Higher Ed Marketers Should Create Podcasts

Category: Content

  • Higher Ed Marketers Should Create Podcasts

    Higher Ed Marketers Should Create Podcasts

    The challenge of reaching these prospects, however, is perhaps more complicated than in any other industry – how do you reach digital natives who are bombarded daily with messaging and have grown up accustomed to tuning it out? How do you reach parents who already have preconceived notions of where their kids should go, based on their personal attachments to schools and the proximity of their offspring?

    Fast Facts About Podcasts

    More and more, the answer has been podcasts. Podcasts are among the fastest-growing content marketing media today for the 18- to 34-year-old demographic. Check out these insights from Forbes and Edison research:

    • In the U.S., approximately 25 percent of people 12 and older listened to podcasts each month in 2017 – that’s 67 million people.
    • Podcast usage increased dramatically increased in just 10 years – 180 percent more people listen today than in 2009.
    • Thirty-one percent of adults 21 – 54 listened to a podcast in the previous month.
    • More than 80 percent of podcast listeners will listen to the end of the segment.

    While popular, many colleges and universities struggle to launch and maintain podcasts. Marketers cite having difficulty with finding unique angles, producing engaging conversations and continually and effectively distributing segments. When that’s true, it’s important to partner with experts in interviewing and podcast production to ensure optimal outcomes.

    Considering starting a podcast? Connect with us for a virtual strategy session.

    Higher Ed Podcasting FAQ

    What is a podcast?

    A podcast is a recorded conversation about a trending or evergreen topic. The conversation can be two or more people talking to each other, or one engaging individual discussing a topic solo. The average podcast is about 45 minutes. Often, podcasts include ads up to 90 seconds, which are typically relevant to the topic or the host’s industry.

    Aren’t podcasts a lot of work?

    It’s a misconception that podcasts are a lot more work than other marketing endeavors. Really, many organizations create a podcast-worthy conversation before writing a blog article – they just don’t realize it.

    When a writer sits down to interview a subject matter expert for a blog article, for example, they often discuss the topic in terms that are conversational for the intended audience. If the writer records the interview, they have essentially recorded a podcast. Pre-interview planning is important, of course, but the processes are similar.

    Also, podcast production doesn’t have to be technically complex. In fact, over-production can make the conversation sound staged and sterile rather than conversational and engaging. Successful podcasters strike a balance between polished and natural audio.

    How do we place a podcast on our website?

    Some organizations use a separate hosting solution such as Libsyn, which offers podcast access through an audio player on your website. These solutions often offer distribution options to publish your content on multiple podcast platforms at once.

    Other organizations embed podcast audio within their site as an audio file that visitors can use to download or listen live. Taking a cue from Netflix, many organizations implement a category listing by topic. This format is familiar to the on-demand generation, and it is user centric because it’s based on an individual’s interests.

    Determining where to house your podcast is part of our discovery process. The key is to implement a system that allows you to easily feed your podcasts into networks such as iTunes and others, which is usually done through an RSS feed.

    How do we distribute a podcast?

    Podcasts can be distributed similarly to blog articles and videos. We typically recommend the Create Once, Publish Everywhere (COPE) model to syndicate podcast content:

    • Place the podcast on your website or blog
    • Share it on social media
    • Send the link in your e-newsletter
    • Publish the podcast to podcast platforms such as iTunes, iHeartRadio, SoundCloud, Stitcher, as well as voice-optimized platforms such as Alexa devices

    Additionally, higher education organizations can sponsor podcasts that are produced by other organizations, such as publishers or agencies, to reach a potentially untapped segment of your target audience. Sponsorship might entail having one of your subject experts interviewed by the host, buying an ad in an organization’s podcast (if the topic is relevant to your market) or perhaps submitting your own podcast for distribution to an organization’s audience.

    How do we know whether it’s working?

    If you use Google Analytics or a similar system as part of your digital strategy, you can set up goals and events to track where listeners come from, how many listen live, how many download and (most importantly) what they do next or on subsequent visits to your site. Podcast networks have varying levels of available analytics as well.

    We encourage clients to use these data to inform their content marketing and email nurturing campaigns. For example, if your listeners come in from social media, listen live and browse your site for application information, the user might be ready for a stronger conversion message than a user who listens, leaves your site and returns for your next podcast a week or two later.

    Podcasts are commuter-friendly, on-demand and user-driven – the perfect media to deliver your relevant messaging to high school students, their parents and non-traditional students who are on the go. We expect podcast engagement to continue to grow in 2019 and beyond.

    As you approach your podcast strategy, keep these most important guidelines in mind: your content must be relevant to your audience, and you must deliver it consistently across multiple media in order to generate return on investment. When done well and delivered with a smart, intuitive distribution process, podcasts support and enhance your brand’s positioning, values and business goals.

  • How Medical Schools Can Leverage Social Media Influencers

    How Medical Schools Can Leverage Social Media Influencers

    Jared Johnson, a top 100 digital heclealth influencer, podcaster and keynote speaker who spent his entire 16-year career in healthcare and education joins us to discuss the benefits, when to centralize the brand message, and managing expectations.

    Read the full transcript

    Mariah: I’m Mariah Obiedzinski, director of content services at Stamats. Joining me today is Jared Johnson, a Top 100 Digital Health Influencer, podcaster, and keynote speaker who spent his entire 16-year career in healthcare and education. Welcome, Jared.

