Get Your Audience to Make the Decisions You Want

Another conference come and gone. SIM Tech 09 was just as good as HighEdWeb. Great people doing great things with not so great amount of money. There was so much information going back and forth that it was hard at times to absorb it all.

But, during presentations something small would be said and it would trigger a line of thoughts and tweets that would get attendees to collaborate on an issue. Or something would be said that would trigger and "ah ha" moment. Many times these "ah ha" moments were just clarifying and reinforcing what we already knew.

One of the biggest take aways was:

Create great usable content that will drive your audiences to the predetermined goals you wish them to get to through the tools that target them.

What does this mean?

Content, Content, Content. Create content that is engaging and of use to the audience. Draw them in and make the call to action. After you draw your audience in, give them the option for the outcome you have decided you want them make. But don't broadcast your message everywhere.

Do your research and find out where your audience is.

There are reasons why certain television shows are aired on certain stations. While there is some over lap in audience, different demographics go to different places. If you think about Websites, Blogs, Facebook, Twitter, etc. as different television stations you'll start to see the that each is geared towards different audiences.

Make them make the choice you want them to. Don't send someone to buy milk in the chip aisle.

No matter what tool we use, we want our audience to do something. Unfortunately, there are so many options for them to take they miss the one thing we want them to do. If you send someone to a landing page to request information, don't give them 20+ options to navigate from the page. If you want someone to apply, don't bury the info 3+ links into your website.

So what can you do?

Re-evaluate your tools. Are you broadcasting on the right channels? Make sure your audience is making the choices which align with the goals you have set forth for them

Girls under Trees says "American"

Last week at #heweb09, I sat in on a presentation by Mark Heiman of Carleton College. Mark spoke about what they found high school Juniors were liking and looking for on college websites. One thing he noted was pictures of people under trees were more of a turn off than pictures of buildings. We came to know this as "Girls Under Trees."

Today I came across this website and tweeted "People under trees!! Ack!"


I thought I might get a few response from those who attend #heweb09, but to my surprise Wassan Humadi responded with an intriguing view point.

I never thought about it this way before. "American College" stereotype is not conveyed to me through pictures of people under trees. This opened up a great conversation. Wassan pointed out that we see the same things over and over. They seem staged. To me, staged pictures are an issue. If we could make pictures of people under trees seem more real there wouldn't be as big of an issue for me. To a 17 year old new to the college search process, they all look new. Each seems unique.

I haven't been very involved in, well "not very involved" actually means I haven't had anything to do with, international recruiting, yet. So I wonder what would say "American College" more than people under trees. Here in Arizona would people under cacti be just as "American" as "people under trees?" Come to find out, the changing of colors of the trees is the part that makes it seem more American.

Wassan also noted that "multicultural pics" of kids sitting around is the biggest turnoff.

So to us, we see people under trees as a complete turn off while international students see multicultural pictures a complete turn off.

Before you go changing all the pictures on your website, take into consideration who you want to market to the most. Are you wanting to increase your international student base? Maybe you ought to keep the "people under trees." Or you could just take time to better develop your international pages.

Out of all of this, take into consideration your international market. Your "Girls under trees" might be the deciding factor for a student.

HighEdWeb09 Recap

After about 10 months of trying to attend a conference for higher education professionals, I was finally able to convince my boss to let me attend one. I am very excited it was the HighEdWeb09 Conference.

I work each day with people across the country. The willingness to share ideas and help each other is the backbone of our community. It was this that made the conference such a success.

Some of us came having only met a few others, who were attending, in real life prior to this week. Others came never having met one. But we knew we would finally meet the person behind the avatar.

As a n00b to the higher education arena, I was prepared to meet meet meet people. What I didn’t expect were the number of people who knew who I was and were wanting to meet the Lane of #lanesintown and the Lane of #pancaketweetup for the first time.

The sessions were great! The presenters studied and prepared for us to ask questions on how they did what they did.

We came together as a community to tweckel a presenter and to help a friend in need.

The keynote will go down in the history of HighEdWeb, as a turning point in how presenters need to be aware of who their audience is and the power of a multitude.

After a computer was stolen from a session room, we were able to raise enough money in less than 24 hours to replace the computer.

Of all the conferences I’ve missed, missing this one would have been a huge mistake.

I'll see your photo challenge and raise you...

Last week was the first week having new students on campus. In an attempt to direct students to our Facebook Fan Page to interact with each other, we launched a photo challenge during our orientation program.

The challenge:

The team who uploads the most photos to our Facebook Fan Page by 2pm on Friday will receive an award at the awards presentation Friday.
Also the team who uploads the most interesting photo will receive an award Friday.

Before we announced this to the teams, we made sure all the group leaders were aware of what we were doing to make sure they encouraged their team to participate.

There were a few other rules we gave teams on the first day.

1. Duplicates do not count
2. Only photos that have the team name in the description or tagged will count

**Note to self: add a few more rules next year.

The Stats:

After lunch I checked to see how everything was going. About five hours into the challenge we had 20 new fans, 84 photos uploaded and links to 343 more photos.

At the end of day one we were at:

• 30 new fans
• 216 photos
• 343 more photos linked to
  

Awesome!

Day Two stats:

• 50 new fans
• 1053 photos
• 370 more photos linked to

1053 photos??? Yes that number is correct.

Day Three Stats:

• 59 new fans
• 3300 photos uploaded
• 5000 more photos lined to

However, after you take away the duplicates and pictures that can't be made out, we had approximately 2800 photos uploaded.

One student posted a non statistical breakdown on the photos:
Although not 100% accurate at times it seemed like it was.

