SimpsonScarborough: Intelligent Marketing for Higher Education

For those of you who haven’t Googled him yet, Andrew Careaga is the University of Missouri-Rolla’s director of communications and moonlights as blogger extraordinaire for his site Higher Ed Marketing. In addition, Andrew contributes to three university blogs as part of the UMR communications blogging team, which means if anyone reads all four sites they have a pretty good idea of his wealth of knowledge and sense of humor.

Andrew was gracious enough to provide his thoughts on blogs and higher education-specific blogs. Below are his responses to my questions.

• What are your thoughts on the future of blogs in higher education?

I see a bright future for blogs and bloggers in higher education – as long as we (in the PR, marketing, communications side of higher ed) get our act together and make a strong case for using blogs for marketing and branding purposes. But we haven’t done a very good job so far. That’s probably because we’re used to working with traditional “customers,” such as the mainstream news media, and haven’t quite figured out how to write for audiences that don’t get all of their information from those traditional sources.

Blogs can be a great tool for telling a university’s story more directly to different audiences. But blogs can also complement – and amplify – any good news your university is getting from the mainstream media. On our Visions blog, which was created to promote campus research, we often link to news stories about research in order to show readers that what we’re talking about has value beyond the university walls. It’s a way of reinforcing our message by leveraging a third party.

We recently converted our internal email newsletter into a blog and are slowly shifting the campus community away from the old way of accessing information. It’s a slow process.

• How do you suggest gaining an audience for a blog? How best to drive traffic your way initially?

Here’s the short version, followed by a longer, more detailed explanation:

Define your audience and your mission first. Then find out who else is blogging on similar topics and get to know these blogs. That means doing your homework – reading the blogs, commenting when you have something worth sharing, and participating in the online conversations. And don’t forget to link to these blogs. Many will return the favor.

Now for the longer version:

Start by identifying your audience and determining your purpose for the blog. To accomplish that, I suggest a prospective blogger first answer these three questions:

1. Who is my audience? If it’s a blog by students at your university, the primary audience is probably prospective students and their parents. If the PR shop is creating the blog, the audience could be as broad as “all visitors to our university website” or as specialized as “alumni interested in our university’s research” or “alumni of the English department.”

2. What do I want to tell them? You’ve got to have something to say. Make a list of the key topics. It helps to ask members of your audience what they’re interested in hearing about from your university. If your audience consists mainly of alumni from the English department, find out what they want to know about the department, and then use the blog to tell them and talk about those issues.

3. How do I want them to react? What do you want the end result to be from your blogging? Do you want to give prospective students a glimpse into everyday life at your college? Do you want to impress alumni with the breadth of your research projects or academic offerings? Do you want to encourage alumni to donate more money – perhaps for a campaign or for a specific project?

Once you answer those questions, start looking around the blogosphere to find out what other bloggers are doing. A good place to start is Technorati, where you can search some 70 million blogs by keywords and rank them based on their authority.

• What top tips can you provide for building a successful blog?

1. Don’t blog in a vacuum. If you have something to say about a topic, find out what other bloggers are saying, find out whether you agree with them or not, link to them, comment on their views, and build rapport. Be engaged and informed about the topic.

2. Let your own voice shine. One of the beautiful things about blogging is that individual voices – the voices of real people – can cut through the clutter of institutional speak or “press release speak.”

3. Post frequently.

4. Be visible in other venues. Write articles for relevant websites, present at conferences, etc., and plug your blog anywhere and everywhere you can.

• How were you able to get people to participate on your blog and truly start a conversation?

It’s tough to get people to comment sometimes – especially now that so many of us read blogs via RSS feeds. That makes it easier to aggregate content but more of a hassle to leave comments and participate. I’m sometimes surprised at what topics spur conversation or blog comments. (Of course, on our name change blog at UMR, we had a controversial topic – changing the name of the institution – and that attracted plenty of conversation.) Unless you’re going to write about politics, professional sports or other pursuits that get people riled up, you’re probably not going to get a lot of comments. But if you provide intelligent, thoughtful and interesting posts to the blogosphere, you’re contributing something and participating in a greater conversation. Sometimes the conversation is linking to others talking about the same topic, or related topics. Sometimes we as bloggers tend to obsess on our unique visitor counts or comments and forget that we should be visiting other sites and commenting – not just expecting everyone to come to us. We need to spread it around.

• With your experiences as director of communications at UMR, what suggestions do you have for dealing with adverse blogs?