    Jared: Thank you, Mariah.

    Mariah: Today we’re discussing how medical schools can join forces with active social media leaders from within their organizations to grow the school’s brand and encourage more active, relevant engagement across multiple audiences.

    Jared, in higher education, many administrators, residents, and students are active in social media and blogging, some even to influencer-level, which means they have a following of individuals that actively engage with their personal brand.

    What are some of the benefits of leveraging those efforts of these individual influencers to affect the organizational brand?

    Jared: Well, Mariah, I think there are several benefits. Some of them are direct and some are a little more indirect. But they all have a positive outcome on the brand. And the first one of those is simply building and increasing the digital footprint of the organization, of the institution.

    And the way that happens is, at the end of the day, there’s only so much that the institution itself can do to build its own footprint online. And we all understand what that means, I feel like. There’s only so much posting on social media and blogging and putting web content out there, that the organization itself can do.

    What we’re all faced with these days is a general trust gap between an organization, their brand, and people out there who are consuming that content online. And so, to help overcome that trust gap, the more that somebody who’s part of the institution themselves is producing content, that kind of has a voice and a presence out there online and is creating conversations and content themselves, whether it be on a social media channel specifically or blog, I guess we can kind of use those things interchangeably, but the more individuals together that do that, that lifts the brand itself, because it’s kind of the long-tail of search, right?

    You’re going to get a lot more people searching for the institution and somebody who says, “These tweets are my own,” that they’re still a member of the institution or attending it. Those individuals are going to overall combine for a much greater impact online. So, I guess the first thing is increasing that digital footprint.

    The second one has in my mind is just as important and just as powerful, it’s the impact on the individuals themselves. In higher ed especially (we’re talking medical schools, for instance) there’s a lot going on for the students, for those attending themselves. And so, a lot of times, a way for them to kind of help themselves get through it is to put some thoughts out there, and just tell how they’re feeling, and sharing what they’re doing on social media.

    For the institution to support that indirectly shows the students who are attending that the organization supports them as people and not just as students. And it sends a signal to them that, “We’re interested in you,” and indirectly that helps them succeed and feel like the institution really does care.

    It’s the same as a teacher in class going outside of class, in my mind, to get to know their students a little bit. And not just talk shop, not just talk about assignments or whatever, but to get to know them a little bit, or what they’re interested in.

    We all have experienced that ourselves, or with our families and our children. You know what a difference that makes to the child when a teacher goes out of their way to build a relationship in a slightly different way, to go above and beyond.

    To me, this is the institutional version of that. And so, what that does is that empowers the students themselves to feel like they are a part of something special, because the organization supports them.

    What all that does, Mariah, together, when that combines together, is that strengthens the brand of the organization because you don’t have to go out and create a word-of-mouth strategy – because people are already doing that for you. So, there are a lot of different benefits. I guess those are the couple that I’d focus on first and foremost.

    Mariah: Yeah. That’s really interesting that you bring up the kind of burnout sort of topic. We hear about that a lot in healthcare, in the physician burnout world. But sometimes we forget that medical students are under just as much pressure, if not more, than physicians out there in the field.

    So, really, like you mentioned, giving that impression and giving that warm feeling that they care and that they want to vocalize these issues and pay attention provides that empathetic vibe that you can’t necessarily get in an ad or a digital placement somewhere. A little bit more personal.

    How can medical schools really connect their organizational brand and content marketing efforts in a relevant way with the digital engagement of these influencers and vice versa?

    Jared: That’s a great question. And there’s a lot to it. I would say just some first steps are to be, first and foremost, be aware of those who are attending your institutionand out there blogging or posting on any social media channel.And there are a lot of different platforms. We don’t have to go into them too much. But find a platform, if you don’t have one already, that helps you monitor and go out and search for those who are attending.

    Because a lot of times, they’re not going to be mentioning the institution by name in their posts. So, you want to find a platform that helps you be able to find it essentially in their bios. A lot of times they will say on their Instagram, for instance, that, “I’m a third-year at such-and-such university med school.” You know, “I’m a resident at such-and-such institution.” And a lot of times that’s in the bios. A lot of times that might be in a post itself.

    That can take a while, but that’s a really important step is to go out and see how many you can find. You might not find all of them, but going out, doing some basic searches with the right software will help you find who they are. And then you start just spending some time looking at what they’re talking about.

    I’m telling you, it can be overwhelming because especially for a large institution where there are thousands or even tens-of-thousands attending potentially. It’ll be a little easier to scale for a smaller organization. But commit some time to identify and engage with those who are attending and are posting and already trying to establish themselves on social media.

    That’s the best thing you can do to start off with. Because then it’s natural to, as you’re monitoring them, to start following them, to share, to like, to engage with their posts. And then you’re extending what we just talked about with the first question in terms of showing your support for them.

    So, really, I think that’s the first step is just recognizing that they’re out there. We usually talk a lot about online reputation with anything that we’re doing. Well, we usually say things like, “People are talking about us and our brands anyway, whether we’re monitoring them or not. Whether we’re engaging with them or not.” Well, the same thing holds true for those who are part of our institution, so our staff and our students.

