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Much Love, #HigherEd Tweeps.

My head is spinning – but in a good way. After coming back from HighEdWeb Regional at Vassar, watching the #PSEWeb conference Tweets, following #PSUWeb10 + #hesmlaw online, catching a few EduComm moments, among others, my brain is abuzz with new ideas, questions, strategies and overall #highered love.

Taking a step back, I see all the opportunities that lay before us: individually at our respective schools, and collectively as a thought leading team. In no other position have I felt the momentum and urgency to learn more, try harder, and most of all, to be humbled by the ever-changing environment and those forging ahead in it. Seeing all that we do – including the not so great moments – helps keep me sane, because I know all of you are also going through the same thing and can be a shoulder, an ear and a resource.

It’s hard to determine where to start. I find that returning from a conference or after being a part of great conversations online I want to do everything. Right now. Knowing that can’t happen makes it difficult to get going on just one thing but being able to prioritize – both what is right for the audience and what is right for the internal politics – can put the earth back under your toes.

With that in mind, I just wanted to say a thank you. To all of you for what you do, how you do it, and your ability to turn with the tide and ride it out fully. You truly make this position the best challenge and learning experience a girl could ask for. It’s the difference between just a job, and a chosen career.

Much Love.

Personal Branding: Be Yourself, Leave the Labels

Lately, I realize that I’ve been fretting a little too much about what I ‘do’ and how ‘others’ perceive me in the work place. Yes, we all should be conscious of how we come across to others, but part of that maybe should not be the label we put on ourselves.

Chris Brogan’s blog post today, “It’s Easy to Get Discouraged’, really opened that up for me. Also, I found a negative review of my old blog ‘Viraligious’ from 2 years ago. While I was wallowing, I read this post and realized that I was being my own worst enemy. A friend (thanks Devin!) on Twitter then brought to my attention that the review was actually only partially negative: it was also complimentary.

Why do we just glaze over the positive and shoot right to the negative? In my work life, I’m often introduced or referred to as ‘the one who does social media’. I started to get worried that I was getting typecast: I do other things! I started to really educate myself on SEO, analytics and other web concepts. I realized that I could be well rounded without feeling pigeon holed. That being known as someone who’s good at something doesnt mean I do other things badly.

How many times do we do this as professionals? Leave the good and run with the bad? As more and more frequently ‘personal branding’ is discussed, maybe we’re too harsh on ourselves and becoming something else. We should do our best work, be who we are and feel confident that being our best selves is who we want to be. Not a title. Not a position.

Hey Facebook: Who do You Think You Are?!

If you’re like me, you’re up in arms about Facebook’s recently revealed changes. Not only from a personal level with all of the privacy issues, but also from a business perspective in higher ed and beyond. This brings up a lot of issues across the board for everyone: personal users, professional users, the government. Wow, way to really eff up, Facebook!

From an SEO perspective, the ‘Like this’ function is something to consider. Do we all run out and immediately add it to our web pages and blogs? Sure you’ll get instant traffic, but is it an added step in what otherwise would have been found and shared content? Sharing content in Facebook is nothing new: people use several different ways to do this, be it Stumble Upon, Google, or just simply cut and pasting.

This week’s Whiteboard Friday from SEO MOZ sums it up: Facebook thinks it can out Google – Google. Liking is not truly bookmarking. Its sharing. How often do you share web content versus how often you bookmark items. Also, do you primarily share content in Facebook or do you do it more so in Twitter? I’d argue that those who are web savvy enough to really use the ‘Like This’ button are those savvy enough to not see its benefit. And to think that ‘Liking’ could be a new or better way to search is interesting, but not nearly an earth shatteringly new idea. Thats why we have dedicated sites like Yelp and Blip.fm – to share content you like with others. Can Facebook take on being better at what all these other services already do while also taking down Google? I think not.

And using Wikipedia for the new ‘Community Pages’? How lazy is that? Is Facebook having a personality disorder? On one hand its showing lofty Google goals, on the other is zapping privacy and acting like a hungover college student copying from the internet for a final paper.

Facebook should concentrate on being who it is and stop trying to find ways to monetize. Its only making it suck.

Viral Marketing: What We Can Learn From Furniture Sales

That’s right: furniture sales. Think about it. You can buy furniture anywhere: department stores, big box stores, name brand stores, heck, even your local CVS or Walgreens has some form of furniture for the desperate college student or single gal. Then, there’s the furniture store. You have to trek to them, spend the day there, do research, measure, plan, etc. Furniture sales people have a lot of competition!

Obviously, this is why we see so many ‘crazy’ types of commercials. These may help to differentiate them between other less colorful vendors, but, I wonder if it affords them less brand credibility in the long run. Is there a way for them to differentiate yet still maintain credibility in a competitive environment?

