Brain Waves Blog

Sometimes I wish I didn't notice a trend. But this one has become too clear to ignore.

An emerging need in the college search process is the desire for belonging and community. Prospective students and families place the requirements high on their priority list. They’re online, searching for information, emotional support, and advice from people who live and look like them, wondering if they'll be welcomed and feel like they belong at the school they choose. In the post-pandemic world, conversations related to college admissions and belonging skyrocketed, with more mentions in 2024 than any of the previous four years. Finding the right fit institution is front of mind for students and their families through the decision process.

Only 22% of Americans say the cost of getting a degree is worth it, even if you have to take out loans. In our research, cost-related concerns and financial aid discussions were consistent—students and families want a clear understanding of the cost and to know the degree is worth their investment.

The skills students want from college extend beyond employability, supporting economic growth. Our research on public trust in higher education found the public believes the purpose of higher ed is to gain value from the degree. Audiences regularly question the value of post-secondary degrees, whether the outcomes are “worth it,” and what value they gain.

Median earnings of bachelor’s degree recipients were $31,200 (62%) higher in 2024 than those of high school graduates according to College Board’s Education Pays 2026 research.

One of the most proven ways to attract prospective students is for campuses to highlight the ROI of their degree. Over the past ten years, 62% of the conversation focused on the post-graduation path—students and families want to know the degree is worth the cost. 

In the last ten years, peer-to-peer online conversation about admissions has increased more than 10x. What students and parents share with peers online drives their decision-making—they want advice from their peers, people who live and look like them.

Students and families want to know that their degree has value and will help them obtain not just a job, but a career. With roughly half of adults (49%) saying it’s less important to have a four-year college degree today in order to get a well-paying job than it was 20 years ago, students increasingly question whether college is worth the cost.

Strengthening your brand is one of the most effective ways to keep your campus resilient and prepared for what’s next. Brand equity—the value your brand holds in the minds of your audiences—is how you understand and grow that strength over time. Brand experience is the aspect of brand equity that assesses if a brand provides unique value and lives up to its promise. Knowing and measuring brand experience enables you to evolve messaging to reflect what the brand delivers, deepening loyalty and trust. 

One of the most effective ways to keep your campus resilient and prepared for what’s next is to strengthen your brand. Understanding your brand equity—the value your brand holds in the minds of your audiences—is how you strengthen it over time. Brand perception is a key element of brand equity. Perception is reality and your brand is determined by what people think of it. Brands with a high perceived value are able to influence desired behaviors across the consumer lifecycle.

Measuring your brand equity is one of the most effective ways to keep your campus resilient and prepared for what’s next. It evaluates the value your brand holds in the minds of your audiences so you can strengthen it over time. Brand power is the aspect of brand equity that allows your brand to lead the conversation. As your power increases, so does your ability to drive market awareness and perception.

Strengthening your brand is one of the most effective ways to keep your campus resilient and prepared for what’s next. Measuring brand equity enables you to understand and grow brand strength over time. Brand identity is one of the five aspects of brand equity. It’s the face of your brand or the scope of your online presence and incorporates all five elements to reveal how you show up online.  

Strengthening your brand is one of the most effective ways to keep your campus resilient and prepared for what’s next. Brand equity—the value your brand holds in the minds of your audiences—is how you understand and grow that strength over time. When you evaluate brand equity using social intelligence, you can track shifts in brand awareness and identify the key factors that influence it.  

Students want quality jobs, and expect that experience to start before they graduate.

In 2024, social media became the world's largest marketing channel, as measured by marketing spend. Why? It’s the biggest opportunity to build trust in a brand.

The rise of AI has increased the number, impact, and sophistication of online bots and their activities. Bots are automated social media accounts programmed to mimic human behavior (e.g., liking, sharing, or commenting on posts). In 2024, bot activity accounted for almost half of all internet traffic, and bad bot activity was nearly a third of all traffic.

Recently, I spoke to student success professionals about the student experience data available through social intelligence. As always, I spent some time talking about Reddit, and the role it plays—particularly for younger people—in experience sharing, information gathering, and ultimately decision making. After the session I learned that some attendees were uncomfortable with real-life examples shared that mentioned their college.

You’re constantly balancing urgent requests and strategy, handling increased expectations, and needing actionable data to support your team’s priorities. All of these challenges feed into your need for a brand strategy that’s built on a solid foundation. Campus Sonar’s brand equity framework is that foundation. The purpose-built model supports your understanding of the value your brand has in the mind of your audience.

Artificial intelligence (AI) is more than just a buzzword, it’s become woven into the fabric of everyday life. Picture a student searching where to go to college who is met with an AI summary at the top of the search results, or a parent typing prompts into a university chatbot to figure out when Move-In Day occurs, or a professor leveraging generative AI in the classroom to tailor feedback to individual learning styles. In all of these scenarios, you can use AI to center the needs and questions of individuals in your marketing strategy.

Prospective students are giving you a roadmap to their college decision in their conversations with peers on Reddit. Trends and insights from a decade of social intelligence research identified five themes students and families value in college admissions—get the report. We expanded on the strategies in the report to share more recommendations and examples to connect with and appeal to right-fit students. Use the ideas that fit your audience and community to meet and exceed enrollment goals.

You need more stories, storytellers, and awareness of the stories other people tell that shape consumer opinion. That’s how you’ll stand out to prospective students, donors, opinion leaders, and rebuild the public’s trust in higher education.