    So, what we really want to keep an eye on is, like I said, first and foremost, just finding them. But secondly, being aware of the types of things that they’re saying. Best case is that you have a handful, not a lot; best case is there are a few out there that are just naturally, organically waving the flag, holding up their testimonial of the institution, and praising the institution itself and saying how great it is to be a student here.

    I don’t think a lot of people do that from what I see, not naturally. But it’s indirect. So, that’s a good first step, just to figure out who they are. Keep track, follow them, and engage with them and show them some support.

    Mariah: I couldn’t agree more. That leg work—let’s not kid ourselves, it’s a lot of work, especially like you mentioned when there’s thousands and thousands of students across all the departments. But it is so important because you’re forging those relationships right away as a student, as a resident, and so forth. And then that can potentially carry over long past when they’re done, and they can continue to be an influencer for you, sharing your content because they remember that great experience.

    How do these departments that share some dependencies when it comes to marketing and strategy really collaborate? What are your thoughts on centralizing content versus decentralizing it?

    Jared: Well, I’m going to say “yes” to both. I think this isn’t an all-inclusive answer one way or the other. There are some elements of both I feel like are necessary to succeed here. The closest to this, we’re talking about lots of different departments.

    So, in my time at Phoenix Children’s Hospital, there were 125 subspecialties there. And our team was charged with monitoring all of those and centralizing our content strategy, which included all of our social. And that was a task because the centralized portion, what you quickly find is that if you try to go completely centralized, most of the time you’re not actually meeting the content needs of those individual departments. So, what you want to talk about isn’t what a lot of them want to talk about.

    It’s dangerous to try to go fully centralized because then you’re going to dilute the brand voice itself in what you’re saying. And any individual department might say, “Yeah. We don’t really care about that at all.” And so, you have to have an element of a decentralization in your strategy to really still keep those individual voices in it.

    And what I’ve found successful is, at least to start off with as part of your editorial calendar, have a rotation through some of those departments that are kind of the more low-hanging fruit, or the louder voices that are out there trying to post already. A lot of times, they may have their own account somewhere. They may be posting. They may have a Facebook group. They may have an Instagram or whatever else. They may have their own blog that they’re up and running themselves.

    So, while you’re deciding how centralized to be with those voices, start off by rotating through them on that centralized channel that you’ve got. And that at least gives you a better idea of what they’re posting about, what they care about.

    Because, at the end of the day, everything is about what they care about. It’s not about what you as your brand care about. I mean, that’s part of it. But there’s still enough of an individual voice out there that you have to think of both.

    I’ll give you an example. There’s at one point, there were, like I said, there were 125 subspecialties at Phoenix Children’s. And one of them, you know, the radiology department, came once and asked if they could start their own Instagram. And initially—this is a great example of how centralization/decentralization kind of both were at odds at first—because we thought well, we have a separate physician-facing, provider-facing content strategy.

    And Instagram to that point hadn’t been part of it. We had a main account for Phoenix Children’s for the hospital that, in this case, it turned out it was a bit of a diluted voice out there. It was pretty generic content. It was focused on patient stories. So, for that it was good. We had a lot of nurses and staff engaging with the main account.

    But when it came time for the radiology team to come, they had a resident who was insistent that they were going to be posting all the time. Because that was usually the concern—just about every department-specific account up to that point had a short shelf life. The pipeline just dried up really quickly within 1 to 3 months, I would say. And we wanted to make sure that we felt that out with them, and they said, “No, really. We can prove it to you.” And we said, “OK. We’ll do a pilot period with you guys.”

    And my initial thoughts were very, very wrong it turned out. I wondered how much of a shelf life a radiology account can have on Instagram. They grew that thing so quickly—they hit 12,000 followers on there. Before we knew it, they were surpassing the hospital’s following on the radiology account. And it’s to this day, it’s still growing insanely. And they are posting every day, and they are getting tons of engagement, which first and foremost, told me that, wow. I better open my eyes because, even when I think I know what I’m talking about, I better open my eyes to how quickly things change and how many healthcare professionals in their case, and providers specifically—clinicians of all types were on Instagram engaging with case films and they had been properly deidentified. Everything on there was just—it was unbelievable.

    Just an example of when we wanted to be more centralized with it and our team had taken pride actually in being able to kind of shut down some of those other accounts that had been created by other departments but had kind of dried up. Here we had one that was doing the exact opposite and was just putting the main hospital Instagram to shame.

    So, if you have somebody like that who knows what they’re doing and they’re going to do it one way or the other, find a way to work with the demand recognize— what we would do is on the main Instagram account, we’d start sharing a lot of those radiology posts, even though that wasn’t part of the initial content strategy, because we wanted to cross-pollinate a little bit and just see how much of the audience was looking at both.

    Turns out it was a pretty different audience. And so, after a little bit, we didn’t do that anymore on the main hospital account. Just goes to show you, it’s a complicated question.

    Mariah: Yeah. Absolutely. And you bring up kind of a finer point that a lot of our audience probably can relate to, as sometimes marketing gets that big bad, “Oh, here comes marketing. They’re going to come and shut us down.”

    But I think as we approach more of the digital initiatives and really try to, like you said, cross-pollinate, go across and get that cohesive strategy in higher ed and especially in medical schools, we really need to be a collaborative resource for one another and support and cheerlead more than just say, “No, no, no,” every time.

    How can those medical schools really determine and implement what content can be cohesively strategized and shared across the board?