Enter Jordan’s furniture. They’ve done an excellent job in knowing their audience. Rather than produce poor quality commercials that showcase some ‘crazy’ deals or a concocted zany personality, they focus on an easy ‘get’: Red Sox fans. Their most recent campaign is around any Red Sox player hitting the baseball on the Jordan’s Furniture signage in Fenway Park. Not only does it connect their store to a New England tradition, but it keeps the consumer engaged through the length of the entire season.

How can you do that? What’s your ‘get’?

Content and Offers: Why Should I Give You My Information?

Information. Its our golden ticket when it comes to converting leads into sales. Or, better than that, people who don’t know us into brand ambassadors. But how do we get there? We’re all consumers; what makes us as individuals in our daily lives hand over our contact information? With the junk mail and spam we get on a regular basis, what really gets us to say its worth it? Its all about two things: content and offers.

When you are asking a web visitor to provide contact information, they rightly may be hesitant. Its your job to move them from worried to seeing this as beneficial to them. Bottom line is that its about THEM not YOU. Sure you may have segmented your messaging to them, but truly, is it a benefit to them or to you? What are you providing me – immediately – that is for my benefit and not yours? Offers can be seen as altruistic or as sales pitches. You need to be careful when providing offers so that they do add to the community and aren’t just a ploy to get names and leads.

What does your customer want? What will make life easier for them? Is it connections to others like them? Is it information that you have access to that you can provide for free? These offers are what allow clients to give up their privacy and provide their information to you, because, they see that there is a benefit and that you are a trusted resource.

Content. It really is king. It allows you to be seen as a thought leader and to bring people to your conversations. Its not about pulling or pushing. Its about providing something of use for the overall gain of the community. Its this goodwill that builds rapport with your customer base. By doing this, you may not close sales quickly, but the goodwill you gain will ultimately gain you entry into a much larger base of opportunity than just push marketing ever will.

Help: How Do I Tweet? A Top Five

I’ve had more than one friend ask me to help them to Tweet something in short notice. Its hard not to come off Twitter elitist, but really, jumping into tweeting is something one should not take lightly. Here’s my top five ways to begin to learn the obsession that is Twitter.

1. Find a yoda: If you’re even considering it, you must know someone who does it. Ask them for help. Most Tweeps that I know will be more than happy to sit with you and walk you patiently through what, to them, is second nature. As them why they use Twitter and get concrete examples. I’m sure they’ll tell you that they use it not only to blurt and to do research, but that they meet several people and build lasting personal and professional relationships. And who doesn’t love that?

2. Learn the vernacular: Not sure how to add to someone’s ‘Twitter page’? Curious how you ‘become a fan’ of someone? You def need to have a hand holding so that, when you try to do this professionally, you dont automatically alienate those that you are trying to engage. To step into their world without learning the language is just as offensive as traveling abroad with nothing but your American English. Dont be ‘that guy’.

3. RTs, @replies, DMs and Hashs: Learn fully what each entails, not only how to do it, but the courtesy behind each. You dont want to DM someone you just found via search, because, you cant unless they’ve added you. If you only post without @replying you arent a part of the community, you’re spam. Figure out how the community interacts and remember it – take notes.

4. Twitter Search & Recommendations: Ask your yoda for who they follow. Even if you arent in the same industry or have the same likes, have them give you 3 generic people to follow and 2 topical. Have them show you Twitter Search and how to use it to follow people. Maybe ask for one of their lists to also watch without cluttering your main feed.

5. Practice, Practice, Practice. Personally: Dont expect to jump right into Twitter for professional reasons, either for work or for building your career right away. Give yourself time to play and learn and build a base. Add Twitter to your mobile phone to really understand the interactivity of it all.

Special thanks to MF for her questions and ability to understand that I’m not a Twitter Diva – but that I just want her to do it right and benefit. Much love for the inspiration for the post. 🙂

Landing Pages are Great, But What About the Rest?

Building on the previous post on PPC campaigns in higher ed, I wanted to talk a bit more about my disdain PPC. Not so much as a practice, since I understand its use for collecting leads. But about the importance it puts on such a limited web presence.

I’m not sure about others, but our web team is rather small. Two people in the communications office to be exact. When it comes to really being able to build out pages, that narrows it down to one. When that person is left to build out pages for such specific information gathering campaigns, it kind of irks me. Here’s why: the same attention is not paid to the rest of the content on the web.

I’m sure we all agree that more engaged users come through organic search. In my mind, this is because people that come to our site searched and found that we actually HAVE the content they are looking for. Or at least have pages that rank for it. Now for landing pages, people come in and bounce out. They may fill out a form, which was the goal, but do they stay and find out more on their own? Shouldnt this be the true measure of if they are interested in us or just the subject?

Point being, my confusion around leads: leads are great, applications are great, but if they dont translate into enrolled, retained students, whats the point? If someones not really interested in you, are you spending money for leads that never blossom into graduates?

PPC in Higher Ed: Worth it?

