Making predictions is always a dangerous practice, especially if those predictions are committed to print. (My NCAA tournament bracket is testament enough to this truth.) But some prognostications by alumni directors back in 1998 turned out to be pretty accurate. Andy Shaindlin discusses those predictions on his blog.
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Now playing: Pete And The Pirates – Come On Feet
via FoxyTunes
Last November, we set up a Twitter account for our university and mildly publicized the fact on our Name Change Conversations blog. But we haven’t done much with it.
At this point, we have 11 followers, including myself and a couple other communications staffers, and we’ve updated eight times. I haven’t yet worked with our enrollment management team to inform prospective students of the site, and we haven’t notified our alumni through our traditional communications vehicles (email and the alumni magazine).
So, it’s been a very low-key campaign — if you could call it that.
I haven’t found any examples of other universities using Twitter for marketing, pr or external communications purposes.
This morning, I asked the Twittersphere how university comms/PR/marketing folks might be able to use this tool, and have gotten some interesting responses. Here are a few of them:
fcmartin3rd suggests that campuses use Twitter for “inspirational messages; connection with high schoolers; following thought leaders; reminders; pedagoguery!”
amandachapel says, “there’s very little value here. Besides, why would any org want to hold an open meeting on a lawless freeway?”
toster tweets: “I can see universities Twittering for comms, but little else. Even then, I would expect it to be only partially adopted.”
vargasl suggests: “What about twittering events at school? Gaining prospective student interest… ” (That’s how she handled the Oscars on Sunday night, live-twittering while watching E!)
You can keep track of the conversation on my Twitter page. But I’d also like to hear from you readers, too. I know some of you see little value in this tool, and I know others of you who use it regularly as a personal/semi-professional tool but not necessarily as an official representation of your school.
So, let’s hear all sides on the matter.
How could Twitter be incorporated in a college/university communications strategy?
Also, if you know of any universities currently using Twitter, please let me know so I can see how they’re doing.
Leave your comments below or, if you’re on Twitter and want to keep it to 140 characters or fewer, drop a Tweet to http://twitter.com/andrewcareaga.
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Now playing: Johnny Thunders – You Can’t Put Your Arms Round a Memory
via FoxyTunes
A couple of my favorite higher ed bloggers — Brad Ward and Matt Herzberger — have been working feverishly these past few weeks on a new aggregator of higher ed blogs. Today, they unveiled the beta version of their site, BlogHighEd.org.
BlogHighEd pulls feeds from higher ed blogs and presents them in a nice, clean webpage format. Currently the site is drawing from 19 feeds, with more certain to be added in the coming days. Many of my favorites are included, but some are not — yet. If you’re a higher ed blogger and are interested in joining the BlogHighEd site, go ahead and submit an application.
I’ve been fighting an upper respiratory infection all week long, and today I’m staying home in hopes of sending this bug to its death.
But I can’t seem to sleep, daytime TV is too dull for words (except for a showing of A Mighty Wind on Comedy Central this morning), and I’ve got several neglected RSS feeds in need of a severe pruning.
Plus, it’s been a long time been a long time been a long lonely lonely lonely lonely time since I blogged. (For the previous sentence, blame the Sudafed. And too much Led Zeppelin during my formative years.) Anyway, it all adds up to lots of contextless links for your point-and-click pleasure:
A del.icio.us list of iconic icons for web design, courtesy of Seth Meranda.
I Can Has Cheeseburger!. In a can, even. Yes, it’s true. Just what the world’s been waiting for, right? Right? Via Snark Hunting.
Wired‘s interactive life cycle of a blog post will just warm the cockles of any bloggeek’s heart. Via (dis)information architecture.
$100 for a link on Digg’s front page? A new low in online marketing?
Meet the new web influentials. They’re not necessarily the most people-connected, but rather the “people who influence the network by leveraging the most powerful force on the web — the link. So says Publishing 2.0. (Note to self: More contextless links in the future.)
Hidden mysteries of marketing revealed! Anita Campbell, editor of Small Business Marketing Trends, asked a bunch of A-list marketing gurus to share their best-kept marketing secrets, and they obliged. A bunch of lesser lights also shared their tips in the comments. Lots of good ideas here. Link via Chris Brown’s Branding and Marketing.
While we’re on the subject of marketing gurus…no aspiring marketer should be without the Seth Godin Action Figure. Now with built-in BrandOMatic © and PurplePower ©. Via the man himself.
Use Hey!Spread to upload several videos at once.
Digital Perspective asks: What kind of tech user are you? And then links to ways to find out. Say hello to an omnivore (according to this Pew Internet quiz).
The rise of open-source mega-universities. “The world’s top universities have come late to the world of online education, but they’re arriving at last, creating an all-you-can eat online buffet of information. And mostly, they are giving it away.”
All the presidents’ blogs. Bob Johnson updates his list of college and university presidents who blog. There are 32 in all.
OK, folks. Sudafed’s wearing off. Time to go.
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Now playing: Cat Power – Lord, Help The Poor & Needy
via FoxyTunes
The Online Education Database (OEDb), a database of accredited online education programs, has released its 2008 online college rankings. This is the second year for the rankings. Since there are only 96 accredited online colleges, the universe for this ranking is narrow. But OEDb looks at all the important metrics — acceptance rate, financial aid, graduation rate, peer web citations, retention rate, scholarly citations, student-faculty ratio, and years accredited — and uses a fairly straightforward methodology.
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Now playing: Cat Power – Song To Bobby
via FoxyTunes (OEDb)