    Jared: That is a really good question because that’s kind of the next step. So, as you’ve taken the first couple of steps, as you’ve gotten familiar with who’s out there already and sharing their voices and gotten a better idea of what content can be centralized and what really needs to stay in those individual voices, then really that next step is to keep all of those elements in your content strategy.

    And that’s another one that’s really easy to talk about, I feel like, and really difficult to implement. Especially the larger the institution is. The more departments, the more different teams are involved, especially with more diversity of age groups within the team, everyone’s going to have a different preference on which medium or channel they’re gonna gravitate towards anyway.

    So, that’s a good example of some, where you can almost tell, I don’t want to stereotype it either, but the fact is there’s a lot of times you can tell just what our go-to social media channel is. A lot of times you can link that to a general generation or age group that you apply to.

    And so, just knowing that, knowing what those kinds of conflicts are going to be or at least those kinds of different questions and approaches are going to pop up, those are important considerations. Because a lot of times what we do want to do—I love what you just highlighted there and pointed out, the part of just how we can kind of get a bad repin the marketing or branding teams. And there’s a legitimate reason why, because ultimately those teams are responsible for protecting and maintaining and growing a brand.

    Well, I like to follow what my friend, Aaron Watkins, who leads digital for Johns Hopkins Medicine, what he has said on numerous occasions. From his experience, he has highlighted how it’s very difficult to be seen internally with your stakeholders as a governor and an innovator at the same time.

    So, how that applies to this is if the reputation internally is, “Here comes marketing. They’re going to shut us down because that’s what they always do,” the last thing they’re going to do is work with us when they do have an innovative idea or they do want to launch a new account, when they do want to try something different, and that type of experimentation is important. It’s essential, actually, to keeping up with how we’re all consuming information online.

    So, we don’t want to discourage that. The more internal stakeholders and a lot of cases, this is going to be staff and students, as they see us as that governor, the ones that are gonna shut them down, we’re the last ones they’re going to come to for support. They’re actually just going to go launch the account on their own and they’re going kinda basically do it as a rogue account.

    And so, honestly, one of the main ways to answer your question of just how to implement this strategy, how to lead it and centralize it from the school of medicine, from the institution, is to be aware that those types of things may happen. And so, half of it is just how they approach it with those who they want to be part of their strategy. If that makes sense.

    You know, there’s going to be a certain amount of students who are out there and very active already, and we want to, I’ve always wanted to encourage that because, at the end of the day, it’s a lot easier to encourage that content from others and guide it a little bit if needed, then try to get people who aren’t already used to sharing content and creating their own voice to do so.

    It’s almost impossible to get somebody who’s just not used to putting stuff out there to start doing that. So, I’d much rather guide it and encourage it. And to me, that has been the main challenge in creating a strategy.

    Because otherwise you’re going to be there with the institution’s marketing team itself coming up with a strategy, and if you’re not involving those who are going to be part of it in the planning process, then they’re not going to care what your process is. It’s kind of like trying to plan a digital health platform without asking patients what they want. Do they actually care about what that innovation is?

    So, we just have to be careful. I think you can kind of sum all that up by saying the collaboration internally is essential there. And how we approach it with those who we want to be involved is as important as anything.

    Mariah: Exactly. And you highlighted a really great example with the radiology program there at Phoenix Children’s of really managing those expectations. How often are you going to post? What are your growth metrics that you’re looking at and so forth? And that really brings us to kind of the next step of once you decide on a strategy.

    How can both the medical school marketers and the individuals that are responsible for posting and for creating that content or curating, really manage the expectations internally and with leadership and stakeholders?

    Because, both of us know and everybody listening knows, that most marketing efforts, those big wins are not going to happen overnight.

    Jared: They most definitely aren’t. And I think making the timeline a main aspect of any expectations is key. So, conveying that right off the bat that, I have a friend, Dr. Justin Smith who leads digital health at Cook Children’s hospital in Fort Worth, TX.

    He’s a genuine thought leader for clinical leadership, especially pediatric leadership. And he really got institutional buy-in to lead that himself. He’s prolific on Twitter. He’s a prolific blogger. He’s always out there asking and answering questions. And he told me, he and I walked through a lot about the expectations that were for his team. Basically, he started a podcast about pediatric leadership for clinicians.

    They wanted to establish Children’s as a leader. And I’m sure part of that had to do with recruitment from institutions. And so, the expectation was…it was really funny because he had a really good podcast. And I believe it was once a week. And within like a month, he was saying, “You know what? Leadership is asking what’s the result of it.” And I’m like, “It’s only been a month.” He’s like, “I can count on one hand how many episodes I’ve put out there, and they’re already asking me, ‘What are the results? What’s going to happen? Are we getting more patients? Are we recruiting better physicians? Or what?’” And he’s like, “Man.” He had tried to set the expectations and it was still a challenge.

    I think a lot of times we just have to think, at the end of the day, do our stakeholders, do our leaders, see it as us just kind of playing around out there? And I think we always have to constantly communicate the business value of thought leadership, of being on social media and blogs and other online content.

