Brain Waves Blog

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. 

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If we asked you to define authenticity, could you do it? When we tried this ourselves, we ended up settling on a definition that was something like, “content that is authentic.” Realizing that the word authentic is also subjective, we tried defining that, only to rely on the word original. But what is original? With each attempted definition, we went  deeper and deeper down a rabbit hole.

February is a month of valentines, galentines, and if you’re in admissions, yieldentines! Yield is the stretch of time between students receiving their admissions decisions and choosing where they will deposit and, ultimately, enroll. While decision day on May 1 once signaled the end of yield, at many institutions this is no longer the case. Some students will deposit at multiple schools, and summer melt with ongoing offers is a new reality for many admissions teams.

In​ ​an​ ​era​ ​driven​ ​by​ ​24/7​ ​coverage​ ​of​ ​everything, college​ ​presidents​ ​must​ ​be​ ​accessible​ ​and responsive ​while also taking a ​careful​ ​and​ ​measured​ ​approach​ ​to​ ​their social​ ​media presence.​​ The​ ​president owns​ ​the​ ​brand​ ​and​ ​the​ ​messaging​ ​of​ ​the​ ​institution​ ​and​ ​can​ ​quickly​ ​and​ ​effectively​ ​convey​ ​the mission​ ​through​ ​social​ ​media​ ​posts​ ​and​ ​interactions.​

As higher ed insiders, we have a vested interest in understanding the individual and collective beliefs, attitudes, and relationships that alumni have with their alma maters. This knowledge provides valuable insight into their future actions and behaviors. As social media data analysts, we decided to conduct social listening analysis of alumni conversations to evaluate how they discuss their alma maters across various social platforms. We examined alumni conversation as a whole, then used multiple ways to segment the conversation to see how different characteristics revealed distinct types of conversation among alumni. 

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?