So far, we’ve been fortunate in that we haven’t had to deal with much adversity from the blogosphere. After we announced our plans to change the university’s name to Missouri University of Science and Technology, we saw a few bloggers (mostly on MySpace) complaining about the move. I did engage a couple of those bloggers in comments just to clarify a couple of items, but most of those blogs were not what I would call influential. They aren’t highly ranked in terms of traffic or links, so it wasn’t worth the effort. We simply monitor such sites through Technorati and stay aware of what people are saying about us in the blogosphere.

Remember to visit Andrew’s blog for his thoughts on everything higher ed marketing and PR, and check out his laundry list of higher education blog links. Tell him Teresa sent you ;).

-- Teresa Valerio Parrot

Posted by Meredith Simpson at 01:57 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

My friends over at Stein Communications did me a big favor today. I am working with IPFW to help them shift their University Relations and Communications department from being totally focused on print to being focused on communications in the much broader sense…and specifically, on embracing digital media more fully. It struck me that Stein and a lot of other creative firms inside and outside of higher education, have gone through a massive paradigm shift in the last 5-8 years.

Stein was 100% a print-focused firm 5 years ago. But, then they hired Terry Hamrick, who I have dubbed Stein’s “electronic communication evangelist.” Terry spurred massive change at Stein. The organization that was once totally focused on providing print solutions to colleges is now a leader in the interactive world. How did they go about supporting this change? Who did they have to hire? Who did they have to retrain? How did they bring together the wild-haired designers from the “print side” with the geeks from the “Web side?” They explained how they managed this transition to the folks at IPFW today and one of the attendees at IPFW told me he “took four pages of notes.” It strikes me that most colleges are trying to manage a similar transition and organizations like Stein that have already been through it can provide some good advice on how to organize your print organization for a Web world. Hey guys, how about doing a session on this at the AMA. Well, in the meantime, everyone can settle for reading your newsletter.

-- Elizabeth Scarborough

Posted by Meredith Simpson at 04:27 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

My colleague, Meredith Simpson, alerted me to a “blog” entitled Morse Code by Robert Morse, rankings guru for USN&WR. He comments, among other things, on the statement released by independent college presidents during The Annapolis Group’s annual meeting, in which they said they would decline to participate in USN&WR’s annual survey.

I think it is important to note that the Wikipedia definition of blog includes the following text: “The ability for readers to leave comments in an interactive format is an important part of many blogs.” Mr. Morse’s blog does not allow for comments. By his own definition, “Morse Code provides deeper insights into the methodologies and is a forum for commentary and analysis of college, grad and other rankings.” Did you see the word “forum?” Again, where is the ability for a conversation on the site? This isn’t a forum or a venue for comments, this is Mr. Morse’s site to defend his methodology. Period.

Mr. Morse, I encourage you to allow for message postings on your blog site. If you run the ballot box for the largest college and university popularity contest, you should allow for comments on the voting process. Bring the definition of blog and forum to life… and if you do, consider me a repeat visitor to your blog.

-- Teresa Valerio Parrot

Posted by Meredith Simpson at 09:40 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Kenny Aronoff, a good buddy who was John Mellencamp’s drummer for 17 years and now is one of the most in-demand percussionists worldwide, kicked off a European tour last Friday at famed Wembley Arena in London.

At his invitation, my best friend and I flew over for the show, pre- and post-festivities and, we hoped, two day’s witness to all the trappings of the rock star life. What we learned from seeing the 62-year-old John Forgarty, former front man for Credence Clearwater Revival in the 60’s and 70’s, is a perfect lesson for higher education marketing leaders.

Fogarty drew more than 7,000 fans on day one, and then was slated to play before 100,000-plus at a mega concert the next night in Germany. How does a guy who hasn’t changed a lick in a generation-plus still maintain such a dedicated following?

He differentiates from the competition, and then integrates his assets in everything he does. At the sound check Fogarty was in jeans, white shirt and hardly stood out from the crowd. At the show, he was in a checkered shirt and red bandana against a giant backdrop of a swamp scene reminiscent of the Louisiana bayou. To the crowd he talked, it seemed, with a Cajun accent, though he is from the San Francisco Bay area.

And through his hits – from “Proud Mary” to “Born on the Bayou” – he had the crowd eating from his proverbial hand. Outside the arena, the London-based crowd was six-deep buying tee shirts, bandanas and a gaggle of other bayou-related Fogarty apparel.

“He just keeps doing what he does well,” Kenny told us backstage. “It is an art.”

And we can all learn from that. Fogarty has a single message and brand, one that differentiates him from competitors – from Jimmy Buffett to Tom Petty to Neil Young. He has worked hard to build and maintain that brand, and he has treasured it. College and university marketers must do the same.

