When we’re on a date (don’t worry, it’s been a while for me too) we approach conversation much differently. The interview strategy doesn’t work. The person sitting with you doesn’t care all that much about your college GPA and if you spoke to her in a rigid and formal tone it would be awkward. In fact, I’m pretty sure that if you listed your accomplishments off during the entirety of the date, your chances of seeing this person again would be slim.

Think about the language used in both situations and how they contrast. When we communicate on the web I think it requires a balance of both an interviewing voice and dating voice, favoring the dating voice. Listing statistics and rankings is easy so that’s mostly what’s primarily communicated to our prospective students. Look what we have done, this is how we’re unique, and this is why you should care. The main issue with this is that when you communicate as if you’re interviewing, you’re not fostering connection. Connection becomes a ancillary goal because interviews are based on evaluation of credentials.

People know the hard facts about your institution. If they don’t they can find them on Google, your website, and on your print communications. So why do we need to keep reminding them? Why not show them why you’re known as a friendly campus instead of repeating the message and hoping it sticks, why not charm them with authentic and human stories unique to your institution that capture their attention, why not spend some time interacting with your audience as if it was a date and not an interview?

Everyone appreciates a little romance.

Going to be changing things around here and there.

Want to know how to consistently engage well online? Want to know how you should respond to comments, craft great e-mails, know great, valuable and relevant content to post, etc.? The solution isn’t as hard as you imagine. In fact I can fit it into three words (technically, two): face to face.

What do I mean by face to face? Imagine every scenario as if you’re standing with whoever you’re talking to face to face. How would you talk to them? What would you share with them? What would your tone be? What would you try to express? Getting into that mindset helps us understand how to write to our audience. I think sometimes we get caught up in the thought that we’re communicating with technologies instead of people. Well, I’ll just break that myth right now – we’re talking with people not computers.I think Robert W. Bly, a great copywriter puts it well here:

“The Internet has not changed human nature, nor does people’s buying psychology change simply because they are reading your message online instead of offline.”

I agree and disagree with what he said. The message definitely needs to match the medium (as the social web has shifted the way we communicate), but his argument stands where he contends that at the end of the day, we’re talking with people and human are still humans whether “they read your message online instead of offline.”

The way we would treat people face to face while representing our institution must translate into what we do on the web. When taking time to empathize, understand who we’re talking with, and remembering that we’re talking with people, we will be able to provide better value and authenticity in our communications.

Here are a few examples:

Scenario 1: E-Mail Subject Lines + Body

You’re trying to craft a great e-mail and you want it to really grab attention and provide great information in the body. You consider having a subject line IN ALL CAPS. It grabs attention, looks different and also signifies importance and urgency. The face to face rule translates to a different scenario. I am standing in front of you and I’m shouting, “I HAVE AN IMPORTANT THING TO TELL YOU!” In real life when somebody you don’t know well shouts at you it’s rarely positive. In fact, most strangers that have yelled at me have been one of two things: crazy or having a really bad day.

Now, onto the body. You’re traditionally told that the body of the e-mail has to be really short because nobody wants to pay attention and they just want short spurts of information in one bite. Face to face speaks a bit to the contrary. If somebody is telling you something truly valuable and interesting, would you not pay attention? Would you not want the whole story and seek more information? Also, consider how face to face interaction works. You understand the person and what would be interesting and tangible for them.

Thinking face to face dictates that our e-mail subject line is personal, engaging and draws people in through sparking curiosity. Within the body of the e-mail face to face says that the content depends on who we’re talking with. When a story or conversation provides value, is interesting, or entertaining we pay attention. Being strictly sold to in person usually isn’t acceptable. We need to build relationships first, correct? Then it isn’t appropriate just because it’s an e-mail.

Scenario 2: Responding to Facebook Comments

Somebody post to your Facebook Fan Pages wall, “I just got my acceptance!!! I’m really excited to come here this fall!!!” Many administrators of fan pages don’t respond. From the face to face perspective, that’s like somebody coming into your office, exclaiming their excitement, and being ignored. That isn’t acceptable.