I love regional public universities—I’m the product of one (Go Pointers!) and an incoming alumni board member. During my 20+ years in higher education I’ve worked with many regional publics and understand the outsized role they play in the industry.

Social intelligence is a growing global industry. Insights gleaned from publicly available online conversations inform billion-dollar entertainment productions, real estate and technology decisions for new restaurant chains, and product formulary for food and beverage companies amidst emerging consumer health concerns.

Social intelligence tells us that prospective students seek peer guidance on social media and Reddit about if and where to go to college nearly 10x more than they did 10 years ago. The authentic and unfiltered insights from social intelligence give you a deeper understanding of the voices in your community and enable you to design and assess programs with learners at the center.

A strong brand is a strategic advantage. In good times it helps you grow faster, and during times of uncertainty and change it’s a powerful anchor. A strong brand means you have increased audience confidence, greater credibility among public and private stakeholders, and a foundation to make challenging and innovative decisions. Your brand isn't just about visibility—it’s about credibility and building trust over time.

Leadership transition is a time when your campus needs to balance continuity and change management. If you’re supporting a leader or are an incoming leader, social intelligence allows you to quickly communicate historical perceptions and stakeholder engagement, as well as gather and share real-time internal and external feedback during the transition. Leaders at every level of an organization make strategic decisions and social intelligence supports your understanding and informs priorities.

What movements are gaining momentum within higher education, and why? 

Educators have discussed social intelligence for over 100 years. So why am I still asked to introduce the topic to leaders so often? Perhaps because language has evolved in ways that make it hard for us to recognize the innovative application of a century-old concept that now means more than one thing. I bet you’re just as nerdy as me; let’s break it down.

Social intelligence is more than just capturing online data. It's a framework to measure and analyze data that human experts turn into insights you use to inform your strategy and take action. The framework gives you knowledge to make more data-driven decisions moving forward. 

Your social media manager isn’t the right person to determine how you use (or don’t use) social listening. And they’re not the only end user of insights—far from it.

Over the past year, I’ve noticed an emerging trend in conversations about leadership in higher education. More and more people are saying something I never expected to hear so often:

Everyone with an interest in postsecondary enrollment or the health of the industry seems to be talking about research methodology these days. A 5.5% increase in first-year student enrollment was misreported as a 5% decline due to a data coding error announced by the National Student Clearinghouse Research Center. Professionals are frustrated that “a thermometer for a feverish sector” could have such an inaccurate reading; some maintain that a preliminary report created in response to a worldwide pandemic and possibly carried forward due to its headline-grabbing nature should never have been considered a reliable industry indicator.

I had the most wonderful campus visit in November. Two members of a university leadership team invited me to speak with a group of stakeholders about social intelligence and Campus Sonar. The visit stood out to me because they followed some best practices to vetting and building a relationship with an expert partner. Here’s how to adopt their approach.

Perception is shaped by human feelings and opinions, and is dynamic in nature. Traditional research methods such as focus groups, interviews, surveys, and audience panels, often carry inherent biases and assumptions that impact the data collection process.

Brand and reputation management is one of the earliest and most significant applications of social intelligence. In the current higher ed landscape, reputation management issues surface almost daily. This broad topic stretches across all areas of campus and includes things inside and outside of your control. But you do have control over when and how you prepare for and respond to each situation. 

As an industry, higher ed is often slow to change. But in the current landscape, change is critical to long-term sustainability. A strong strategic plan gives you flexibility to evolve as needed to meet current market and audience needs. 

Social intelligence is market research that uses online conversation data to answer key business questions. The internet is an always on focus group that allows you to better understand markets, audiences, brands, or organizations. In higher ed, social intelligence can inform organizational strategy, enrollment, alumni engagement, advancement, academic planning, and reputation and brand strategy. 

We’ve shared our strategies and recommendations for how leaders can rebuild trust on campus, but it’s not always as clear-cut to put it into practice. When we developed our social intelligence research, we had the opportunity to share it with Rebecca Ehretsman, president of Wartburg College. She shared some thoughts on the implications of our research.

I’m going to be vulnerable in this post. This is intentional; you haven’t stumbled across a mistakenly published diary entry. Our educational institutions serve humans with a myriad of feelings, challenges, and experiences. This is mine, and I hope it helps you understand others’.

Last academic year ended tumultuously for many campuses with protests and graduation converging at the end of the semester. We’ve spent some time thinking about how campuses can reimagine, reframe, and rebuild their place in communities and society—and the public’s trust—amidst the current state of unrest in the Middle East and on many campuses. A key concern is understanding how to center our audiences and their needs when we know they’re far from homogenous.

Alumni are a valuable asset and nurturing relationships with them contributes to the future success of your campus. Proud alumni share their experience with others to potentially sway an undecided student or make a gift to help current and future students shine even brighter on campus. Their authentic campus outcomes stories strengthen audience connections and generate positive affinity for your brand. 

This spring, we hosted virtual roundtables that brought more than 300 higher ed professionals together to discuss the value of a college degree, innovative strategic planning, and growing graduate enrollment. 

We don’t need another study proclaiming that public trust in colleges and universities is at an all-time low in our country. The conclusions are predictable, and so is the response; a defense of higher education as it always has been, often putting the blame on the public who just doesn’t get why it’s so important. Defending, rather than listening to understand, is doing more harm than good.

With the demographic shift and many other changes happening on higher ed campuses, leveraging graduate enrollment as a campus growth opportunity is top of mind for many. Before you begin development, it’s critical to think through how to build competitive graduate programs and understand how to effectively recruit and retain graduate students. 

