Schedule & Slides
Thursday, May 6, 2010
|
11:00-1:00 |
Registration Lunch on your own |
|
12:30-1:30 |
Opening Remarks Featured Speaker: "Unleash the Beast: How Web Pros Will Lead The Revolution While Riding a Unicorn on a Rainbow of UGC"
|
|
1:30-1:45 |
Break |
|
1:45-2:30 |
Session 1: “Using YouTube for Recruitment” YouTube, the second largest search engine, is a fun and easy way to connect with Prospective and Accepted students. Creating videos and a YouTube channel for your institution is simple and effective. In this session we will look at how to use a YouTube Channel for your institution as well as look at ways colleges have creatively used YouTube and online video to highlight campus activities, speakers, current students, and more. |
|
2:30-2:45 |
Break |
|
2:45-3:30 |
Session 2: “Stop Chasing Apps: Web Strategies for Alumni Communication” You already know about Facebook, Flickr, Twitter, YouTube, LinkedIn, MySpace, blogs, Digg and the million apps and text applications– what they do and who uses them. But what is the point? How do they respond to your strategic communication objectives? How are you incorporating your identity, your message, your brand? What distinct stories are you telling within each of these mediums? Is your CMS and expanding social media universe getting in the way of clean, concise, strategic communication with your alums and other constituents? Have you spent more time adding gadgets and chasing new technology than using it to serve your organization? This session is intended to discuss ways to leverage the right application to support the story you’re trying to tell and the action you’re trying to drive. We will focus on how to engage with your audience using visual and written communications— incorporating best practice usage of new and foundational technological applications, and print pieces. We’ll discuss how to seam these worlds together, and, importantly, how to pair down, focus, and use basic and elaborate technology as a forum for strategic communication. |
|
3:30-3:45 |
Break |
|
3:45-4:30 |
Session 3: “Content Strategy: The Key to Effective Web Content” Content is why people visit your website. Period. So why is quality content so easily discounted? Why do we neglect this critical website element that we rely on to attract, inform, engage, and retain site visitors? Answer: content is massive, political and time-consuming. A college website contains thousands of pages with limited content contributors, editors, and managers, all with different perspectives and priorities. Web content strategy is an essential discipline that author Kristina Halvorson defines as “the practice of planning for the creation, delivery, and governance of useful, usable content.” In this session, learn how to implement and maintain effective content that drives marketing, engages users and increases website conversions.
|
|
4:30-4:45 |
Break |
|
4:45-5:30 |
Session 4: “Your Social Media Secret Weapon” As we all try to do more communicating in more places with less resources, students can be our secret weapons for social media success. Learn more about how social media interns, bloggers, advocates, affinity groups and feedback loops can improve your reach, presence and effectiveness in various avenues of emerging communication. The presentation will include take-away tips for how to recruit, manage and motivate student workers to become your brand ambassadors. |
|
6:00 |
Dinner/Tweetup/Social – Dutch Cabin |
Friday, May 7, 2010
|
8:30-9:15 |
Welcome Back Session 5: “Authentic Social Media: You Can’t Stop the Signal, Mal” Higher Ed has always been slow in the adoption curve when it comes to technology. Though we’ve understood it–and even excused it–in the past, social media is forcing us to reconsider the role that technology plays in the way we work, the way we teach, and the way we learn. It has revolutionized the way people communicate with each other; it bypasses the middle man and goes directly to the masses. Can this new method of interaction survive in higher ed? More importantly, how can the ivory towers of higher ed survive this new grassroots interaction? Old school traditionalists see social computing as a very special level of Hell reserved for child molesters and people who talk at the theater. But the real secret to winning over the community is actually quite simple: the answer lies in being authentic with your audience.
|
|
9:15-9:30 |
Break |
|
9:30-10:15 |
Session 6: “Web Analytics: What’s Really Important?” Sure we can measure it, but what does it really mean? More often than not higher ed professionals have the ability to pull numbers daily but end up having to explain that they don’t really mean anything on their own. How can we pull the right numbers and the right time so that we provide value and insight rather than confusion and annoyance? Discussion with focus on timing and content to focus reports on and how to ask the right question of those who expect numbers from you on a regular basis.
|
|
10:15-10:30 |
Break |
|
10:30-11:15 |
Session 7: “Guided by Voices: Why Institutions Need a Social Media Identity” It is increasingly difficult to find an American college or university that has not adopted one or more social media tools. However, while the media has changed, the mechanics of one-way communication have not. Many institutions see Twitter as little more than an additional broadcast channel, and Facebook as a third-party repository (or replacement) for the exact same content provided on their official school site. And what’s so social about that? At Ithaca College we’ve taken a somewhat different approach. We realize our audiences — prospective students; parents; currents students, staff, and faculty; alumni — want to engage IC, not just listen to us drone. We use social media to reach out, to listen, to gauge opinions about the College, and to share the stories and ideas that make Ithaca unique. People respond to the unique voice of IC on social media, one they recognize as distinct and personal. This presentation will focus on our success in social media, and how your institution can find its unique voice to better engage and inspire the people you want to reach. |
|
11:15-11:30 |
Break |
|
11:30-12:15 |
Session 8: “The Class of 2014 on Facebook” A Look at how Hamilton (and others) handle the incoming class of 2014 on Facebook. Will focus on establishing class Facebook groups, managing/moderating the space, promoting the group, encouraging dialogue and dealing with difficult issues. Also will explore the “what now?” question regarding what to do with groups once students arrive on campus. Data and examples to come from Hamilton and Hamilton’s peer institutions. |
|
12:15-12:30 |
Closing Remarks |