Brain Waves Blog

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.

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.

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.

“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.