The topic of graduate enrollment growth is having a moment in higher ed. With the FAFSA delays and decreasing undergraduate enrollment, expanding graduate programs feels like a quick and easy solution for many campuses.

If, like me, you’ve launched new programs from the C-suite, you’ll know that the path to success is extremely challenging. Navigating the potential risks requires careful planning and consideration in a market where data sources are limited and frequently out of date. 

Strategic planning is an opportunity to evaluate and prioritize resources so your institution can optimize its strengths and achieve its goals. Every campus has a strategic plan, but the process and approach for developing that plan varies. 

You’ve been giving your president and board the wrong information from social media, and you need to fix it as soon as possible. I’ve spent the last few weeks listening carefully to trustees, current and former presidents, and the people who advise them. These were positive conversations, but they revealed a huge gap. One former president put it plainly.

At a macro level, the value of a college degree is a constant topic in higher ed. At a micro level, you invariably need to consider how that value relates to your institution’s brand. There are many indicators of value, as well as internal and external factors contributing to this drop in confidence. But, as contributing expert Mallory Willsea shares, the decline is countered by research from Axios that college grads have significantly higher earning potential—indicating that perception doesn't match reality when it comes to the value of a degree. We see this same gap in perception in our latest research on rebuilding trust in higher education.

Reddit filed to go public on the New York Stock Exchange last month, and I paid close attention. Its prospectus highlights the impact the anonymous forum site has on public trust—and how higher education leaders can leverage the insight within its 17 billion posts and comments to rebuild trust and inform a proactive, audience-centric market strategy. Higher education didn’t understand the impact Facebook would have on its operations when it went public over a decade ago. Don’t make the same mistake with Reddit. Here’s what you need to know.

It’s no secret by now that the redesign and relaunch of the FAFSA form at the federal level has caused stress and confusion for higher ed leaders and college-going families alike. Staff and administrators are navigating frequent updates and shifting processes and timelines; and further uncertainty about aid and finances has added to the worries prospective students already feel about affording a degree. (Our national industry listening continues to reveal scholarships and financial aid as top topics discussed online in terms of the college decision-making process.)

It’s not surprising that 72% of college presidents agree or somewhat agree that their institution needs to make fundamental changes in its business models, programming, or other operations (Inside Higher Ed’s 2023 survey of presidents).

Our 2024 kicked off with a trip to sunny Florida for the Council of Independent Colleges Presidents Institute. The conversations and sessions covered the toughest current topics, such as endowments, cost of attendance, artificial intelligence, and others, giving us renewed appreciation for the hardest job in higher ed. 

Attendees navigated issues and solutions critical for campus leaders this coming year. Although the focus was on independent colleges, the issues and trends affect every institution in some form. We’re sharing four challenges that will shape the 2024 higher ed landscape.

Athletics and central marcom rarely join in strategic cohesion on campus. Fragmentation and political territorialism have frequently led institutions to detach athletics from the central brand, freeing teams for more flexibility and creativity, but often at the expense of collaboration and consistency. It’s a key reason we see so many bland higher ed ads promoting undergraduate enrollment during high-profile games. Yet there are signs more forward-thinking marketing leaders are unlocking the full power of their brands’ potential using common data-led decision-making.

“We report quarterly, but no one really gives feedback.” “Our information goes into an annual board report, and we’re not sure if anyone even reads it.” “We work hard, but don’t always feel seen.” “We have a new leader coming in and want to position our team’s value effectively.” We hear comments like these all the time, and campus communicators are genuinely concerned their efforts are lost in the sea of competing priorities. 

A Collaboration Dedicated to Growing a Diverse Community and Helping Professionals Transform Higher Education

Campus Sonar and The Society for College and University Planning (SCUP) are collaborating as strategic partners. This partnership focuses on elevating SCUP’s strategic communications, informing thought leadership, and evolving research and innovative resources to members. 

As a marketing leader you have a lot on your plate. Between managing competing goals, responding to urgent requests, attending last minute meetings, satisfying tight deadlines, and more—it’s a lot. That’s why support is critical to your success as a leader and campus. Setting your team up with the right tools and resources empowers you to achieve your goals.

Your campus social media manager’s job is never done. They’re on call 24/7, very few people understand exactly what they do all day, and their talent and expertise are regularly dismissed by colleagues and the general public. Often they’re not appropriately compensated for their skills, overtime hours, and the comments and DMs they monitor and respond to may hurt personally even if they're not meant for them.

Monitoring and listening seem like the same thing, right? It can be hard to understand the difference between these two activities. You’ve probably even used the words interchangeably. We’re here to tell you there are critical differences between them; differences that prove monitoring alone is not enough. Once you start listening, you’ll realize the moments and opportunities you missed when you thought you were listening. 

Incoming students are one of higher ed’s most important audiences. We work with campuses to segment your incoming student audience, identify opportunities for engagement, and develop messages that resonate with them to target and position your enrollment strategy. 

The culminating representation of many years of hard work, exploration, change, and perseverance, graduation is a pivotal moment for grads and their friends and families, one they anticipate all year long. There are high expectations for everyone involved! 

It’s no secret that online spaces provide students with opportunities to connect to others and build community, but do you know how often that’s happening on your campus’s Reddit page? A quick peek at your page will often reveal questions, comments, and potential concerns—all right on a public page that anyone can see. Higher ed communicators are community builders, and understanding what happens on forums could help your campus grow a stronger real-world and digital community. 