What about questions that come in? If somebody asked you about clubs on your campus, would you point them to a brochure or would you acknowledge them, talk to them, and provide them some resources to turn to?

Scenario 3: Negative Feedback

Imagine how you would respond if somebody was fuming and angry in your office. How would you respond? Likely you would be authentic, acknowledge the situation, and do what you could to make it better. The same applies for online communication.

Face to face will not always guarantee success, but I think it puts us in the best mindset possible when engaging online. What are your thoughts and experiences? Do you agree?

Posted by Howard Kang, Ignition Officer

Back in March I decided to go on foursquare and Gowalla tours of Harvard’s campus while I was in Boston visiting clients. I’ve never been to Harvard’s campus, so I thought it’d be the perfect opportunity to understand the perspective of a prospective student.

I’ll share my experience with you and what I learned from it all.

I’ll go ahead and say it. Location-based network tours by themselves are not effective or practical. If that’s your plan for innovative marketing, you’re more concerned with new trends vs. reaching students. Here’s why.

The image above shows where the spots for the Harvard Yard tour on Gowalla are laid out. (Foursquare doesn’t provide trips, but has a badge you can earn. Foursquare isn’t really designed for trips as it’s only location based to a certain extent, whereas Gowalla uses a precise location.)

So tell me honestly, do you think a high school student, completely unfamiliar with the campus would be able to easily navigate through these spots they’ve never seen or been to on campus with just this information? Me neither.

First issue. Gowalla does not layout a logical path for the tour. It merely provides you with the location, spots included in the tour, and approximately how many directional meters the spot is from you. If a student is completely unfamiliar with the campus (as I was), the only way to navigate from path to path is to pull up the spot, map myself there on my iPhone through maps, follow the direction to the spot (and hope the GPS locates me accurately), open Gowalla, check-in, navigate to the trip again, and start the process over again. Not exactly an easy or intuitive process. I also didn’t really know what the buildings looked like unless it was a featured spot and had a special icon (Gowalla has since added a photos feature in April which changes this) so I really didn’t know exactly where things were. (Oh, and perhaps we should have started with the fact that both tools have an extremely limited user base at this point, so the odds that your audience is using the tool to begin with is very slim.)

Additionally, GPS in mobile devices can often be unreliable when pinpointing exact locations. Gowalla users often complain about being unable to check-in to places due to their location being read as slightly off. In-fact I faced that problem while on my “tour.” I literally was touching the John Harvard statue and my phone could not locate me. I could check-in with foursquare because foursquare is quite lenient with the radius one can check-in from, but I had to recalibrate my GPS several times before I was located.

Beyond the technical glitches that hindered me, I ultimately gained little from the “tour.” The campus tour can be the deciding factor in many cases for prospective students. It’s their opportunity to get a feel for the people on campus, the culture, the lifestyle, the steps they’ll be walking, even the smell. Using a mobile device to take your tour ultimately serves as a distraction. I spent my time looking down at my phone figuring out if I was in the correct placement to even notice what was going on around me. Also, without a knowledgeable voice to look to, I was left to learn about the campus from the short sentences the descriptions told me. Essentially, what makes the campus tour special revolves around the human connection. Students want to be able to experience the campus enough to be able to say, “Hey, I can really see myself here.” If your tour guides are telling prospective students a collection of statistics that you can find on your website, that doesn’t cut it. If that’s the case, your prospective students probably will benefit more from NOT paying attention and watching the current students. A mobile phone tour by itself can’t provide that, it actually detracts from the experience (vs. walking around alone). The less technological version of a location-based network tour is a checklist of locations on a piece of paper and going through campus with that by yourself. Before mobile phones, would you trust that to represent your campus?

Harvard partnered with foursquare to encourage current students and faculty to go explore and do more on and around campus. Prospective students can’t compete for mayorships on campus (a large driving point for foursquare) as they will not be on campus everyday like current students.

Now, am I saying there’s no place for location-based networks in Higher Ed? Absolutely not. I’m simply saying, as always, “Chase the goals, not the tools.” Don’t use foursquare and Gowalla just because it’s “trendy” and “hip” if you don’t have goals or strategy to back up the time you’re expending to create these tours. Gowalla and foursquare can be used creatively to augment the traditional tour as well as help create memories (which have huge power), but again, does not work by itself.

