I just read a really interesting article in Social Media Today outlining 5 social media pitfalls to avoid. The article describes how, "many marketers believe social media is a low risk, high reward channel," and warns of 5 pitfalls that will increase your risk and lower the reward, leading you down the path to "social mediocrity."

Are you forcing traditional metrics on social media? The article explains that the social media ROI model is different from models for traditional channels and you cannot use the same traditional modeling for social media because such models do not account for changes in the dynamic environment of social media.

Are you fostering a culture that aligns with the consumer expectations in this "always on" world? If not, you risk dealing with consumer backlash.

Are you focusing on short term wins instead of long term engagement? Marketers must understand how and where customers want to interact with their brand in order to add value.

Are you being trendy instead of strategic? It's a marketer's responsibility to figure out which platforms are right for both the brand and the consumer. If this isn't done correctly you risk becoming a social media/branding/financial fail.

Finally, are you not integrated and instead treating social media as a side experiment? Marketers need to throw out the "if we build it they will come" mentality and start integrating and directing consumers to brand initiatives.

If you said yes to any of the above you MUST read this article!

-- Renee Kart

Larry Lauer, Vice Chancellor for Marketing and Communication at TCU, is one of my favorite people in higher education marketing. I have no idea where I met him originally. I would be willing to bet it was over a drink at a cocktail party at some conference in Nashville or Chicago or Dallas or Denver. And, I'm sure we laughed and laughed.

Larry has been writing, practicing, studying, learning, and sharing about the marketing of higher education forever. And, now he is going to share his thoughts with us through his new blog. Received an email from him the other day saying that his colleagues had been encouraging him to write about his experiences.....good for them! Larry is going to write about the lessons he's learned through his 40 years in higher education. 

In his first post, Larry writes about how university administrators and faculty are reluctant to embrace marketing because they fear it will "commercialize the academy." We have all experienced and dealth with this. Just last week, I was reading an RFP from a school that asked the question, "Why aren't we better known?" and then responded to its own question by saying, "We want to be!" There is this odd desire and yearning for marketing but it's coupled with a fear to embrace it fully. We are in a challenging position, my friends.

Not to worry, however....we know how to approach this situation. We use sound research, we measure everything, we test, we reconfigure, we are honest, and we engage our community every step of the way in decisions regarding strategy. I bet we will hear about these things in Larry's blog. I, for one, am looking forward to reading it!

-Elizabeth Scarborough

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Next week, CollegeWeekLive will host over 40,000 teens in one huge online college fair. Admissions counselors from over 200 colleges and universities will be able to connect with these teens over a two day period.  Teens and their parents will be able to:

• Research all 200 schools within one website;
• Chat live with admissions counselors;
• Watch Q&A video webcasts with current students; and
• Hear presentations from experts on various admissions topics.

A survey conducted with over 200,000 CollegeWeekLive registrants in early March revealed that 79.7% of high school students use the web as their first step when researching schools. With a database of over 200,000, CollegeWeekLive will certainly provide many opportunities for those affiliated with higher ed to access those in the target market. 

Dana Edwards

SimpsonScarborough talked with Mark Van Tilburg, Executive Director, Office of Marketing and Communications at Youngstown State University about the image and identity study we recently conducted with them.

Q. Tell us about the various research SimpsonScarborough has conducted with Youngstown State University.
A. Initially, we working with SimpsonScarborough in a qualitative context to: 1) Review existing research, information, and data; 2) Analyze all marketing, communications, and media plans, including the current identification and segmentation of key audiences, and budgets; 3) Review digital communications including Web site and other key outreach efforts; and, 4) Conduct competitive analysis of three peer institutions that are in the same cohort as Youngstown State University, and three aspirational urban research universities.


Once completed, two members of the SimpsonScarborough team visited Youngstown State University to tour campus and the community, and to conduct a plethora of group and confidential one-on-one interviews with YSU's leadership and campus representatives focusing on the campus' impressions of marketing and communications operations. Messages and themes they share, both internally and externally, were compiled for analysis and recommendations. SimpsonScarborough also conducted 40 in-depth interviews (20-25 minutes in length) with prospective traditional undergraduate and prospective adult students in anticipation of and preparation for the in-depth qualitative study to follow. 

