During Spring Break, the campus is not the only place that becomes a ghost town. Usually during this time our social media channels also end up taking a breather. At Hamilton, we’ve seen less of that because of The Scroll: students are able to share their alternative spring break, choir tour, spring training and travel …
Continue reading “How #LonelyAlex Had the Best Worst Week Ever”
When launching The Scroll last year, I was met with a lot of confusion. ‘What does it do?’ and ‘How much time does THAT take?’ became ones I was very used to – and happy to! – answer (Scroll is my baby, of course!). The secret is: it really doesn’t take that much more work. …
Continue reading “Curation over Aggregation – Easier Than You Think”
Social. SoMe. SocMed. Whatever you shorten it to, as professionals in its application, we know what you’re talking about: social media. But how often do we see in posts, articles and titles ‘Social Marketing’? For me the answer is: too often. Social Marketing is a communications discipline rooted in consumer behavior change for the common …
Continue reading “‘Social Marketing’ is NOT Social Media Marketing”
In building a great integrated social media public awareness campaign, we afford a lot of time, effort and research to writing great email/web/poster/direct mail copy, designing images we wish to ‘go viral’ and developing landing pages we hope engage our reader. Like me, I’m sure you’re often asked after any social media endeavor, ‘Did it …
Continue reading “Social Media Awareness Campaigns – Did It Work?”
By now, most of us have been able to achieve some level of institutional buy in required to either test or use social media at some level within our universities. The issue we are now struggling with is how do we begin to use it ‘well’. While we are all still testing – and while …
One week ago today I was lucky enough to speak at Higher Ed Open Mic put on by Eduventures during the American Marketing Association’s Higher Education Symposium in Boston. It was a fantastic event with a great crowd, drinks, snacks, prizes and yes, great speakers. I told myself that I was going to tone down …
Continue reading ““Are We Doing Our F*$%ing Jobs?” – A Love Letter to Negative Social Media”
If you’ve been watching #AdvancementLive, reading fundraiser’s tweets or work in close proximity to your annual fund office, you’ve no doubt been hearing the buzz regarding crowdfunding. For those of us in social media it seems like a concept we – as frequent crowdsourcers – can easily understand, only in this respect you ask your …
Continue reading “Why Crowdfunding is Not a Social Media Strategy”
There. I said it. With orientation in the air and students returning to campus, some seem to be faced with the worry of what they did this summer. What they’ve Tweeted, Instagrammed, Snapchatted and Facebooked. Did they tweet out a threat and ask people to make it viral to see what happened? Did they post …
Continue reading “No: We Do Not Need to Teach Social Media to Freshmen (Rant)”
You see it every day: an institution asks its audience via social media to participate in a contest, provide content or in some way promote their name by sharing posts with their expanded networks. These campaigns help solidify that we are players in the social media conversations that we are repeatedly told are ever so …
Continue reading “Elements of a Great (Institutional) Social Media Strategy”
Coming out of an existential funk, I’m finally reading the books I’ve accumulated over the past few months but havent had the passion to pick up. It’s no mistake that two of these are by David Ogilvy. No, I’m not an advertiser, although I’ve often dreamed of working at an ad agency (pre-Mad Men craze). …
Continue reading “Surprise! You’re actually a brand manager!”
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