Brain Waves Blog

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? 

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.

At Duke, we’re operating on the premise that YouTube isn’t just a bucket for holding video content. It’s actually social media. I’ll show you what I mean.

Monitoring and listening—same thing, right? For most marketers, 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 that 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 were missing when you thought you were listening. 

Why followers and engagement rate don't matter and how marketers should measure social media to better reflect campus priorities.

“Getting more followers” or “going viral” isn’t why campuses invest in social media. They invest because it’s a primary communication channel used to increase brand awareness and equity, build alumni affinity, recruit students by increasing applications or yield, or any other number of objectives found in a campus strategic plan. The metrics we use to measure it should assess those goals. Yet many social media managers and their CMOs are tied to vanity metrics like followers or engagement rate without a clear path to change. That’s one reason “Goals and Purpose” is the first chapter of my new book, Fundamentals of Social Media Strategy: A Guide for College Campuses. When campus social media efforts align with campus priorities, the way we measure social media changes.