Brain Waves Blog

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.

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?  

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.

You can never be too prepared when it comes to social media.

Social media managers, how do you start each work day? Email? Seeing how yesterday’s posts performed? I like to jump right into issues management. What kind of fires do we have to put out today? From viral videos on Twitter of students canoodling in the library to faculty gone rogue to good old-fashioned trolling. You never know what’s in store when it comes to working in social media.

Hashtags are a symbol that for the longest time was really only found on a button on your phone (yes, there were these things called “landlines” with physical buttons). But now the omnipresent hashtag is something more—an organizer used to group social content that evolved in programming and has seeped its way into many social media sites. Not only does it organize content, it mobilizes movements. There’s a lot to discuss with these little guys—owning them, “owning” them, and why they matter in higher ed.

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.