I encourage you to go and try a location based campus tour from the eyes of an unfamiliar prospective students yourself and share your thoughts. Feel free to share your thoughts below!

KISS – The usability mantra, the creed of the web designer, the secret of marketing…we’ve already heard it all before.

It’s one of those messages that gets drilled home so much to the point that it becomes noise and we forget about it; …not so fast.

These tools available on the social web…have you remembered to K-I-S-S?  Have you gotten lost in the buzz and forgotten the simple things? I know I have.

We do get lost in the “coolness” of it all don’t we? Looking around at what others have accomplished, what we think is possible, and though we don’t admit it…we really do care more about the numbers when we lead on.

When’s the last time we heard somebody say something like, “Oh, the web is great for amplifying a message via word of mouth.” Probably last year because that’s when there were a bunch of buzzwords about word of mouth floating around. Now that message has been stripped down to, “Oh, the web is great for amplifying a message.”

On the most basic level, we love the social web because it helps us connect with other humans (people behind brands/universities/etc. included). That human connection helps us build relationships, along with buzz, and connects us in a community. It doesn’t exist solely to help amplify your message, just to make your brand more popular, or anything along those lines. Having a Facebook Fan Page, does not give you the “license to spam” as Joe puts it.

When we remember our roots, remember what enchanted us so much about communicating on the web, we have the greatest success. People miss the simple things. So here’s your friendly reminder…

Keep it simple, stupid.

“In 2014 we’re adding a new science building with the newest in digital innovation.”

“There are plans right now of adding a student union to campus soon.”

“We will add a collection of 1st Edition Dr. Seuss books to our library in the future.”

In higher ed we encounter this kind of language all the time. For some reason there seems to be an overemphasis on what’s happening in the future and what we’re hoping or planning to get instead of appreciating and embracing what we have. I’m not saying that looking to the future or looking forward to the next step is bad, but I do think that you could be missing out on appreciating some of your hidden strengths.

Your prospective students notice these future oriented statements. It often makes your institution seem inadequate. Imagine meeting a new person you were trying to judge. Let’s call him Guy. Guy says to you statements like, “In 2011, I’m going to lose 30 pounds!” or “I’m hoping to have a perfect lawn someday.” What Guy says about his future is interesting in the sense that you get a feel for what he’s striving for, but you’re also left thinking…and? What about now? An overemphasis on future plans leaves a perception that what you currently have isn’t enough. If you don’t think it is, do you think the prospective students will?

An innumerable amount of other institutions students are looking at have similar future goals  and have things like “small class sizes where you’re not another number.” Still, given those facts, no two universities are exactly alike are they? Those are your “hidden strengths.”

Last fall I visited Winthrop University and I saw a student with a shirt that said, “Winthrop Football…still undefeated.” The joke? They don’t have a football team. Students have actually come to embrace the fact they don’t have football. There are passionate students like Eagle Man who cheer on the Eagles with pride. It speaks to the culture of their university. Will Winthrop embrace football if they get it? Probably, but the students don’t seem to mind not having it.

These hidden strengths often may be hinted at or mentioned in passing during preview days, but I think they’re often glazed over as nothing more than ancillary details, when really those small details are what some potential students fall in love with. I can name several students that immediately knew my alma mater was the right fit for them when they learned that our library architect designed it with no right angles so that students could think differently and creatively.

I think it’s time to shift “in the future we’ll have…” thinking to “this what we have and this is why we rock.” The small things, that when you consider it really help contribute to your institution’s identity.

Own it, be proud of it, and spread the word. Your future students will notice.

1. Interruption no longer works (the 6% who remembered your ad before are less likely to even see your ad now)
2. Buyers have more power and choice than ever before and focused on their needs
3. The barrier of entry for entry is seemingly non-existent when it comes to the internet

So what’s key here? Marketers have been adjusting and pushing out great strategies; highly targeted content, engagement, listening, etc. The common theme with the organizations who are winning and crushing it? They’re reaching out.

