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.â€
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