I’ve been sitting in on more and more advertising meetings and still, I dont get it. I see myself as a savvy internet marketer, but when it comes to PPC for our market, I just dont get it. Are we really appropriately reaching students and parents via PPC search engine placements or banners?

The problem here becomes twofold: college choice is very heavily reliant on branding and personal preference. Harvard and Yale have a much easier time getting attention and brand recognition than smaller, lesser known schools. Also, because these schools are so sought after, they can more accurately target their student body by carving out exactly who they want to accept. This also helps elevate the schools status as they only accept ‘the best’ and it can be competitive to get in. Although the current economy has made this a little bit harder for schools with excellent brands, you still cant deny that a final four school will be better off than a little underdog – especially if price is similar.

Second, as mentioned above, college comes down ultimately, in most cases, to cost. How much financial aid a student is given, or how much a family can afford to pay also plays a huge part in college choice. Although you may have a college age child, seeing a Harvard ad doesnt do much if you cant afford the tuition (or dont have the grades, or Boston is too far from home).

With this said, how does PPC factor in? Its a pretty hefty sum for just brand awareness. In my mind, there are other things you can do with that money – like sponsor a local event with great press, put on a contest or build a fun, risky microsite – that may do you so much better. These things build content and buzz. They take on a life. They are a shared experience.

If these all result in names of prospects and the added bonus of good PR, isnt that better than clicks that are mostly wasteful?

Its not ‘Social Marketing’ its ‘Social Media Marketing’

Lets start some definitions, shall we? From Wikipedia:

“Social marketing (not to be confused with societal marketing or social media marketing) is the systematic application of marketing, along with other concepts and techniques, to achieve specific behavioral goals for a social good.^[1] Social marketing can be applied to promote merit goods, or to make a society avoid demerit goods and thus to promote society’s well being as a whole. For example, this may include asking people not to smoke in public areas, asking them to use seat belts, or prompting to make them follow speed limits.”

“Social media marketing is a term that describes use of social networks, online communities, blogs, wikis or any other online collaborative media for marketing, sales, public relations and customer service. Common social media marketing tools include Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook, Flickr, Wikipedia, Orkut and YouTube.”

Ugh. “How are professionals still interchanging these terms and sounding like idiots?” I think this to myself every time I see this mistake. It rattles me more than it should because social marketing is the reason I went on to grad school and attended the school that I did (Emerson Shoutout!). Social marketing is affecting change for the greater good. As I try to be more tolerant I decided that maybe social media marketing can become social marketing.

As organizations move to engage consumers through social media, perhaps those that use it in a more altruistic way will be changing the way consumers live their lives for the better. Those that ‘do it wrong’ will still be seeing minor successes in their bottom line but not fully take advantage of the place they could hold in clients lives by being helpful.

Dont get me wrong, all communication with a brand will affect their bottom line. But what if that relationship building was more than push communication and led to what was best for the consumer rather than the company, even if it meant a lost sale. Is a lost sale worth its weight in WOM buzz?

FYI I dont even like the idea of ‘social media marketing’ as a term. That makes it sound like just your same old marketing crap. Why not relationship building or community management?

Image courtesy of Amazon.com

Yelp This

*Gulp* What, you may ask, has finally wracked me from my blogging slumber? Well, its the recent continued issue with Yelp’s business practices. Apparently, they are offering to ‘move’ negative comments as a service for $299 a month. Huh?

I was just starting to consider lighting a fire under my ass to get on Yelp more. You know I – little Miss Anti-Vendor – was very against any business pitches professionally, but then curious about becoming an active contributing member personally. With this in mind, that will not be happening.

What really woke me from my stupor was this in conjunction with a meeting I recently had. The topic of management of virtual relationships came up. Sure its great to create and maintain content, but who is going to – and the appropriate person to – maintain the actual relationships via social media? This to me goes hand in hand with a listening strategy and begin authentic.

How much do you insert yourself into the conversations that are happening about your brand, and how much do you just sit back and observe? Take back to your project teams the feedback you stumble upon and most likely they’ll ask you ‘well, what did you respond to that with?’ The point is, should you? And if so, how can you deliver change? Can you, personally do so? I’d assume in most cases, you cant. And, if you cant, are people invested enough in making a change, and if not, then why are you even reporting back? Its like people who want to spend money on social media listening products like Radian 6 or Sentiment Metrics but then not use the data that they find to make a better product or service. Whats the point?

Bottom line, social media by nature is social and open. It cannot be stifled or controlled, yet should be tended to and watered. You cant expect to yield results if you do not allow what you sow to grow and then be cultivated. You do not get to pick and choose the way the comments will go but you do get to be an active part of the conversation. Not a brand rah rah-er, but a representative who listens and provides a solution. What you gain from social media is personal connection to your consumers, not an easier way to push and pull them to think the way you do. Start thinking like them for a change and have a conversation instead of making it another printed publication that now resides online.

*Photo courtesy of Internet Defamation Blog.