I remember listening to a speaker when I was younger who stood in front of the audience and asked, “Who wants $20?” Hands everywhere shot up. People shouted, hollered, jumped, and stood on their chairs, but one kid in front ran up to the stage and asked for it. He got the $20.But what happens when the same kid has ten people standing in front of him with $20 bills and he can only choose one? That’s where we’re at today.

“The Web is the biggest haystack in the history of mankind, and you’re just a tiny little needle. You might be sharp and you might be shiny, but without help, no one will ever see your Web page, listen to your podcast, or watch your video.” – Seth Godin

It’s more than simply getting involved in the new web tools and sitting around. Reach out and give people a reason to talk about you and with you. Take the time to find them. Seek the people out that don’t know you exist, but are dying to interact with you. Build relationships and convert people into Trust Agents. It’s a buyer’s market and consumers have tons of power, but with a human push and word of mouth, so do you.

There’s been a huge growth in Twitter over the past couple of months and with that there’s been an influx of social media marketers, gurus, and consultants touting Twitter as a panacea for customer service issues, an easy way to boost traffic, and a simple pathway into possessing a strong web-presence. While I agree that Twitter is great, I don’t think it cuts it.

Symsomos & Hubspot just put out some Twitter data and here are some statistics that really stood out to me:

• 55.50% of users aren’t following anyone
• 54.88% have never tweets
• 5% of users account for 75% of activity
• 93.6% of users have less than 100 followers, while 92.4% follow less than 100 people

These numbers show that this grand marketing solution experts have been focusing on still only reaches a small population. I’m not saying this population isn’t important or can’t have an impact (the Twitter community is comprised of many thought leaders and influencers whom I respect), but nonetheless the numbers show that for most brands a central focus on Twitter is an extremely myopic approach.

Just for fun and out of my own curiosity I walked around downtown Portland the other day and did an extremely non-scientific survey to catch the pulse of the general public. I stopped 25 people and asked them a few questions about Twitter. Here’s what I came up with:

• 4/25 (16%) currently had a Twitter account
• 3/25 (12%) had some kind of interest in Twitter
• 7/25 (28%) responded in some sort of disgust (“Oh God, not Twitter again.”)
• 11/25 (44%) didn’t really care

I think this may be representative of many different areas as well. I’m not saying that Twitter isn’t great for engagement, virality, and a lot of other things, but I’m trying to show that Twitter simply doesn’t cut it. I have no doubt that if I did a similar survey regarding Facebook, 85% or more would’ve had a Facebook account or heard of it.

The principles of customer service haven’t changed. It’s always been about adding value and meeting customer needs. There’s no short-cutting that. The kicker is that through the evolution of word of mouth and social media great customer service is now great marketing too. The best marketing has always been about building relationships, connecting with people, and drawing them in. There’s no short-cutting that!

My advice? Have a presence on Twitter, it’s wonderful, but don’t stop there. My friend and mentor Brad J Ward has some great advice when it comes to choosing which technologies to focus on when crafting a strategy. “Think AND not OR.” There are people out there in a multitude of other outlets wanting to engage that may not know you’re there or know you’re listening. Reach out to them and make it easier. Continue to listen. Don’t respond to @replies in 10 seconds and let e-mails linger for days. Find out where the people you’re targeting are congregating and meet them there. Your community will thank you for it.

So I started to dig into the problem to understand why. I talked to students and looked at different trends and numbers for our campus and Springfield in general. I found a few good nuggets. I learned that students here don’t want to use Facebook or Twitter for information, they want to limit it to social networking. Students also don’t care for blogs. Most didn’t know what a RSS feed was. Further, out of all of our students (both undergraduate and graduate level) less than 1% are using Twitter. In the entire Springfield community? Less than .01%. Those numbers are staggering and factor into the big picture, but still doesn’t address the level of engagement. Low usage simply isn’t a sufficient excuse.

I’m noticing the voluntary nature of social media leads to a level of interaction that is unpredictable. Think about it. I could post this and you could forward it to some friends, retweet it on Twitter, comment, or do nothing. I may have an idea how something may go over and predict possibilities to a certain extent, but never completely know what will happen. So what does this mean for social media strategies? A cornerstone of any strategy should include periods of evaluation that include three stages: the Research stage, Adjust stage, and Build stage. It is my belief that if you’re not doing these things, you’re not creating the best strategy possible.