The Unexpected:

1. I was leading an orientation group. Our first activity was to check out a camera from the library, take a group picture and upload it to the Facebook Fan Page. What?! No one told me there were going to be activities having us upload things to the Fan Page. There were two activities to earn points that involved the Fan Page. Great Idea! Just wish I could have had a heads up.
2. 5000+ pictures! Let me say here I truly only expected between 500-800 photos.
3. One of our staff members put together a small contest to help with the "Most Interesting" Photo contest. This is what came of it.
   
   

Where we messed up...

I guess duplicate means one thing to one person and another to a freshman college student. The most common photo series uploaded where ones of rapid fire photos going around the room that should have been stitched together in Photoshop and then uploaded. At one point we had a group leader hang his camera around his neck and set it to go off every 5 seconds.

Also, we need to state what is classified as a photo. To me, it is clear enough to make out what is happening in the photo and is not of walls, skies and railings unless the walls, skies and railings help tell a story of what happened.

Success?
All in all I believe this was a success. Since the end of the contest, we have had more activity on our Page. However, we will not find out if it was a true success in getting students to come to our Fan Page to interact until later in the year.

(Checkout other great examples of Social Media use in HigherEd at .eduGuru)

So you want to make a Facebook group?

There is one major thing that bothers me about Facebook groups, when they are abandoned. Time and time again, I do a search for a group and see that it hasn't been updated or posted on in the last 3+months. It is because no one thought about goals and conversations.

Over the past few weeks, several people have approached me wanting advise on starting a Facebook group. It's great to see everyone finally acknowledging students and alumni are on Facebook, but my response is always "Don't!....yet."

A few of you are thinking I'm crazy, but let me explain. 99% of the time they haven't thought through what it will take in making and maintaining a group.

I ask them a few questions before I let them run out and create a group:

• What are your goals for it?
• Is there a conversation you can create?
  
• Do you have time?
• Are you going to keep it up?

After I ask about goals, the conversation usually ends, but isn't this where the conversation should begin? Even if your goal is to bring people together, it's still a goal.

The conversation you plan on creating is the most important part. Working towards the same goal, creating a place where everyone can grow as a community and help each other out. It's like having a meeting without an agenda. No one wants to meet to talk about nothing or have every person talking about different random things that are not connected.

This brings us to time and keeping it up. They go hand in hand. Maintaining the group or page means taking the time to answer questions and build relationships.

Next time you are approached with someone wanting to create a Facebook group, make sure they at least have a goal and understand there is a time commitment to what they create. To me there is no bigger let down than joining a group or a page to find out in a few weeks there really was no reason to join.

Facebook groups with created and used correctly will build a community for everyone to gain from.

8 Months in Review

In January I took my new position within the University as the Digital Strategist, as some would say a fancy way of saying I get paid to be on Facebook. But it's much more.

It wasn't long until I ran into my first hurdle and needed some direction and help. I came across a blog post by Rachel Reuben that intrigued me. A few emails later and I was on the phone with her talking about Social Media and the problems I was having. We exchanged Twitter names and within the next hour my network expanded by more than 75 people. Little did I know where this new network would take me.

As a newbie to the community I sat back for a while learning more than I could have ever thought.

A couple months into everything, a breakfast of pancakes turned into so much more. My friend Tim, @timnekritz, asked if he could join my breakfast virtually. Next thing we know it's a #pancaketweetup. March was our first event, and we had between 5-8 people attend in one way or another.

We are now six months into our #pancaketweetups and have grown to 25-30 people with more adding each month. Not only are #pancaketweetups growing virtually, #pancaketweetups in real life are growing as well!

Besides just enjoying pancakes, I have been lucky enough to have a friend overnight me one of the most delicious Jimmy John's sandwiches.

I know, I know there is more to life than food. Which brings me to #lanesintown.

I've never been to New York until last week. Thank goodness I've found some Twitter friends there. I have promised my friends I would come to visit at some point, but never thought it would be so soon. After starting #pancaketweetup with Tim from NY, and getting myself and Jimmy John's from Mark in NY as well, it was time to pay them a visit.

A friendly visit turned into a weekend event of tweetups, #pancaketweetupirl and meeting of wonderful friends outside of the twitter realm.

So what can you do with Twitter? A lot!!! Thank you everyone who has helped and/or participated in #pancaketweetup, #lanesintown and my Jimmy John's sandwich.

Rock On!!

My Dream "Intervention"

Last night I broke up with my boyfriend of 6ish months. (aww...I know) But it was for the best. The relationship just wasn't fair to either of us because we both wanted different things. It had been coming for a couple weeks, I just needed to say it was over.

The strange part was the dream I had later.

In the dream, I believe, I had just broken up with this guy. I knew he wasn't the right one for me, and I guess many people around me knew he wasn't the right one. A group of ladies from my church had formed some sort of "intervention."

I don't really remember who all was there, but the one person I remember, kinda led the "intervention." I don't know a lot about her because we haven't spent a lot of time together, but she is pretty cool and fun to be around.

Michelle had written out several reason why I needed to end my relationship. As she started, I informed her I ended the relationship earlier that night. So in turn she made create a list of all the qualities and things I was looking for in a relationship. From there, the married women would look it over and give me insights and feed back on it.

Then I woke up. I think I created the list in my dreams, but I'm not 100% sure.

I kinda want to say thank you to her. But I think it would be weird to say I respect your opinion, and my subconsciousness had created situations for you to give me advice.

Oh well. If I never tell you, Thanks!

Rock on,
Lane J