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Better Social Media Executions: Three Best Practices for Colleges

Answer me this:

• How many websites and networks are you registered for?
• How many different passwords do you have out there?
• How many email addresses have you used and discarded along the way?
• Do you get a sense of panic when you have to answer a new generation of security question, wondering truly if your favorite color/food/pet will really be the same as it is today when you eventually forget your password?

Managing all these different identities and accounts is a hassle. Uploading your best photo (and re-uploading it when you find a better one). Filling out all the information. It’s creating a barrier to participating. Who has time for another account setup?

So why are so many colleges asking their potential students and alumni to do just that?

I recently wrote about four of the top colleges in social media. Ones that “got” their audience and came up with a clever strategy that made just the right connection.

But, they’re not the only ones out there with good ideas. Think of all the social media campaigns you’ve looked at and thought: well, that had a lot of potential. The idea was clever, but the execution? Just not there.

Often what’s missed is one of three simple best practices:

1. Make it easy.
   Don’t ask you audience to adopt a new behavior or even create a new account if you don’t have to. Leverage the tools they already use. Sync with their behavior. Be as creative with technology as you are with strategy.
   
   Who does it well: Barnard invites its alumni to connect via a private network. But it doesn’t take a new account to join, alums can just leverage their existing Facebook credentials to enter. 
   
   Stanford University uses the technology in its students’ pockets. Last school year, Stanford released a free iPhone application called iStanford that allows students to register for classes, look up campus maps and be able view the location of their friends on a map – instant messaging them if need be.
   


2. Use a personal voice
   I would argue that voice is the single most important element of a successful social media execution. The medium rewards casual interactions. People feel more intrigued by – and connected to – brands that they sense are authentic and more genuine than their competition.
   
   Who does it well: University Nebraska-Lincoln is hands down the execution expert here. David Burge is the Associate Director of Admissions there and he’s also the host of the popular online video program Real Nebraska.
   
   Real Nebraska was developed as a recruitment tool and is available to prospective students through the admissions website, vodcast, and on YouTube. The program, in its third season, averages several hundred hits per day and was featured on the TODAY show in early March.
   
   Shot, edited, and staffed with entirely in-house talent, the three seasons of Real Nebraska have produced more than thirty 3-4 minute episodes highlighting student life. Importantly, they’re told in a friendly, relevant voice. Full of ready-to-pass on soundbites, subtle answers to those pesky questions you’re afraid to ask, and a real peer-to-peer authenticity


3. Seed the audience
   You’ve probably heard that the idea if you build it they will come is about as outdated as that Friendster login you’ve got written down on your old Trapper Keeper. It takes some work to get a new social media destination to critical mass. That’s where seeding comes in. It’s an intentional strategy for how you’ll get your first users.
   
   Often social media campaigns don’t have the kind of marketing dollars behind them that traditional programs might. So, it’s important to think about what you can do with what you have.
   
   For example, in 2006, CareerBuilder launched a fun little ecard destination called Monk-e-mail. Using a phone and their computer, visitors could customize a talking monkey and send it off to a friend’s inbox. With few resources to publicize the site, they looked for what assets they did have: the people who worked there. All the employees at CareerBuilder (~1500) and at their agency partner (~300) were asked to send n monk-e-mail card to 10 friends. There were no marketing dollars spent to promote this campaign.
   
   Since then? Over 100 million monk-e-mails cards have been shared.
   
   Who does it well: Capital University. You’ve probably seen me write about their Will You campaign before.
   
   (Short story: This was a great collaboration between the agency I work for and Kevin Sayers and his team at Capital. It was a show and tell of the school’s evolved brand that mapped in comments from Facebook; pulled in Tweets with a certain hashtag; grabbed photos from Flickr, etc., to get a whole campus of feedback.)
   
   But the part I didn’t talk about was the seeding. They didn’t assume that the site would naturally take off (even though there was quite a bit of curiosity on campus). They made sure to make some noise.
   
   They chalked the website address on campus sidewalks; Sharpied it onto white boards; saved it on screensavers; hung it on fliers. They gave sneak peeks to talk leaders and sent post cards to parents. In short, they bootstrapped a clever seeding campaign and got real results. 120,000 people visited the destination in the first three months. And 6% of the student population engaged by leaving a comment or a photo.

How you know when you’ve lost the meeting

I was reading my mousepad today. Yeah, weird, I know. But somehow I never noticed the tiny little print all around the outside of the circle. It's ringed with a list of clever uses for the somewhat-dated disk. My favorite: "signal flag when stranded in sinking client meeting."

We’ve all been in THAT meeting. The one that has gone completely, irrevocably off track. The minds are closed. The conversation is over. And, there’s nothing to do but try to wrap it up with a little grace and courage.

Here are my 10 signs that the meeting is over already – whether you’re finished or not:

1. The funny voice: The frustrated client reads a headline, a PowerPoint slide, a clever piece of web copy back to you with an em-pha-SIS on a very different sy-lla-BLE  than you ever intended. The exaggerated reading, often in  cartoonish voice, suddenly makes what you've earnestly written sound either plainly dumb or - in the worst cases - overtly sexual. *ew*


2. The “V” Word: When the references to you and your firm change from partner, consultant or agency to VENDOR, things are not going well. You're about to marginalized.


3.  The big flip: This move often starts with "wait a minute" and always includes "not on the same page." Somehow you've gone from chugging comfortably along to rethinking the entire project in 30 seconds flat. Bonus pain points if this happens during the one cell phone / bio / coffee break your boss takes during the entire four-hour meeting.