    We have to constantly beat that drum and remind everyone of the business content and the business value of that. Because if we don’t, we may have set technically, and as I recall, I’m pretty sure Dr. Smith even said this, “We set all these expectations up from the beginning. And I’m still having to answer these same questions and a month into it, they’re still asking me, ‘Hey, so, how has this moved the needle?’” And he was like, “We’ve been talking about this all the time. I’ll remind you. This isn’t going to move the needle in that short amount of time. Here are our specific goals, here are our objectives,” and so forth.

    It’s just another indicator, really, of even though technically we may have set those expectations once, I think a key to making sure they’re understood is continually bringing them up at the right, opportune moments to remind everyone. “Just so you know, remember what we said when we got started. This will hopefully move the needle in these ways. But look, we have to get six months into this, we have to get 12 months into this. And you guys gave us the leeway to do that, and we are running with it. And we are succeeding here and here and here.” It’s just a lot more intentional sharing of that information with our leaders and stakeholders than we might think initially.

    Mariah: It’s really going to be interesting over the next 5 to 10 years as more millennials and then the digital native groups come in and start assuming these position roles from medical school, and start assuming these administrative roles, to see how that will change. Because I think, as we highlighted, the different age groups use different platforms and have, sometimes, different understandings of how long things take or different expectations of what viral is and all of those other fun things that we encounter day-to-day in the higher ed marketing space. But yes. I’m really looking forward to seeing how that changes and how that collaboration will flex as well.

    How can these organizations and individual influencers really measure their success? What metrics do you typically recommend that people look at, short-term and long-term?

    Jared: So, there are a couple different schools of thought here. One is that take someone who’s attending, so a student at a medical school. So, that student might be buried in the actual course work itself, but it’s crazy. It shouldn’t be so crazy, but it feels crazy still. Just recently, I’ve been looking at just how many medical students are on Instagram with fashion—all they’re posting about is basically fashion. And maybe it’s just one group that I found that are all kind of connected to each other. But they’re not—they’ll be one every now and then wearing a white coat. But almost everything else with them, on their off time, this is who they are when they’re not having their nose in a book studying and cramming for exams and attending their clinicals and so forth. They’re showing who they are.

    How they measure that success is one of two ways. They’re either going to be happy with the fact that they can share who they are online and share ideas with people. And for a lot of them, that’s all they want to do it for. When we start talking about influencers, they are dead set on growing their follower base, their followers or fans, those who “like” them. And they’re dead set on being an influencer in the space in addition to everything else.

    So, they’re going to measure their success primarily by their follower base and their engagement. I know people who will post and, if they don’t get a certain number of “likes,” they’ll actually delete the post off Instagram because they don’t want to be seen as not having a lot of engagement.

    To me, that’s a little extreme, but I think that’s the mind of an influencer. They see people are seeing them and saying, “Oh, well if they were any good, they’d have more followers or they’d have more likes, they’d have more comments.” And that’s literally just the world they live in.

    And so, you have to put that mindset on to realize, no matter what we say, that’s how they’re going to measure themselves because that’s how they see themselves—literally as influencers.

    On the organizational side, it is a combination of that. I tend to think impressions and followers are good. They’re still a primary metric, but they’re not the first one I’d look at. The first one I always look at with anything to do with social media is engagement rate over total engagement. Or engagement rate per post, because that tells me on an individual basis how much people engage with what I’m putting out there.

    Now, total engagement is a good way to measure that, too, because if you just look at one of these metrics over the other, then there’s easy ways to do it. If you only want total engagement, then you just post more. Ultimately, you’re just going to do that. But you can’t—it’s really hard to measure how many people you annoyed by flooding their stream all day long with just you.

    So, that’s a lot harder to measure. But with the total engagement, it might look like it’s a great metric. So, I’m always cautious about only using total engagement or total followers because those things do help. They help you gauge where you are compared to others. But on their own, it’s easy to use those figures.

    So, if you have engagement rate per post as one of your metrics, at the very least, you’re going to recognize the trends that are based on what type of content you’re putting out there, what types of posts, how often, what time of day, all those kinds of things that we like to kind of fret about. It’s a lot easier to see that by the engagement rate per post.

    We probably haven’t covered that, but that’s just simply the engagements for that particular post over the number of impressions or reach for that post. It’s a percentage, it’s usually—it varies by channel, but it can be anywhere from 1 to 3 to 5 to 10 percent depending on the channel. Anywhere in that can actually be considered a really strong engagement rate. Anything higher than that, almost any channel, is going to be significant.

    So, those are at least base figures. So, I would come back to that. Engagement rate and then total engagement and number of followers just as reference, but not typically the key thing I would focus on.

    Mariah: And I’m with you. I am a huge proponent of watching trends. So, it’s good to get down to that granular level once and a while. And I see agencies—and it gives me hives, to be honest with you—I see agencies go all the way down with their clients or even organizations, “We got X number of smiley faces versus hearts on this post.” Or “We got this versus that.”

    And sometimes that’s okay to look at. Sometimes it’s entertaining to look at. But what does the number of hearts or smiley faces or angry faces on a post, one post looking at it singularly, really tell you? It doesn’t tell you much. And so, you really have to look, like you said, in a global way. Look at all these metrics across and how they relate to each other and not parse it down to, “We’re going to look at just this one thing and judge our success by that.”

    Jared: I was just going to agree with you, Mariah. Because I feel like, especially in an academic institution, a lot of times, a single—it would be extremely rare for a single post anywhere, whether it’s a paid or boosted or organic post, to influence somebody on its own to attend that institution. It might be one of 20 or 30 touch points that all together influenced somebody and gave them something else to think about and come into play.