Looking back on conversation topics and trends we’ve seen in our five+ years of industry research, we see lessons and insights you can use moving forward to make the most of yield season (or the recruitment process at large) and build a robust incoming class. 

Brand fragmentation is a consistent theme we see in our industry and client research. There are lots of reasons for this, but mainly the folx charged with “managing the brand” are thinking about “the flagship.” When you embrace the adage that “brands aren’t what you say they are, they’re what they [your audience] says they are,” the fragmentation is obvious. 

Your campus is working to tell a cohesive, compelling brand story, but if you’re not working with a collaborative shared strategy, your message is being drowned out by conversation from accounts managed within departments, colleges and units, research centers, and other disparate areas of campus telling a different story in a different way in hopes of meeting very different goals. Let’s count the ways your brand is fragmented.

Ongoing social listening analysis allows you to better understand your baseline conversation and create personal benchmarks, track seasonal changes, evaluate the effects of crises, and measure the impact of new campaigns. 

At best, the “demographic cliff” is an oversimplified, incomplete, and misleading phrase for the very real and inevitable demographic shift happening in the United States. The world is not ending; this isn’t going to deplete the value of higher education; and even if there are less “traditional college students,” there will still be humans who need and want postsecondary education. Those folx are just going to look different; come from different backgrounds; have different needs and experiences; and be different people than they have been historically. Despite those whose fear is attempting to stop or slow it down, the make-up of this country is changing and that’s not a bad thing.

If you work on a small campus, chances are you’re a master at multitasking. Depending on the size of your campus, social media may be the responsibility of one person, or less than one, so it’s important to get the most out of everything you do. If that’s where you sit right now, we can help.

In higher ed (like every other industry), brand management is one of a campus’s top priorities. With social media molding the public’s perception of your brand, it’s your job to stay on top of your reputation—creating content that contributes to the conversation and aligns with your strategic goals. 

You and your campus executive are teamed up to launch an individual social media presence for them. Great! But where do you begin? Start with these ten steps and find more details in our book Fundamentals of Social Media Strategy.

For the last three years, we’ve been researching and analyzing online conversation about higher ed. We shared some of the multi-year trends we captured along the way, which also led us to eight recommendations higher ed marketers can use to drive their communication and marketing strategy.

Is National Hispanic-Latino Heritage Month (September 15–October 15) in your fall content calendar? How was Pride Month? Do you already have plans for Black History Month? 

A journey map is one of the most helpful tools you can build to inform your marketing and communications strategy. In a business context, a journey map outlines the process a customer goes through—from their initial encounter with a brand, to purchase, and ultimately to loyalty and advocacy. It captures a customer’s goal at each stage, and informs the messaging and content a company develops by providing this customer-centric insight.

Following years of debate about the amateur status of student-athletes, Name, Image, Likeness (NIL) reflects a change in policy from the NCAA on July 1, 2021, that redefined college athletes’ amateur status. The NCAA rescinded its policy previously prohibiting college athletes from profiting from their name, image, and likeness garnered through the influencer status that comes with the visibility of playing collegiate sports.

Higher ed marketing isn’t synonymous with pushing boundaries, but some CMOs are trying to change that. We sat down with Jenny Petty, University of Montana, and Gabriel Welsch, Duquesne University, to pick their brains on the importance of boundary pushing in higher ed marketing. 

As presidential digital leadership evolves, marketing leaders and their teams are more likely to support an executive social media presence. Even if you haven’t done this in the past, presidents change, and each change in leadership brings with it a change in social media presence. Being a leader on social media without a strategic focus is risky, and every executive should have a thoughtful approach to their online presence. Marketing leaders can help guide and mold the presidential approach to social media.

The advent of the NCAA’s Name, Image, Likeness (NIL) policy for college athletics has presented many unintended consequences for campuses. One of those is boosterism and increased demands on donors, who face a choice—continue their long-standing relationship with athletic departments, or support the players directly?

For most of the last decade, the way campuses show up on social media has become eerily similar. Campuses are on the same channels, posting similar content, chasing similar metrics. Social media has become just another set of channels on which to broadcast marketing messages in a one-to-many fashion. The pixel size is different or the on-screen images might move, but much of what is posted on social is just a few creative steps away from a billboard or a TV commercial. I refer to the mentions on social networks holistically as “online conversation,” but let’s be real—there’s very little actual conversation happening.

Lions and bots and trolls—oh my! Online conversations provide organizations with honest thoughts and feelings from their audiences, but are all of those mentions actual people? Bots and trolls aren’t just for science fiction and fairy tales anymore. 

In the first part of this series, we discussed segmentation strategies for owned accounts. Here in part two, we’re diving into some of the best ways to break down earned conversation. 

Have you ever heard the saying “How do you eat an elephant?” 

Understanding the changing job market—and how it’s affecting your alumni—can help you reach them where they are and support their job search.

Thanks to social media, the news cycle is now. Which means communications teams need to be plugged into their campus’s online conversation if they want to effectively monitor and manage a crisis. 

There’s a lot of online conversation taking place about colleges and universities in the United States. 

In the world of enrollment marketing, there tends to be one dominant query; how do we get X number of students to enroll at Y campus by Z date? Clearly articulated enrollment goals are essential as individuals transition from vaguely interested to “enrolled.” However, many campuses are so highly focused on yield strategies and fanfare in the final stretch of decision-making that they often overlook the more subtle opportunities around earlier milestones in the enrollment funnel. 