4. The Blackberry daisy chain: Let me assure you: this really happened. It is not the stuff of folklore. I heard it from the stranded facilitator herself. First, one Blackberry buzzes away on the conference table. It's picked up to a smirk. And then before you know it, they're all buzzing away. An underground meeting taking over your meeting! And a comically themed one no less.


5.  The grocery list: Walking behind your favorite client, you inadvertently look casually down at her notebook. Unless you've got the Dairy Council in, the last word you want to see is: milk. Or, remember the dry cleaning. Or what looks like a draft Netflix queue. Any decisions made that day will not stick. 


6. The sigh heard ‘round the office: Is it disappointment? Boredom? Frustration with the process? Who knows, but when that long, deep, loud-as-the-sound-of-the-tornado-coming-in-that-weird-Helen-Hunt-movie sigh rushes out, it's time to wrap it up!


7. The summary: It's a painfully abrupt conclusion. It starts with "Look, what we’re saying here is." And, importantly, it's rarely what we're actually saying here. 


8. The slow drain of people: This derailing is most likely to happen on a Friday afternoon or during those first few weeks of back-to-school before the parents get back on the right carpool / handoff / soccer schedule. Someone announces that they have to leave 15 minutes early. Someone else gets an urgent cell phone call and trucks off to the lobby (and eventually the parking lot). Another "realizes' that the meeting runs 30 minutes longer than her calendar noted. Before you know it, you're presenting to the leftover pastries and the two enthusiastic interns.


9. The flip to the back of the book: Why, why, why do we continue to put the budget on the last page? They know to look there. And if you get that number wrong enough, all the other pages are for naught.
   


10. The therapy session: Phrases to listen for: "you know why we can't do that?" and "I'll tell you why that wouldn't work here." They're harbingers of the moment when a meeting goes from idea generating to therapy seeking. Lots of organizations are broken. And, sometimes it feels better to talk about why. And just how badly. Agenda be damned.

Top Four Colleges in Social Media

Colleges have been early adopters of social media. They've built Facebook pages and launched Twitter feeds much sooner than lots of their business-minded peers. Using blogs as an example:

• In 2007, 32% of colleges blogged vs. 8% of the Fortune 500 or even 19% of the much savvier Inc 500
• In 2008, they remained well ahead of that curve: 41% of colleges blogged vs.13% of the Fortune 500 and 39% of the Inc 500

But most still face the same challenge: they have a lot of content, but not a lot of engagement.

A number of colleges can count their Facebook fans in the tens of thousands. But the one with The Single Highest level of engagement only has about 300 fan posts. How do colleges translate this interest and affiliation to action? The answer seems to be a more targeted strategy. Not just testing these hot new tactics, but understanding the needs of their audience, setting clear objectives and then picking the tactic that makes the most sense to deliver results.

Four colleges have cracked the code:

1. SUNY. Their New Paltz campus wanted to increase the academic quality of the incoming class. Through their current outreach efforts, they were able to get on these high-quality student's short lists (and accept them); the challenge was convincing them that SUNY was the right final choice. They decided to find a way to make these students feel more connected to SUNY. The tactic was a private community called Cafe New Paltz.
   
   Students were invited to join through a tiered invitation system: First build relationships with the students we want most; then open it up to the entire class. Two people were dedicated to act as hosts and update content. That was essential to the strategy: consistently delivering valuable content. It gave students a compelling reason to spend time on the site (the average visit was a whopping 14 minutes) and delivered the desired results by increasing the percent of their “highest selectivity” group that made deposits from 30% to 37%. Read more at .eduGuru.


2. Wittenberg University. The project is called Witt Nation. It's a summer roadtrip that started with a defined goal: Build stronger relationships and reach out to like minds. 13 talk leaders traveled 8,000 miles to host events in 27 cities. On the road, they met more than 1,000 passionate fans - creating something that looks very much like the core of the Wittenberg brand: a unique place for unique people.
   
   Importantly, Wittenberg integrated the “on the road” experience with an online community - building out a storytelling space to connect with potential students and engage alums. The stories collected each summer will live on beyond the road trip. (I can't help it, I still think Plaid's is cooler!)


3. Mayo Medical School.Here's one that was actually inspired by all that testing of various social media tactics. Mayo admits a small, diverse freshman class. They come from around the country and around the world to embark on the toughest education challenge of their lives. Naturally, they're nervous and tend to know no one on Day 1 of the fall semester. So, orientation has always been an important focus for the school - get people acclimated to start them off right.
   
   By testing different tactics, they found that Facebook groups were more effective than their traditional orientation efforts. So, they tried refocusing all of their orientation efforts there. They earned 100% participation by pairing the with right (exclusive) content with the right experience. And, it worked. Not only did they notice better teamwork and integration in incoming classes, they were also able to refocus staff time and cost savings on curriculum.
   
   Barbara Porter, Assistant Dean for Academic and Student Affairs said “We used to worry about learning their names because we didn’t want them to feel isolated. Well, now they know everybody by the time they get here.” Hear her talk more about the program on YouTube.


4. University of Minnesota.The school's Carlson MBA program was struggling to meet its admission goals. The marketing team knew what they needed was to make direct connections with more potential students. Unfortunately, this kind of student - professional, adult, heads of household - is a little trickier to reach than your average incoming freshman. Even when events and programs were offered, many of their most-desired students didn't attend - they were too busy or couldn't make it at that particular time.
   
   Carlson used social media to overcome the barriers of communicating with non-traditional students. They created an account on Twitter to answer questions and engage potential students in real time (while, creating a searchable archive). The strategy worked. They increased the number of applications for the incoming class. See the feed.

For more on this topic, see the full Making Digital Connections in Higher Education presentation from the recent conference I was part of at Ologie.