Are you using the right SM station to broadcast your message?

The past few months there has been debates about linking Twitter with Facebook. With the introduction of Twitter to LinkedIn updates, I'm sure the debate will continue. Here's something to keep in mind:

Social Media is like television stations.

Think about that for a moment or two. When you're watching TV there are certain channels that appeal to different demographics, but there is some overlap.

Let's take the news for example. Fox, CBS, NBC, CNN all can have a different take on a story, people will tune into the station they feel best suits them. Or they will change stations to get a different perspective on the story.

The same is true with Social Media. While there is overlap from Facebook to Twitter to LinkedIn people use each for a different purposes and perspectives. The university might have similar audiences across channels, but they tune into each for different reasons.

While you can send out the same core message on each platform about an event or announcement change the messaging to fit the audience.

There is a reason we have so many news stations and there is a reason we have so many Social Media sites. Utilize them to their fullest.

Where are the two missing sides of the HighEdWeb Keynote situation?

Last week, over a month after the event, The Chronicle came out with an article about the David Galper Keynote from the HighEdWeb Conference in Milwaukee. After about forty comments, The Chronicle posted a follow-up article. Comments on both articles represented two sides of the situation, those who attended the conference and those who didn't.

Those who did not attend the keynote took the stance the Twitter Back Channel virtually "lynched" Galper, and the Tweeters like "hyenas" wanting blood. For the attendees, they reasoned what happened and attempted to give their side of the situation. But there are two perspectives of this story that have yet to be shown, the perspective of the HighEdWeb Association and the perspective of Galper himself.

The past five or so days, I have tried to contact Galper through everything short of calling him. I'm not one to just cold call someone, especially in this situation where I was in attendance at this particular keynote. I reached out to him via LinkedIn,

Hi David, I attended a conference you spoke at this year and would like to speak with you further about it. Please add me to your network.

I have yet to hear back from him. I disclosed the fact that I was in attendance at a presentation he gave because I did not want him to feel as if this was a bait and switch or that I was trying to harass him.

After doing some more searching, I went to the HighEdWeb site to see if his presentation was available there because he put all of his contact information on his last slide. It was not. I was informed by a HighEdWeb representative that the keynote presentations are the intellectual property of the presenter and they were not asked to let the association put it online.

Okay so what to do next? I asked for his email. No one on Twitter seemed to have it. So I asked HighEdWeb and was informed they would not give it out because they were trying to do what's right from the association perspective.

I have yet to ask anyone one from the HighEdWeb Committee for their opinion on this. After a few direct messages on Twitter with a couple, I'm not sure they would really have much to say on it, in the interest of the association.

Update: I missed this post. It does give some insight to the HighEdWeb perspective.

So will we ever see these two missing perspectives? I would enjoying hearing what they have to say. I think it would make this conversation come full circle.

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.