Sonarian capabilities differ based on historical and ongoing social listening. That doesn’t necessarily make one approach better than the other. 

Leading the marketing communications efforts for a large, land-grant institution's largest academic unit, effective media relations was paramount in every aspect of our content strategy. As a Research 1 university, our faculty were frequently contacted by local, regional, and national media to share their expertise, whether it was on the environment, racial justice, labor movements, or more. 

So you want to increase your social media engagement? I’ve got a hot tip that will outlast any algorithm change, meme trend, or “when to post” advice.

From publicly-available social media posts to blogs to news to forums and more, there is an incredible amount of conversation happening online each day. While there are ways to monitor and measure some of this conversation manually (think, Google Alerts, social media analytics, some social media software), truly strategic social listening not only captures more conversations of interest to you, but does so more consistently over time—ensuring that you’re not only capturing the conversations that matter, but also that you’re able to analyze larger trends in conversation over time.

Over the last few years, social listening software has become increasingly popular for higher ed martech stacks. But something we hear often from our clients is that marketing teams struggle to get the full value from expensive software. Lack of time, training, and ability to pull readily usable data are common struggles. 

At Campus Sonar, we take perhaps too much pride in telling the world that we’re NOT a software company. It is within social media management software, however, where most of our clients accomplish their listening prior to living the #SonarianLife. For some, incorporating Campus Sonar into an existing tech stack feels redundant. For others, transitioning away from these products to Campus Sonar can feel daunting. So we sat down with three campus pros who made the switch from listening with social media management software to Campus Sonar. We asked them about their tech stack prior to Campus Sonar, making the move from software to Sonarians, and what life has looked like since the move.

Updated 9.5.2025

How to dig into the strategy and mine the report for proactive communications and outreach on your campus.

Community colleges in the United States have long been underfunded and understaffed. That hasn’t stopped them from serving as a vital resource to their local communities while educating a student body more diverse than many four-year campuses can claim. 

Nurturing relationships with your alumni is a key component to the future success of your campus. Proud alumni can share their experience with others to potentially sway an undecided student or make a gift to help current and future students shine even brighter on campus.

As part of ongoing professional development, it's important to keep up to date and learn from the successes and failures of colleagues in higher education and other industries. I've gathered lists of communities, podcasts, blogs, and conferences I regularly recommend to social media professionals, ranging from free and on-demand, to annual fee-based events. And there are so many fantastic resources, I’ve broken them into two posts so I don’t overwhelm you. First, I’m covering communities and podcasts, then stay tuned for part two: blogs, newsletters, and conferences.

What comes to your mind when you hear the words measurement or metrics? I've actually asked a lot of people that question and go into some of their answers in our new book. As a community, we need to get serious about measurement. If campus leaders aren't requesting metrics that accurately assess the results of your work, it's up to you to help them understand what metrics actually matter. They likely aren't easy metrics to measure—but they should help us make important decisions. 

Who didn’t spend 2020 wondering what the heck was going on? COVID-19 was top of mind for everyone. College students included, especially with the disruption of college applications, campus tours, and the “traditional” college experience. That said, let’s dig deeper into our 2021 admissions research to explore and compare COVID-19 conversations to non-COVID-19 conversations that surfaced on social media (Twitter, Instagram, YouTube) and forums (Reddit and College Confidential) among 4-year college prospective and admitted students between August 1, 2020 and October 31, 2020.

Whether enrollment teams embrace them or not, the families of college-bound students have a tremendous impact on the recruitment cycle through their relationships with their students and an autonomous admissions journey of their own. In analyzing parent conversations, one message is clear; no matter how they approach it, their pride, love, and concern for their students is endless.

Our February 2021 admissions research focused on prospective and admitted student and parent admissions conversation for 4-year colleges and universities from August 1, 2020 through October 31, 2020. We also wanted to analyze that same conversation for 2-year institutions to see what unique characteristics emerged. While there are many overlapping trends, our findings may inform tailored recruiting strategies and messaging for this specific audience.

Although they're not the most exciting part of social media management, well-defined guidelines and policies are essential for a consistently effective social media program. In addition to giving you something to turn to in stressful situations, guidelines and policies have a couple of benefits.

The average number of institutions a student applies to has been steadily increasing, and your prospective students evaluate your campus against many others. To help your institution stand out, one of the best uses of time and resources is building competitive intelligence—the process of gathering and analyzing information about peer institutions to inform your own positioning. 

As a social media manager, understanding copyright is a critical component of your content creation process. And it can definitely be confusing, especially if you have multiple accounts to manage in addition to all of the other aspects of your job.

In the first part of this series, I shared our planning and query writing process—how our teams come together to plan each client project and the research that our analysts do in the beginning stage of each project. It was a lot! Now that you made it through part one, you'll sail through part two. Let's go!

Gear up for some Campus Sonar behind-the-scenes! I’m covering how the Research team at Campus Sonar conducts social listening research, start to finish, to pull back the curtain on what we do from project kickoff to presentation of findings and insights to the client.

It wasn’t entirely unexpected, but the anger arose faster and more intensely than anticipated when I referred to prospective students as customers in a conversation about recruitment.

At Campus Sonar, our humans set us apart. Our experience researching and analyzing the nuances of online conversation means we understand how to measure the effectiveness of your content. We know how to analyze who sees your content and understand how that’s impacted by each platform. When you develop social media strategy and create corresponding campaigns, this is ultimately what you need to measure to show success, right? The effectiveness of your campaign. If it worked.