    So, in my mind, a lot of social media engagement is a branding play, not necessarily a direct marketing play. If it is, then the metrics are a little different. And you are going to focus more directly on clicks and conversions and so forth. That tends not to be the case as much with academic institutions.

    Although there has been an increase on say, like, Instagram swipe up ads for that to become an increasing way to get people at least contacting the institution or clicking through. It is on the rise. It’s just there’s a lot of confusion that way when explaining what the value ultimately is of the effort put into these channels.

    Mariah: And that’s definitely one of those intersections where the things that the stakeholders care about and the things that the marketing teams care about. Because you’re looking at all of this data—everything in a medical school is data driven, everything in a healthcare organization is data driven, and it should be the same in marketing. And I think, as a unit, as an industry, we’re really getting there and really expecting that to be a best practice.

    Keeping that in mind, along with that total broad look at metrics and not just becoming extremely granular, what are some of those key components of successful content marketing, in any platform, the measurement of it and how can schools set up a model to govern that process and keep that constant publication and review ongoing?

    Jared: That’s a really good question. I think the biggest thing for me is just constantly having enough in the pipeline and knowing who you’re pleasing with the content. So, especially in an academic institution, especially in a medical school, you’re dealing with a lot—healthcare professionals a lot of times, especially tenured ones, are very strongly opinionated. This is not news to anyone. I’m not breaking news here.

    But that comes into play with how we explain to them the value of the time that we’re working on. And how we say, “You want me to post that here. This isn’t the best place for that, because here’s our goal for that channel.” So, really, it sounds simple, but it’s one of those things that Content Marketing Institute and other institutions just keep driving into people is that the majority of organizations do not have a documented content strategy.

    I love Cleveland Clinic’s content strategy. It’s one sentence and it has been one sentence for their Health Essentials blog, ever since Amanda Todorovich has been there for six years now. It hasn’t changed. And it’s one sentence. And it’s something along the lines of just providing useful, relevant, unique healthcare content to make healthcare and wellness better for people. You know, it’s something generic like that.

    But that’s their north star. They can always point to it and say, “Here’s the reason why what you’re asking me to do, to post, doesn’t quite fit that. We do have an alternative for that. We’ve got this Twitter account. We’ve got this other place where we will put it. But, just so you know, that’s why that doesn’t fit into this stream.” So, you have to think about how it helps you kind of defend against the rogue requests. And, like I said, in a medical institution, you’re going to get a lot of them.

    So, that’s one of the keys to success in how to set up your model, is to be aware of that and to have your documented strategy. It’s typically a lot more useful—like I said, that was for Cleveland Clinic, just for their Health Essentials blog. For their social media channels, they have different strategies. Now, if I’ve heard correctly, they’re pretty simple as well. They’re not detailed, long strategies, but they’re different for each channel.

    If you can’t provide that for somebody and say in one to two sentences for each of your social channels and other areas where you’re creating content, what the purpose is and who you are trying to affect some kind of change in, if you can’t provide that, then you’re going to have a really hard time defending against people who insist, “No, you have to post this somewhere.” And you know what that does.

    That’s just like a block in the road, like all the traffic has to stop. All the traffic you’ve been trying to get lined up in your pipeline and maintain that, it all just goes out the window. Then people insist on putting other stuff in there. And you know it’s going to clutter up your feed, and you know that’s not what the audience that you’ve cultivated so hard wants to read about or watch or whatever.

    Mariah: So, it’s really the antithesis of what they’ve been talking about at that Content Marketing Institute for the last couple of years. You don’t want to be disruptive. You want to go in, and you want to be very relevant and very naturalwith your audience.

    Jared: Yes. Exactly. And so, it’s always a shame when it happens, but it happens a lot, more than we probably hear about. And maybe it’s just because it seems like such a simple thing to document your strategy. But that also helps a lot of times in the day-to-day decisions. It’s a lot easier to plan out three months, six months out of posts or content when you know what your cadence is and what your goal is, and what the topics are that far in advance. If you just say, “Look. This is what we’re going to stick with. We’re not gonna keep changing it based on who’s asking us to do things.”

    So, really, I see that as just, like I said, a simple, easy thing to do. But take the time to do it now rather than later. It saves you now and it saves you down the road. Besides that, in terms of how to just set up that model and process going forward, just being clear, putting yourselves in your stakeholders’ shoes.

    So, if you’re on the organizational team and you have connected with some of the thought leaders who are attending your institution and they want to know, like, “Okay, hey. We’re on board with your content strategy. We want to help. We want to amplify some of your content.” They probably won’t say it that way. That’s just how marketers say it. “Amplify some of your stuff.” They’ll be like, “Hey that’s cool. We’ll share some of that.”

    If they’re on board, then put yourselves in their shoes. They want things to be really easy for them. They’re not going to go out of their way to share something about the institution, even if it is cool and they agree with it. If you make that easy for them and you are regularly tagging them with your content, those are ways to build bridges with the thought leaders within your institution. So, they can keep on doing their own thing, but then you make it easier for them to, every now and then, just drop in something that you would like them to share about the institution.

    Anyway, you just make it easy for them. Just knowing that social media these days for somebody who’s not on the organizational team—they’re spending a lot more time consuming it than they are trying to figure out on a day-to-day basis what to post.