Research

We’ve all been told to listen, but here’s the thing, listening isn’t enough. It’s just one piece of an entire puzzle. What other points of data are you analyzing? Are you considering and learning about the target’s environment? How are you actively getting to know the people you’re targeting?

This is also a time where your organization analyzes internally. How is our progress looking? Are we still adding value and helping solve problems? Do our objectives align with our mission?

The marketing world revolves around the buzzword of influence. A major problem I have seen with marketers is incredible rigidity. Instead of reevaluating, time is wasted attempting to influence people to adopt a failing system. This research portion is the first step in meeting people where they’re at; focusing on relationship, trust, and collaboration, not simply influence. We need to focus on relationship and trust because we should come from a short-term and long-term perspective and this heavily influences positive word of mouth.

Adjust

After doing research it’s now time to set a plan of action. That’s why it’s important to have an overarching mission, flexible goals, and solid objectives so that plans can be perfected as you learn more. You need to do something with your research. Your strategy should never stay the same because people always change. As needs, desires, and be interaction shift, you should be right there moving with them. Don’t forget to consider long-term goals as well. Social media isn’t actively used on our campus now, but it will be in the future. That’s why I am focusing so much on building a sustainable system that can function well even when I’m not around.

Build

Now it’s time to implement your objectives and build on your foundation. Remember to think big and build small. Every small victory leads to more accuracy, more reach, and better content.

One thing I’m also working on that is important to remember is patience. I’m heavily engrossed in social media so it affects the rate at which I expect things to happen, i.e., immediately. Not everybody works on 140 characters and real-time communication.

Think of crafting your social media strategy as art. In photography there are rules that help you compose good photos, but ultimately rules can be broken and one photo can have forty different interpretations. Photography also requires trial an error to see which shots work. Building a masterful strategy can be arduous, but as you test the waters, evaluate, and learn, you’ll be creating an amazing community of engagement and effectively reaching your niche.

I’ve been inspired by the great Todd Sanders (@tsand) and am going to be participating in the Springfield Polar Plunge. I didn’t know it was even going to happen in Springfield until yesterday. If you don’t know what the Springfield Polar Plunge is, it’s basically a benefit for the Special Olympics. Plungers like me will jump into Lake Springfield (and hopefully be sponsored) and then hangout afterwards. Some other students wanted to join in and voila, our Polar Plunge team was assembled.

The event is coming up quickly (actually it’s this Saturday at 12:00 PM), so the time to support raise is fairly short. Please join with us to help out!

Here are some of my team’s fundraising goals:

• $25 per plunger. They made a HUGE exception from the normal $75 so our students could be involved at the last minute.
• At $75 – I will wear something like this to my plunge: http://tinyurl.com/aeofmd (Goal reached…shopping for outfit soon)
  

• At $150 – I will shave my hair into anyway you want (by vote). I’ll even write a word into my head as long as it isn’t vulgar! (Donating to others on team counts towards the total!)
• VOTE FOR MY HAIR HERE: Howard Hair Poll

LOCATION (Google Map): http://bit.ly/qsNH0

There will definitely be a photo and video blog post follow-up and I’ll make sure to give you a shoutout somehow in the video. I’ll get creative.

So please join me and sponsor us & come watch us!
I really appreciate you helping out, reading, and being a part of my life!

Team UIS Volunteer (So Far):

UIS Students:
Craig Rebou – http://www.firstgiving.com/craigjasonrebou
Justin Bournes – http://www.firstgiving.com/justinbournes
Andrew Nicol – http://www.firstgiving.com/andrewnicol
Steve Gifford – http://www.firstgiving.com/stephengifford
Howard Kang – http://www.firstgiving.com/howardkang
Jak Kern- No URL

UIS Staff:
Jeremy Wilburn – https://www.firstgiving.com/jeremywilburn
Ralph Shank – http://www.firstgiving.com/ralphshank