Community College Remains Top of Mind

Today’s Briefing analyzes publicly available online conversation in the U.S. and on Reddit and YouTube (which span beyond the U.S.) about the coronavirus and higher education from May 11–17. In this analysis of volume, topics, sentiment, and key audiences, we highlight conversation about community colleges (again!) and summarize trends from our ten weeks of Briefings.

Community College Convo Stays Viral

Today’s Briefing analyzes publicly available online conversation in the U.S. and on Reddit and YouTube (which span beyond the U.S.) about the coronavirus and higher education from May 4–10. In this analysis of volume, topics, sentiment, and key audiences, we highlight the impact of another viral tweet recommending community college, conversations relevant to recruitment and retention, how students (now alumni) and their friends and family talked about graduation, and the continuing conversation about online classes.

Community Colleges' Time to Shine

Today’s Briefing analyzes publicly available online conversation in the U.S. and on Reddit and YouTube (which span beyond the U.S.) about the coronavirus and higher education from April 27–May 3. In this analysis of volume, topics, and sentiment, we highlight conversation about community colleges, Zoom University, and President Trump.

I’ve never met a marketer who would tell you their department is fully funded and adequately staffed. Marketing is just one of those wishy-washy, nebulous concepts that can be extremely difficult to grasp unless you’re involved in the day-to-day work these professionals tackle. In higher education in particular, it’s easy for marketers and communicators to feel slighted, like our work is often overlooked and first on the chopping block when the time comes for difficult budgetary decisions. It’s common to celebrate admissions and development staff during times of high revenue—but institutions tend to forget about the communications pros who plan, create, and deliver key messages for those offices. And that’s a mistake. 

Influencers Start Spreading the News

Today’s Briefing analyzes publicly available online conversation in the U.S. and on Reddit and YouTube (which span beyond the U.S.) about the coronavirus and higher education from April 20–26. In this analysis of volume, topics, sentiment, and key audiences, we highlight how university research news spreads via online influencers, student athletes seeking new teams, and students continuing to speculate about the fall semester on Reddit.

It’s a common illusion that a campus social media presence doesn’t cost anything. I’m here to tell you not to fall prey to that illusion, and explain what’s involved in building and staffing a higher ed social media team (including costs) so you know what you need to get started or get leadership support your need for additional resources. This post, along with two additional posts publishing in April and May, are excerpts from Fundamentals of Social Media Strategy.

I'm well aware that this post is being published as campuses consider furloughs and layoffs. Please don't dismiss it as something to think about "when things get back to normal." Staffing your social media team is more important now than ever.

Focus on Fall Semester

Today’s Briefing analyzes publicly available online conversation in the U.S. and on Reddit and YouTube (which span beyond the U.S.) about the coronavirus and higher education from April 13–19. In this analysis of volume, topics, sentiment, and key audiences, we highlight speculation about the fall semester, conversations from and about Black students, and the reasons students’ families and friends are sharing joyful messages.

I've given many presentations on Reddit over the last few years and after many of them, an attendee will privately come up after and ask a question I’ve become used to fielding. It usually goes something like this.

A Little Less Conversation and a Lot More Negativity

Today’s Briefing analyzes publicly available online conversation in the U.S. and on Reddit and YouTube (which span beyond the U.S.) about the coronavirus and higher education from April 7–12. In this analysis of volume, topics, sentiment, and key audiences, we highlight conversations about internship changes and speculation about the fall semester.

Students Discuss Cheating

Today’s Briefing analyzes publicly available online conversation in the U.S. and on Reddit and YouTube (which span beyond the U.S.) about the coronavirus and higher education from April 3–6. In this analysis of volume, topics, sentiment, and key audiences, we highlight how campuses frequently mentioned in the news are portrayed, stories of students’ family members and the disease, concerns from medical students, and discussions of cheating.

Taylor Swift Responds to Student Pleas on Tumblr

Today’s Briefing analyzes publicly available online conversation in the U.S. and on Reddit and YouTube (which span beyond the U.S.) about the coronavirus and higher education from March 31–April 2. In this analysis of volume, topics, sentiment, and key audiences, we highlight institutions that have been a focus of national conversation, revisit some prior student themes, and examine questions admitted students ask.

Campus Closures Amplify Students' Struggle to Meet Basic Needs

Today’s Briefing analyzes publicly available online conversation in the U.S. and on Reddit and YouTube (which span beyond the U.S.) about the coronavirus and higher education from March 27–31. In this analysis of volume, topics, sentiment, and key audiences, we highlight the impact of events at Liberty University on the industry conversation and student conversations about topics other than courses. Spoiler alert: they’re angry, sad, and many of them are struggling financially.

Online Class Meme Themes

Today’s Briefing analyzes publicly available online conversation about coronavirus and higher education from March 24-26. In this analysis of volume, topics, sentiment, and key audiences, we highlight political mentions, review continued negative sentiment, and examine the conversation about online courses through the lens of memes.

Media Coverage Shifts to Campus Experts

Today’s Briefing analyzes publicly available online conversation about coronavirus and higher education from March 20–23. In this analysis of volume, topics, sentiment, and key audiences, we highlight changing campus news coverage, trending hashtags (some may surprise you), and continuing expression of anger and sadness from students. Since the March 17 Briefing, we haven’t made any changes to our data collection. We have, however, improved our categorization of family and friend mentions; you’ll see a comparison of their expression of emotion in this Briefing.