    So, put yourself in their shoes. Know what they would like and what makes it easy for them to share things that have to do with our strategy. The more we do that, the easier it will be, and each thought leader that you have out there on your behalf is part of that long-tail of content, kind of coming back to the one of the first things we were talking about. It’s the more touch points you have out there that really does build your brand and just makes it easier and more valuable at the end of the day for everything that you’re doing.

    Mariah: Oh, absolutely. And something that I’d like to highlight that you just mentioned, too, is when you really know your audience, and you really know what they want, when they want it, and in what format, there’s absolutely nothing wrong with—and it’s actually encouraged—to plan that content out a few months in advance. You said up to 6 months or so. That’s a really good way to make sure you have something that’s always in the queue.

    And if you have that basic understanding, and you have that format you’re going for in the right platform, you can make it very much more manageable. And you can go in and do those daily or weekly checks. Okay, is everything still aligned with what we want to be saying today and what’s going on in the climate of the school, and politically and so forth, to make your message consistent without having to rush in every morning and get everything lined up, because it’s already there?

    So, what would a couple of closing remarks from you be?

    What would you like to leave for key words of advice for individuals at medical schools who are responsible for content marketing and engagement with that staff and student influencer body?

    Jared: I think I would just look at again, putting ourselves in our students’ shoes. What’s on their minds? It’s probably not, “How can I increase the institution’s brand?” They’re just concerned with making it day-to-day. They are studying 14 to 16 to 18 hours a day, maybe more. And they’re intent on what their goal is. They’re likely very goal-oriented people to be where they are. But at the same time, they’ve heard that the medicine that they’re going into is different than the medicine that, if their parents went into it, it’s different than the medical field that their parents went into. And they’re trying to make sense of it all.

    In most cases, it’s a young adult trying to find out and make sense of everything. At the same time, they’re being thrust into interesting financial situations. They’re taking on six figures worth of debt. So, anything you can do that showcases who they are and humanizes your strategy for them and including them, that shows that you do support them as people, will go so much farther to strengthen your brand with those individuals.

    It doesn’t have to be a push-pull, an adversarial relationship, with them. Don’t come in saying that you’re the brand police and that it’s your job to shut them down and tell them what they can and can’t say. Provide some guidelines that still, at the end of the day, show, “Hey, we encourage you. We want your voice out there. We like the ideas you have out there. We’re glad you’re connecting those with other people’s ideas.” And encourage them, help them see the value of creating a network.

    My goodness, I don’t know where I’d be today in my career without the network connections that I have and what I’ve learned from other people. And those relationships that have developed from, with other people and a lot of times, especially the last three to five years, that has really come a lot through social media engagement. And then when I do meet somebody in person at a conference or something, it’s like, “Oh my gosh.” We can’t even remember if we have met in person before because we engage so much in between.

    Mariah: Absolutely. That’s where you and I met. We met in the land of Twitter of LinkedIn.

    Jared: Right. Right. That’s true. And it was just one of those—you know each other when you do see each other in real life, and it’s like, “Man. This is really cool.” This is just kind of how it is these days.

    So, just being aware of a lot of these things that are going to drive a lot of growth and development in our content strategies. It doesn’t have to be us versus them. We really can encourage those ideas. Just think how far that goes for us as employees anywhere we work, where we are shown by our boss (or anyone) that they get where we’re coming from and they support our ideas. It’s the same thing. See them that way and see them as assets to your organization. And then you don’t have to give them all these rules and regulations of how to act online. They’ll just do it naturally.

    Mariah: I think that is especially applicable in the medical school setting because, chances are, these individuals are going to “grow up” and maybe come and work for your system. Maybe come and work for your medical school or the associated hospital. So, really, including them in all of the successes, sharing that data with them, giving them that impetus to continue to do so, is extremely important and valuable.

    Thank you so much, Jared, for sharing your expertise with us today. And again, it’s just so wonderful to have thoughtful and insightful individuals like you really advocating for the medical students out there, and the faculty and staff that work so hard to drum up that great networking opportunities for them and these great relationships.

    Jared: Thanks again for the opportunity. Yeah. I really enjoy—you can probably tell—I really do believe in just the value of the types of relationships and the value that comes from just putting ourselves out there online and sharing who we are. It’s more valuable than a lot of times we realize.

    Mariah: Absolutely. And thank you so much for listening today.

  • Content Marketing: Balancing Both Print and Digital

    Content Marketing: Balancing Both Print and Digital

    But savvy digital marketers know that it’s never been print vs. digital. Shareable blogs and social media are the new word of mouth. Before digital, it was never print vs. word of mouth – it’s always been a combination of platforms, and will be for the foreseeable future.

    In fact, we ascribe to a method that deliberately integrates traditional and digital distribution – with the same hub content pieces. This method is not proprietary – it’s a content marketing best practice known as COPE: create once, publish everywhere.

    However, it can feel overwhelming for lean marketing and web teams to crank out content that is timely, relevant and useful on a continual basis. There are plenty of reasons to implement content marketing in any organization, but there are ample excuses as to why organizations don’t do it. Below, we address four of of the most common concerns clients have shared before they took the lucrative leap into content marketing.