Develop a clear, succinct brand that differentiates, and then keep your eyes focused on that message. Not for a year or two, but as far out as we can see. That is how to make the big time.

-- Christopher Simpson

Posted by Meredith Simpson at 04:40 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Finally, a unified stance against US News & World Report – and from an unlikely source.

Many attempts have been made in the last decade to derail the influence of the dreaded USN&WR annual rankings. But until the Annapolis Group, a small but influential liberal arts consortium, took aim at the magazine this week, those attempts failed.

No more.

The New York Times detailed a decision made by “dozens” of independent liberal arts college presidents to boycott participation in the USN&WR survey used as the basis of their annual rankings. The presidents were attending the Annapolis Group’s annual meeting of approximately 80 college presidents and announced their decision at the conclusion of the event.

Their reasoning, as outlined by The New York Times, is that “the ranking system lacks rigor and has had a harmful effect on education priorities, encouraging colleges to do things like soliciting more applicants and then rejecting them, to move up the list.” The participating presidents are going to “develop their own system of comparing institutions. The group intends to work with other higher education organizations to come up with a common format with comparable data.”

I applaud the presidents for taking on such an arduous task, I agree with their assessment of the limitations of the USN&WR approach and I wish them well in their journey. But, I have to say I think I might approach this situation a bit differently if I were in their shoes.

This past spring I conducted a series of focus groups with high school students and learned that they employ a variety of online search engines and ranking tools to choose where to apply, but ALL of them used these tools. Those websites and guides with mainstream names were used more often then those with less cache. Even if dozens of presidents launch a new ranking system, will students understand why and choose their assessment tool over that used by USN&WR? Will their counselors? The renegade group shouldn’t just develop a survey instrument and ranking methodology, they should develop a marketing campaign, too.

As for the presidents feeling guilt for accepting more applications to then reject them… the students also indicated they are applying to a larger number of schools then previous research showed so that the students could have their pick of institutions. It’s a two way street.

When I was in high school my mom told me that if nominated for Homecoming queen, even if you don’t really want the crown, make sure you vote for yourself in the polling because there is no second chance. A high school popularity contest has similarities to a college and university popularity contest, even when the popularity contest is between colleges and universities.

Just because the presidents are boycotting the process, that doesn’t mean that the process won’t go on without them. But I admire the foresight of the Annapolis Group, and I encourage them to develop a new survey instrument and overcome the bias of the USN&WR approach, but don’t forget to vote for yourself and those institutions you think provide strong educational opportunities. There’s no going back.

-- Teresa Valerio Parrot

Posted by Meredith Simpson at 09:51 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Does everyone know what WOMMA is? It’s the Word of Mouth Marketing Association and we should all be members. They define word of mouth as “the act of consumers providing information to other consumers,” and they define word of mouth marketing as “giving people a reason to talk about your products and services, and making it easier for that conversation to take place.”

Most college and university marketers would probably admit that word of mouth is critical to their image and reputation building efforts. Yet, I don’t know of any who have coordinated strategies for stimulating or harnessing word of mouth. That’s why I recruited Andy Sernovitz to speak at the 2007 AMA Symposium in San Diego this November.

Andy is the author of "Word of Mouth Marketing: How Smart Companies Get People Talking", former CEO of the Word of Mouth Marketing Association (WOMMA), and Lecturer at Northwestern University. He’s going to talk about finding the right people to talk about your school (influencers and evangelists), giving them something to talk about (viral email, samples, buzz, and more), creating tools to make it easier for them to talk to each other (blogs, discussions, tell-a-friend forms), participating in the conversation, and tracking and measuring results. Buy his book ahead of time and check out his blog to learn more.

-- Elizabeth Scarborough

Posted by Meredith Simpson at 09:28 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

In honor of CT Turner’s entry on Margaret Spellings’ appearance on The Daily Show, I’m going to also mention that she appeared on “Celebrity Jeopardy!” last November. If Diana was the people’s princess, perhaps Spellings is the people’s cabinet secretary.

PS—She came in second to the guy who played Lenny on “Laverne & Shirley” and was on SNL. Guess you can’t win them all.

-- Teresa Valerio Parrot

Posted by Meredith Simpson at 02:38 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Let me get this straight: lacrosse players toss a party, ante up to purchase the services of two African American strippers, things get out of hand, rape charges are filed by one of the dancers, three players are suspended by Duke officials who then fire the lacrosse coach and halt the season. Ah, justice served before the facts are known.