Student Voices Surface in Media, on Reddit

We made a few changes to our query to capture all relevant conversation. We’re now including “the rona,” an emerging slang reference for coronavirus, mentions of cancellation or postponement of graduation, and new hashtags that refer to the virus (e.g., #BoomerDoomer, #BoomerRemover, #coronapocalypse).

Word of Mouth Drives Both Information and Misinformation with Students

Today’s briefing analyzes publicly available online conversation about coronavirus and higher education from March 13–16. In this analysis of volume, topics, sentiment, and key audiences, we highlight the most popular topics, continued negative sentiment, concerns of parents and admitted students, and surprising trends of where students discussed the issue online.

March Madness May Be Gone, But Meme Madness Is Here

Crises happen. The ripples are felt in-person and online. While talking to every person affected would be helpful, it is not realistic. Social listening, however, gives campuses instant access to online conversations about a particular crisis as they emerge on social sites, in forums, on blogs, in the news, and on other websites. Furthermore, social listening allows for unique views into trends within those conversations as the crisis unfolds in real time. All in all, social listening puts campuses in a better position to plan or adjust crisis communication strategies in the moment based on emerging insights. But this is only effective with human analysts teaming up with technology to write the perfect query and easily visualize the data. 

TL;DR

As campuses and their constituents grapple with the implications of closures, extended-spring breaks, and online instruction to mitigate the coronavirus pandemic, online conversation on the topic is ballooning. We wanted to see the amount of conversation, find patterns, and develop insights to help campuses with their communication strategy. Yesterday (March 10), we gathered all of the online conversation about the coronavirus, higher education, related closures, and transitions to online coursework. Today, we analyzed it. Here’s what we found.

There’s something about a good goal that really helps focus your behavior over a period of time—both consciously and unconsciously. In fact, studies on behavioral priming, (which is defined as “the incidental activation of knowledge structures … by the current situational context”), indicate that attitudes and other affective reactions can be triggered automatically by the mere presence of relevant objects and events (Bargh, Chen, Burrows, 1996). Set goals for the new year and keep your list handy, allowing the goals to seep into your day-to-day decision making. But on to the main act—how do you set goals anyway?

Before you jump into Reddit, get familiar with these rules of engagement.

The Oh sh*t moment.

You know it. 

You’re thinking of it right now, because you know exactly what I mean.

As soon as we decided to start Campus Sonar, I committed to providing social listening benchmarks for the higher education industry. This was a direct response to what I heard from campus-based professionals at conferences and during research conversations. While the concept of social listening was intriguing, administrators weren’t sure how much conversation they should expect to find about their campus. Once they looked and knew how much conversation there was, the first question they had was “is that normal?” This is why we released our 2019 Online Conversation Benchmarks study—I wanted every college and university to be able to measure their online conversation and know how it compared to their peers. 

Influencers are an important part of the social listening conversation. They create a connection between audience and content, providing experiences their audience can relate to. As more and more people turn to social media to connect with others, share experiences, and search for help in making decisions, influencers have an enormous impact. In fact, a 2021 Edelman study found that 53 percent of people trust what influencers say about brands more than what the brands themselves say. 

What is the goal of your content marketing? Whether you’re new to the content marketing game or a seasoned veteran, you probably answered this question by referencing themes such as attracting more qualified leads at a lower cost, as well as success metrics like organic web traffic, keyword rankings, cost-per-acquisition, time on page, etc.

When I began in higher education as an academic advisor, I interacted with undergraduate students daily. From each conversation, I gleaned insights into needs, barriers, and successes students experienced at my institution. As I moved into university administration, that student-centered perspective greatly informed my work on retention and graduation initiatives. Heading into my fifth year in administration with little direct student interaction, my sense of the current student experience feels a little out of date. I realized this challenge was likely not unique to me and set out to learn what’s worked for seasoned university administrators to remain connected to the current student experience at their institutions. Here’s what I learned.

Regardless of having the word social in the name, social listening is not something you do just to get better at social media. Let’s repeat that—social listening is not just about social media! Social listening is an investment in strategic intelligence (across various channels), that gets you closer to what is being said to and about your institution with implications across almost every area of campus. Listening to your online conversation builds trust, which is arguably the most valuable commodity today.

Collegiate athletic programs exist for a number of reasons; namely, they’re a huge revenue generator, taking advantage of conference-affiliated and national television broadcasting contracts and merchandising to market their teams and universities.

You scour social media platforms like Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram for updates about your institution. And you receive Google alerts when you’re mentioned in the news. But are you keeping up with Reddit?  

When I founded Campus Sonar, I wrote a blog post about the need for data-informed marketing in higher education. It’s been almost two years now and the industry has made progress, but I feel like we still have a ways to go. Recently, I contributed to a blog series for Adapt about data-driven marketing and current trends—and I realized I had a lot more to say (most of you won’t be surprised about that). So here’s part two of my thoughts on data-driven marketing, marketing trends, and the impact on higher ed.

With graduations across the country this spring, universities gained thousands of new alumni. But as soon as students graduate and leave campus, it becomes harder to engage with them and continue to build a relationship. One of the keys to connecting with new alumni is to not wait until they’ve graduated, but to engage with them before they become alumni. The more engaged and connected students are to an institution, the more likely they are to become engaged alumni. This speaks to Dr. Jay Le Roux Dillon’s idea of alumni identity—the measure of how deeply a graduate associates their own self-identity with their alma mater. The closer alumni feel to your institution, the more they’ll feel compelled to give—both time and money.

