Month: May 2009

Guest post: Liz Allen on unofficial Facebook groups: ‘Don’t panic, participate.’

Today’s guest post is courtesy of Elizabeth Allen, associate director of alumni relations at the Caltech Alumni Association. Liz discusses higher ed, alumni relations, communications, baseball and other passions on Twitter @lizallen.

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You are not alone.

Not on Facebook, anyway.

At this point, your institution probably has an “official” group on Facebook. You carefully selected the main photo to reflect the personality of your campus, you slavishly posted upcoming events, and you promoted it through your newsletter and with an email campaign. That’s great!

But did you search Facebook for other groups branded with your institution’s name? Chances are there’s a group (or many groups) for alumni, students, or prospective students of your campus. They have lots of group members, active conversations and upcoming events.

Now what? You start to panic. What if someone says something bad about your institution? The administration has no control over the content! You want to notify general counsel. You want to call the president. You want to shut these “unofficial” groups down!

Stop. Take a breath.

Don’t panic. Participate.*

Web 2.0 and social media is all about user generated content. Expressing ideas and opinions. It’s a conversation. It’s not your job to stymie that conversation. Your job is to help manage and observe. Here are some approaches to interacting with “unofficial” groups:

Join the group. It may seem obvious, but join your “unofficial” university groups on Facebook. If the group has open membership, just click and join. If you need to request membership, this is a good opportunity to introduce yourself to the group manager. Once you’re in, you can take a look at what’s been posted by the group members. You don’t have to join all of the groups – use your best judgment.

Form a partnership. Send a message to the group’s administrator letting them know that you’re available as a campus connection and resource. Establishing a good rapport from the beginning will help you in the long run.

Don’t Crash the Party. The group is already an established community. Don’t try to insert yourself; you’ll stick out like a sore thumb. It’s like showing up at a cocktail party and shouting “Hi everyone! I’m here! The party can start!” You will come across as completely inauthentic – or worse. To start, just sit back and observe. If someone posts a question you can answer, (What are the bookstore’s hours? When is commencement this year?) respond and contribute. Developing “street cred” takes time.

Keep Up. New groups are created on Facebook all the time. Run a search at least once a week to check and see if a new group has popped up. Additionally, try to keep up with references to your institution on LinkedIn, Twitter, and other websites. Create a Google Alert to help you keep tabs on things.

Simply ignoring the groups or hoping they go away isn’t the best approach. Joining the community and becoming a “digital native” will keep you in the conversation.

*If you’re headed to this year’s CASE Summit in San Francisco, register for the preconference workshop, “Don’t Panic, Participate: A Common Sense Guide to Social Media for Advancement Officers” presented by Michael Stoner, President of mStoner, and me.

Guest post: Andrea Michnik on developing effective higher education taglines

Today’s guest post comes from Andrea Genevieve Michnik, director of marketing and enrollment with the Semester in Washington Journalism Program at George Washington University in Washington, D.C. Follow her on Twitter at @AndreaGenevieve or @SIWjournalism, and look for her at the upcoming EduWeb and EduComm conferences this summer.

Developing effective higher education taglines

Some would argue that taglines are among the most important parts of a higher education brand identity. Combined with logo identity, tone and theme, taglines are important. But, are they successful at representing the college experience?

Consider higher education taglines. Do you remember the tagline of your alma mater? Does it accurately portray the environment and experience of going to school at that institution? If you can’t remember, that should tell you something about its effectiveness.

Accuracy is relative; dependent upon the opinion of those involved at all institutional levels. Higher education marketers, potential students, current students, parents, alumni, administration, governing boards and additional important stakeholders all become potential focus groups. Representatives from each constituency should have a say in the keywords of a tagline. Not sure if a current tagline is yielding desired results? Consider conducting a survey or poll. It’s a simple and easy method to gauge effectiveness.

Take a look at the issues in building an identity campaign for the Semester in Washington Journalism Program at George Washington University. Since it is branding a part of an institution, this project is a challenge. It’s important to maintain certain elements of GWU’s identity, but at the same time differentiate the program from the competition.

Check out this great collection of 3,500 higher education taglines put together by the Indiana creative marketing firm Richard Harrison Bailey/The Agency, where you can search by keyword or institution. Take a minute and perhaps look at the taglines of your competition.

Should an institution look to update its identity or tagline? How would you decide if a tagline resonates with target markets? What factors should be considered? Share your thoughts, examples and ideas here. Look for an update in a week on the progress of creating a tagline for the Semester in Washington Journalism Program.