Meanwhile, an overzealous Durham, NC district attorney tramples on torts 101 while capitalizing on his 15 minutes of fame. He is relieved of his duties, charges are filed by the state Bar association, he is found guilty and then disbarred.

What more do we need to know?

As the dust settles, Duke is finally exonerated, they want you to believe, until this: within 72 hours of District Attorney Mike Nifong being disbarred and mere hours after one of the three suspended lacrosse players – who has transferred to Brown University – appeared on the Today Show, Duke announces they have reached an undisclosed financial settlement with the three players.

Keystone cops have invaded a wonderful private university.

My angst stems from a recent telephone call from a senior Duke administrator three weeks ago who wanted to take me to task for my comments in the media second guessing their crisis strategy. The administrator, who will remain nameless, wanted to debate Duke’s wonderful handling of the controversy that drew horribly negative headlines internationally. I refused to engage in the debate and stuck by my comments which ran in major newspapers and on ESPN, stunned at how blind Duke brass can be to the obvious.

To pay off the players likely makes good sense. Routinely such settlements have gag clauses that mandate neither side can further discuss the issue publicly. Toss dollar signs at the players, coupled with Nifong’s disbarment and this may well put an end to this sordid story.

But at what price? Duke’s buyout of the players affirms what the rest of us have known for months: their actions in times of crisis are a textbook example of what not to do. And the Duke brand, rarely sullied in its proud past, is tarnished badly due to inept crisis communications.

-- Christopher Simpson

Posted by Teresa Valerio Parrot at 04:58 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

When Secretary of Education Margaret Spellings recently appeared on The Daily Show, she became the only sitting member of the Executive Branch ever to talk with Jon Stewart. As I watched the interview there was one point that stuck out above all in my mind. Stewart asked her how she would improve education and gave her a few of his own ideas. She quickly pointed out the extremely disjointed nature of our K-12 system of education in the U.S. She stated that Health and Human Services is responsible for the food pyramid guidelines, that the Department of Agriculture is responsible for student health issues and that the Department of Education is responsible for “the school stuff” – but the curriculum and textbook choices are handled by local jurisdictions.

This is a perfect illustration of how our approach to education neglects to put the person at the forefront. What can be said about K-12 education can also be said about colleges and universities. Too many times we break apart pieces of our organizations – parsing them out to experts in each area – then never have the energy or buy-in to bring them all at hand to look at how they TOGETHER affect education.

When did we abandon the education of the whole person – mind, body and spirit? Just a few weeks ago Harvard changed its curriculum to require a religion course . While I don’t advocate our colleges and universities becoming extensions of religious sects, we are remiss not to have a discussion about spirituality on campus.

If you think I’m off the mark, just look at the literature that Astin – the guru of student learning in higher education – and the folks at UCLA uncovered: “A 2004 survey of 112,000 college freshmen found that nearly half of them say they are seeking opportunities to grow spiritually. But once at school, nearly half of all students are dissatisfied with the opportunities for ‘spiritual reflection,’ according to the survey by the Higher Education Research Institute (HERI) at the University of California, Los Angeles.”

In 2005, Newsweek and Beliefnet partnered on a poll which found that “79% of Americans prayed at least once a week” and that 57% of Americans say “spirituality is very important in their daily lives”.

If half of our students are seeking spiritual growth, and half say they do not have enough opportunities for spiritual reflection, shouldn’t we realize that this is a vital element of educating the whole person? While religious debate and discussion can’t be a major component of every class, neither can it be relegated solely to dorm room conversations at 3am.

Besides students’ desire for thought and reflection on spirituality, take a look at the violence happening in the name of religion around the world. Is it not the responsibility of everyone – especially educators – to encourage discussions on this globally relevant topic? Shouldn’t we be discussing the roles of spirituality and government in our country and the delicate balance of church and state? “In the end, we may realize that spirituality, a vital component to living a full life for many Americans, has an important place in higher education.”

-- CT Turner

Posted by CT Turner at 10:24 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Click here to hear Jeff Young’s podcast interview of Stanford University’s Daniel Colman. Mr. Colman blogs on podcasting efforts and specifically podcasting applications for academia. Although the podcasting applications discussed in the interview are predominantly academic in nature, you might want to hear Mr. Colman’s thoughts on sharing lectures that are community-based and event-based and whether or not podcasting lectures “gives away the store.” The discussion also covers the potential uses of podcasting and the rising prominence of academic podcasts on iTunes.

On Mr. Colman’s blog, be sure to check out his “Podcast Primer” and his listings of academic podcast samples.