A key outcome of social listening is the ability to identify real-time opportunities to engage with your audience groups when they’re talking to your campus or about your campus.

In higher ed, reputation is an institution’s number one priority. The problem is, it’s not totally in your hands. Public perception is reality and anyone who has an opinion can share it online for the world to see. There’s a trust problem in our country, especially in higher education.

If we asked you to define your brand right now, could you? Would your response be based on your gut or tangible evidence? If you can't, did you just panic a little bit? Don't worry; you're certainly not alone.

During my first week as social media manager at Texas State University (@TXST) I opened my laptop to take a look at my listening dashboard and almost had a heart attack when I saw a post from an account called @TXSTstudents.

“Geez! I heard you, Mom!”

“Yes, but were you actually listening?”

Ah, this is a conversation some of us may have had with our parents (or kids!). And it’s true. There’s a nuance between “hearing” and “listening.” In communication classes, you may have discussed these differences.

ROI. Everyone likes to ask for it, yet few report it. That’s because it’s hard to quantify both sides of the Return on Investment equation in higher education. The investment should be easy enough: staff time, software, marketing expenses, supplies and materials, vendors/consultants are the most common components of an investment. The return poses more difficulty, as it can take years to materialize (e.g., a major gift, a life-long donor, or an enrolled and retained student). But Campus Sonar and EverTrue are up to the challenge. Let’s talk about the ROI of social listening.

Even if you haven't seen the musical "Hamilton," its songs and memes are hard to escape.

You've likely seen the one in which Alexander Hamilton's political rival Aaron Burr tells him to "Talk less, smile more." Though not a motto I tend to live my life by IRL, it's the first thing that comes to mind when considering the importance of social listening for strategic marketing and communication.

Whether your executive leadership is socially savvy or not yet up to speed on "the Twitter," it can be challenging to explain the concept of social listening. Some of the challenge can be chalked up to the presence of social in the term. It's not surprising that their mind may immediately jump to Facebook/Twitter/Instagram/Snapchat and the efforts they've heard about chasing followers and engagement rates. In many cases, these social media efforts haven’t been tied to strategic priorities or value to the organization. That's a problem for another article, but the challenge remains: how do you talk to executives about social listening?

Hearing the word “research” may elicit a groan from people—some perceive it as over-thinking a topic or too time consuming. However, the right type and amount of research allows individuals and organizations to make decisions that can save money (by preventing investment in dead-end solutions) or increase revenue (by allocating resources to make the most impact).

This spring, Gus Johnson graduated from the University of Wisconsin-Stout. In addition to his degree in digital cinema production, he's embarking on his career with almost 450,000 YouTube subscribers, 90 million video views, 28,000 Twitter followers, and 10,000 Facebook followers. The combination should give him a pretty decent foundation to pursue a career in filmmaking and acting in Los Angeles. And he'll be doing that without student debt, since he used the earnings from his YouTube channel and associated revenue streams to fund his education.

There’s a new kind of crisis on campus—the social media crisis. You know the one, the email interaction that gets posted to reddit, the tweet-gone-awry from an official account, or the local news story that catches the eye of someone influential online. Before you know it, a snafu that might have slipped under the radar in the past has sparked a national conversation, and there are literally thousands of people talking about the campus every day.

The definition of crisis is “a time when a difficult or important decision must be made.” To effectively monitor and manage a crisis and understand the decisions they need to make, organizations must be plugged into the online conversation. Strong, strategic social listening in a crisis ensures you know a crisis on campus is brewing before you get a call from your president, allows you to monitor the issue in real-time to inform your PR response, ensures campus safety, and mitigates brand impact.

With March Madness upon us, you might notice a higher prevalence of basketball mentions in your school’s online conversation, or just online in general. While athletics can bring helpful attention and money to your school, for staff members interested in other areas of the conversation, the focus on athletics can overshadow the academic conversation and targeted brand messages. Separating the athletics conversation from the rest of the conversation is possible and can be helpful in strengthening non-athletic conversations.

Quality data and insights are valuable to higher education marketers. In Are You a Modern Marketer? we maintain that these insights help higher education professionals create data-informed strategies to drive recruitment, growth, and enrollment. But how do higher education professionals find data and leverage the insights accordingly?

2017 was the year for higher education to embrace influencer marketing. I know, because I googled "influencer marketing higher education" and the top three results for the year were about higher ed marketing trends. If you're feeling a little behind now that 2017 is on its way out, read Five 2017 Marketing Trends and What They Mean For Higher Education from Stephen App at eCity Interactive—he set the precedent for applying the mainstream influencer marketing trend to our industry.

Brand benchmarking is one way to strategically use social listening. As a modern brand manager, you need to understand the online conversations about your brand to gain competitive insights and develop an effective brand strategy. One benchmark metric you can use to evaluate online reputation is share of voice.

Recently I found myself happy to be stuck in downtown traffic. It meant I had enough time to listen to Building a Modern Higher Ed Marketing Team in one sitting. This episode of Helix Education's Enrollment Growth University podcast featured an interview with Dr. Joseph Brennan, Vice President for Communications and Marketing at the University at Albany.

Today I get to introduce the higher education community to Campus Sonar, and I couldn't be more excited! This post details what inspired us, how we developed our service, and what you can expect from us.