Blogger’s note: I know it’s only Thursday. But like many of my fellow Americans, I plan to put away the digital devices for much of the day in order to properly celebrate our nation’s independence.
An early Happy Independence Day to those of you in the U.S. A belated Happy Canada Day to our neighbors to the north. And a belated Happy Fiscal New Year to those of you in higher ed who live your lives by the July 1-June 30 fiscal cycle.
Today’s post is a round-up of my favorite blog posts from the past fiscal year. They may not necessarily be your favorites (judging from the site analytics, more of you visited my list of the best pop and rock albums of all time than you did some of the posts below; apparently you got wind of my exquisite taste in music) but I think they were pretty darn good pieces of writing that may be worth a second look. Plus, these sorts of retrospectives are an easy way to reuse existing content, and that’s what the content marketers and brand journalism experts tell us to do, right? So let’s get with it.
1. Boring old brand-building
I wrote this post nearly a year ago, based on an observation from an old book about branding. Both the book and the observation — that “Brand building is boring work” and “What works best is absolute consistency over an extended period of time” — remain relevant today. And should for as long as brands exist.
2. 3 branding game-changers and how #highered must adapt
This one was my interpretation of a September 2013 study by brand consultancies Wolff Olins and Flamingo (The New Mainstream: Creating a new relationship between people and brands). Here, I tried to show how these three branding game-changers apply to higher education. This post was also the most popular entry for FY14 in terms of visits.
3. Adventures in meme-jacking
Wow.
Very blog.
Much analytic.
Many April.
So Fools’.
Amaze.
My attempt to describe the short-lived but very fun social media sensation that was our university’s 2014 April Fools’ Day web joke.
4. Media relations in a disintermediated world
Heavy navel-gazing about the future of media relations. This led to a presentation delivered at a regional PRSA conference last month, and to a HigherEdLive.com conversation on the topic of disintermediation in university advancement the month before. I’ll probably be discussing disintermediation again in September at the Aggregate Conference in Louisville, Kentucky.
5. 5 proven, mind-blowing ways to get people to read your blog
You won’t believe what happens next.
Bonus link: Friday Five: Marketing lessons from the Beatles
Hey. I can’t hide my love away from this post about what marketing lessons we can learn from the Fab Four. This was posted on the eve of the 50-year anniversary of the Beatles’ first Ed Sullivan Show appearance.
Andrew Careaga 