-- Teresa Valerio Parrot

Posted by Meredith Simpson at 10:48 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

I’m basically on a different college campus three times a week. And, nary a week goes by without a client asking me for ideas on how to march upward in the U.S. News rankings. So, a couple of weeks ago I started looking at which institutions have moved up significantly in the last ten years. The Chronicle has a web site where it's clearly laid out who has moved up and down in the rankings from 1983 to 2007. Surely, there must be some “best practices” in the case studies of institutions who have popped way up the list, right?

Well, maybe not. I spoke to the director of institutional research at one college that jumped way up the list of national liberal arts colleges between 1995 and 2006 and was told it was primarily the changes in the way the rankings are calculated that led to her institution’s improved ranking. What? So, we don’t need to do umpteen mailings to presidents and deans? We don’t need to improved alumni giving, student satisfaction, or retention? Maybe not. Over the long-term, the cumulative changes in the calculations may be your college’s best shot for moving up in the rankings. Maybe we should spend more time lobbying U.S. News on the factors WE want them to use when constructing the formulas.

Sometimes it doesn't actually take long for the changes to take effect. What happened at Haverford College in 1992? Their ranking was 8th that year but it was 21st the year before. And, what happened in 2003, they were 10th that year, but 5th the year before.

From 1995 to 2006, four institutions took major jumps up in the rankings (see image below). Davidson moved from 21st to 11th. Hamilton moved up to 17th from 23rd. Carleton went from 11th to 6th. And, Claremont McKenna moved from 16th to 12th. I would love to hear from these institutions what THEY believe are the factors that contributed most significantly to their improved rankings. Please write back and let us know!

Anyway, my new favorite answer when clients ask me how to improve their rankings is, “hope they change the formula so that the new calculation puts you higher on the list.”

-- Elizabeth Scarborough

Posted by Elizabeth Scarborough at 06:07 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

At the University of Massachusetts at Boston commencement in May, Governor Deval Patrick outlined his $1 billion “cradle to career” education plan, which the Boston Globe described as “provid[ing] preschool for all children, extend the school day and year, and guarantee two years of community college paid for by the state.” With my liberal tendencies, I am leaping with joy at the thought of extending free education for the masses and strengthening the public education available to students during the critical P-12 years.

But having said that, if Governor Patrick’s plan comes to fruition, it will have a tremendous impact on the numerous colleges and universities in the state. I heard anecdotally last week while working with a college in Boston that there are over 200 institutions of higher education in the greater Boston area. Each institution is in a fight to cut through the clutter and make themselves known to prospective students. With the governor’s plan, they will need to make the case for their institution that much stronger for graduating high school seniors and then again for community college transfers. More than ever, if the institutions in Massachusetts haven’t yet launched comprehensive integrated marketing and branding plans to build their images and reputations, they should start now. If they wait for the outcome of the new governor’s plan, it might be too late.

-- Teresa Valerio Parrot

Posted by Meredith Simpson at 04:51 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

ARROGANT.

I have no other conclusion in looking back at the reaction by Duke University and its well-heeled brethren who are sobbing in their tangerine martinis over the horrible injustice doled out on their men’s lacrosse team. How arrogant has the Duke administration become?

What a disappointing finale that the men’s lacrosse team lost the NCAA men’s finals in an epic duel with Johns Hopkins on Sunday. Wouldn’t it have been a wonderful story had Duke prevailed – atonement to the miscarriage of justice heaped on these wonderful young future leaders of our country?

What BS, as I have noted in countless media interviews and blog postings. The three Duke lacrosse players implicated wrongfully in the scandal splashed across the national media were "tossed under the bus" by – Duke. Recall that the administration, when the proverbial headlines hit the fan, dismissed the coach and then the players, ending the season for a promising team. They washed their hands of these young men and then hid behind the ivy covered walls designed to keep the Durham folks on the other side.

A district attorney then ran amok, the players were acquitted and all lived happily ever after. Or did they?

That erroneous conclusion would ignore the horrendous handling of the scandal by the administration and the reams of evidence that these players and their teammates were anything other than choir boys. John Feinstein, one of the nation’s preeminent sports writers, called out the Duke administration in a brilliant column in Wednesday’s Washington Post.

And don’t hammer me because I echoed Feinstein’s thoughts, or vice versa. Applaud the fact that one – and only one – prominent sports journalist had the courage to pull back the curtain on Duke athletics and paint a vivid, accurate picture.

Touché, I say.

-- Christopher Simpson

Posted by Meredith Simpson at 09:52 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)