people, profiles have high readership
• Develop an internal communications policy where you spell out how the different communication tools should be used.
• Keep face-to-face meetings (gatherings, games, forums, etc.)
• Use humor

This session is presented by Marilyn Kail, AVP of Marketing and Communications and Jay Brown, Director of Marketing for Web Communications.

First, CMU started with web 1.0 by doing a homepage redesign with a content management implementation.

The old design was done in the mid-90′s and… it showed.
The new design breaks with the traditional horizontal photo banner format. Interesting take on the traditional higher ed university homepage.

Then, CMU moved into Web 2.0

They captured other users on Facebook, YouTube and iTunes U.
Very efficient channels that don’t cost a dime.

Being known as the “robotic” university, they decided to create viral edgy humorous videos: the RoboU videos made available on their website, Facebook and on their YouTube channel. They also pitched the big tech blogs.

The results of the RoboU initiative

85,000 views in 6 weeks (vs. 20,000 for West Coast main competitor)
4,000 hits on branded splash page
Featured on Gizmodo
Great feedback

Since the launch, 122,000 views for RoboU videos
On the channel, 70 million videos with more than 9 million views.

CMU also chose to use Web 2.0 technologies for their Capital campaign with a blog, a YouTube video and a Facebook application to support the campaign.

The Pausch Phenomenon

Dr Randy Pausch, a Carnegie Mellon University professor, found out that he was dying after he agreed to give a lecture as part of a series on campus. That lecture is now known as the last lecture. The lecture was recorded and made available as a YouTube video.

A DVD was also created, and CMU sold 60,000 copies since October 2007.
CMU also worked with Dr Pausch Book Publisher (4 million copies, translated in 20+ languages)
They also pushed the video to internal audiences, through their print publication Carnegoe Mellon Today, a partnership with PBS and an educational partnership with Disney.
The requests from the media poured and Dr. Rausch did as much as he could to push the CMU brand in the interviews he gave.

CMU also created the Randy Pausch Legacy Fund in Fall 2007.

What impact has the “Pausch effect” had?

CMU is working on a survey to measure the results on prospective students and yield.
Dr Pausch created the emotional connection to CMU.

The opening keynote was presented by Karen Breen Vogel from Clear Gauge. She explained to the conference audience why it’s important to set up and use a good measurement system on the Web.

Financial people don’t care about your marketing tactics, activities or campaigns.
They want measurable results. It’s all about ROI.

The traditional marketing funnel:
Acquire > Engage > Convert
Visits > Interaction > Leads

When you do e-commerce, ROI is very clear.
But, most organizations/institutions are trying to start a relationship on the Web: to go from anonymous visitors to known prospects.

First, make sure everybody on campus agrees on the definitions (leads, etc.)

In the new emerging model, buyer initiates the process (with his/her community).
Buyer does research, discover, compare, qualify & negotiate then contacts the seller.

“It’s not about driving traffic. It’s about driving the right traffic, engaging your visitors, achieving business value for you and your customers.”

Measure whether or not your visitors have been successful

Traffic Stats (visitors, hits, etc.) > Visitor path analysis (GA, keyword, path) > Key performance indicators (what really matters) > Financial valuation > Predictive analytics

How to drive optimal business results

• Don’t go run to get tools first
• Establish ownership
• Tie to goals of the business
• Develop process for defining visitor success milestone points
• Create key performance indicators.
• Then, get the tools,
• Train
• Get attitudinal data – ask visitors what they wanted, what they did (surveys, online focus group, usability testing, social network data) > the cost is very inexpensive.

Your business goals are either making money or saving money.

So, what should you do?

• Focus on the success of your customers
• Put visitor behavior into a business value / financial context
• Define KPI
• Determine baselines for each KPI
• Get some attitudinal data
• Use your tool to report to your business context specifically
• Do this before spending money on media or web redesign/development