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.  In the mind of your audience, your brand may be an institution of education, an employer, a sports team, an academic department, or a community theater—just to name a few. Strategic marketers work towards brand alignment—uniting the ..read more

“Starting social media accounts is the puppy adoption of higher ed” is a Darron Bunt quote that we repeat often. Does your campus have hundreds of campus accounts creating confusion for your audience? Research shows that your prospective and admitted students often turn to Instagram to get an insider’s view on campus life. If their search terms return a handful of inactive accounts before the official, well-managed accounts, it impacts their perception of your campus. There’s no magic number of accounts your campus should have, but it’s a good goal to ensure the existing accounts actively post ..read more

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. Athletics is dominating online conversation.  Earned conversation is running the show.  More content + more accounts = diluted strategic identity, messaging ..read more

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.  We track industry-wide conversation to keep track of trends and analyze our clients’ conversation behavior against a comparable sample. Over the past five years, we’ve tracked three trends you can use to make the case for data-driven marketing investment.  What We Know Online conversation about higher education has decreased dramatically. Conversation volume indic ..read more

Disclaimer: The title of this article isn’t a slight to Liz’s SXSW presentation proposal. As a matter of fact, our stances are similar and I wholeheartedly believe every single current and future higher ed pro across the entire country needs that presentation. 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 hum ..read more

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. Over the last five+ years of researching higher ed conversation, we’ve discovered small campuses have an amazing opportunity to differentiate themselves. There’s a lack of consistency among small campuses that doesn’t exist for larger campuses. If you’re heading a small marketing team, the post-pandemic c ..read more

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.  How do you know you’re doing that? First you need to understand the conversation about your brand using three key metrics: share of voice, owned vs. earned conversation, and brand attribute conversation. We’re diving into owned vs. earned conversation, and you can find more details and case s ..read more

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. Consider your goals. A successful marketing strategy is rooted in clearly articulated goals that reflect a campus’s values and priorities. Know your campus mission, vision, core values, areas of distinction, distractions, assets, and aspirations. Align these with the unified, holistic message you’re deliveri ..read more

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?  These are the wrong questions. This year, a brave marketer asked me how she should respond to an executive who asked her to spend a majority of her time researching “diversity days” and ensuring social media content was created to recognize them. I quickly responded, “How are you serving historically marginalized populations on your campus? When you post about Jewish holidays, are you also ensuring exams aren’t schedul ..read more

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. Similarly, in higher ed a journey map follows the path of your prospective students. Beginning with their first experience of your campus’s brand, you can chart ..read more