In Fall 2009, we again teamed with SimpsonScarborough, this time to conduct an in-depth quantitative study of 600 college-bound high school seniors and 300 parents of college-bound high school seniors.

Q. Why did YSU decide to do this study?
A. When I arrived at YSU in Fall 2008 I learned that the last comprehensive marketing research data dated back to 2002. Add to that the fact that the University is faced with a significant market repositioning challenge precipitated by the Ohio Board of Regents' "Strategic Plan for Higher Education 2008-2017," calling for YSU to transition from being an open-access, comprehensive regional university to being an "urban research university," and you can appreciate the BIG NEED for actionable research data. As we transition, we need to have a sense of what organic messages and descriptors resonate with our audiences, and how tightening admission requirements might impact our enrollment cycles and our marketing.

Q. What are the unique challenges of your competitive marketplace?
A. Ohio has more colleges and universities than almost any other state. For the past 40 years Northeast Ohio, where Youngstown is located, has faced major economic challenges as the steel industry and the manufacturing jobs associated with it have largely vanished. Having relied primarily on high-paying blue-collar employment for the last century, there has been little appreciation for the advantages of a college education until relatively recently. This has created a situation in which many of Youngstown State University's students are first-generation college students. Within this context, the University has maintained an open admissions policy. With its new charge from the Ohio Board of Regents to become an "urban research university," YSU faces a re-thinking of its admissions policies and an appropriate market repositioning, both of which are creating considerable debate and consternation internally and with our traditional public.

With the launch this year of a new community college in our traditional service area, it is hoped that students in need of remediation in one or more academic areas in order to become "university-ready" will be served by the community college, and then will be ready to transfer to the University. If successful, this will allow us to focus more resources on the development and marketing of more rigorous academic offerings that are associated with the nation's urban research universities.

Q. Do you recall anything surprising to you that was revealed by the research? If so, what?
A. The fact that most college-bound students in our region seem to have made up their minds on what school they want to attend by the end of their junior year. I was also interested in the wide disparity of impressions that inquirers and non-inquirers have about YSU's academic reputation.

Q. How do you plan to use and apply the findings of this study? What is next for YSU?
A. Obviously, we have to invest more in targeting freshman and sophomores. Also, our findings revealed that five messages resonate well and help showcase the distinctive nature of Youngstown State University's educational environment:

     1. YSU students work on projects with real clients in the community and online as a  
         teaching tool;
     2. At YSU, many undergraduates do graduate-level research in their junior and senior 
         years;
     3. Youngstown is in a "university town" where many of the activities in the area revolve 
         around the University;
     4. YSU is very diverse in terms of the racial and socio-economic profile of our students; 
         and,
     5. Most YSU students are able to manage part-time jobs in addition to their coursework.

Toward this reveal and to support a market repositioning of the University to support its new mission as an "urban research university," the Office of Marketing and Communications is focused on creating communications strategies and products that showcase these messages. We are also moving toward new efficiencies by migrating resources and activities away from the department's spending in traditional print and broadcast media to a far more robust investment in the University's Web site, new media, and Web 2.0 content creation.

A university Web site is the absolute number one tool administrators have that centers all their marketing and communications work; it is at the very core of their brand and must be managed with great content and design dexterity and integrity. This is why we are redoubling our efforts in this area to ensure that the rich content that is systemic to our institution can easily find its way to our Web site. Toward this effort we have invested in a new content management system that gives the real content experts (for our academic departments, that's the faculty, and for the administrative divisions, that's usually middle managers) a tool they can use themselves without hours of complex, rigorous training. Because it is so easy to use, we are finding that with this new system, people enjoy creating new content (including Web 2.0 applications) and updating old stuff. I believe this could represent a new paradigm shift in the way universities manage Web sites, helping give everyone that should and want to be involved real ownership and pride in creating and maintaining their Web sites.

- Renee Kart