    1. We don’t have anything interesting to talk about

    Do you sell a product or service? Do you have an opinion? Then, yes, you do have something interesting to share with your audience. Content marketing is an active conversation with your audience. Give the people what they’re asking for. Provide the information they want and need to drive business results.

    Every piece of content you distribute must be useful, relevant and interesting.

    • What is the story?
    • What is the problem you are trying to solve?
    • What are people asking?

    Your content also must be tied to business goals. And it must be created, produced and distributed in a way that is searchable and easy to find. If you want to be found for something, position the content as only your organization can around those topics, problems and questions, and relentlessly share it across digital and print.

    2. We don’t have time for content marketing

    Organizations say “we don’t have time” because their staff spends too many hours working on projects that don’t generate results. For content marketing, that means creating articles, emails, social media posts and mailers that no one engages with or reads. Some of this is an educated guess. You can’t say 100 percent whether a certain story or image will take off, but if you know your audience’s goals, wants and needs, you will learn what is newsworthy and relevant to them. Then produce more of that!

    On the flip side, some people say organizations don’t need more content, but rather more deliberate content. We have not found this to be true. Organizations that achieve content marketing success strike a balance between creating evergreen “cornerstone content” and new, trending content, as well as effectively repurposing and distribution strategies.

    For example, With one hub piece of content, you can expand and optimize the reach of your message to more and new people in a relevant way without investing excess time in recreating the wheel. You could produce a cornerstone content webinar and use the recorded content to produce a podcast with a transcription. Next, you potentially could use that content to create a white paper, multiple blog articles and a series of social media posts that are tweaked for the specific platforms and audiences.

    3. This is how we’ve always done it

    And it’s always worked just well enough that stakeholders haven’t fussed. But imagine complementing your print efforts with an integrated digital strategy to increase the reach and shareability of your content. Content marketing can take your current successes from meeting the goal to blowing it out of the water.

    When it comes to content production, we often hear organizations subscribing to standards from years past. For example, optimal web content used to be 300 – 500 words. However, this content might be flagged today by Google as too thin or non-expert content. Today’s best practice for how long an article should be is closer to 750 – 1,200 words. Next year, it will probably be different, and that’s the nature of marketing, especially on digital.

    The same principle goes for social media, which used to be entirely organic. Today, it’s almost entirely pay-to-play and driven by constantly changing algorithms. Without paid promotion, expect minimal views of your content.

    4. Our stakeholders want ROI, but content can’t produce it

    Not true. When done right, content marketing can drive 30 percent or more of your web traffic, resulting in high-quality lead generation and trackable conversions. You can achieve this by writing content that is optimized for search and that is tailored to active searches in your target audience. Write this way regardless of whether you intend to publish in print, online or both. The phrasing and keywords used in web optimized content pop out at readers on both print and digital.

    However, content marketing is a marathon, not a sprint. Most organizations need to create and distribute quality content for six months to a year to show return on investment (ROI). But the potential thereafter is limitless with continual publishing and strategic distribution of cross-channel content that is relevant to your audience.

    Challenges of content marketing

    We make content marketing sound easy because our job is to make it easy for clients But a lot of work goes into content creation. Successful organizations start with data. They investigate what people are searching, clicking and consuming in order to determine trends in user engagement and what to create next.

    Because of this and the ever-changing best practices across channels, writing has never been harder. Now we measure frequently, and we have goals for every piece of content in digital and print:

    • Reach: How many people are reading the story? Are we on the appropriate platforms, such as Flipboard, Alexa, and more?
    • Visibility: Is the story searchable and findable? What is our SEO ranking? Are social posts getting shared?
    • Relevance: Did we write for newsworthiness, whether the topic is a trending industry conversation or a unique angle on a traditional topic? We don’t aim for clickbait; we aim for click-worthy content.
    • Conversion: Does every article have a natural next step that ties user needs and behaviors with business goals?

    Content marketing strategy trends

    Content marketing works. As many as 80 percent of attendees to the annual Content Marketing World conference are new year over year. The Content Marketing Institute taps into the needs of these new attendees year round by creating content that answers questions this section of the market is asking online. What is content marketing? How can I get started?

    As you consider the nuanced needs of your audience, keep these content marketing trends top of mind heading into your next planning or production cycle:

    • New wave “influencer” content: This is when others share your content in an organic and useful way. They see your content as personally and professionally valuable and helpful, and they share it with their networks, but not for spammy or monetary purposes. Give your audience content they can’t help but share.
    • Personas: These ideal and general audience figures are key to successful content marketing programs. They can’t just be in your head – they must be written down and and made “3D” so others on your team and agency can ascribe to the key demographics and audience needs. Would Sally want to know this information? Would Joe care about this topic?
    • Refinement: Success requires evolution. Best practices change all the time. Every week, check what’s working and what’s not. Try new things and tweak the processes to gauge effectiveness and find areas of opportunity. Reevaluation leads to expert creation!
    • Relationships: Establish yourself or your organization as an expert in a particular field or topic, and give your audience the frontline advice and wisdom they crave.
    • Video: It doesn’t have to be highly-produced to be highly effective. We created a virtual reality video for our active shooter training at Stamats as well as 360 videos that capture live-action events effectively and without a lot of cost investment. Captioning is key for user experience, and don’t forget to transcribe or embed the video within a related blog for SEO purposes.

    Whether your goal is to reach more people, improve sales or generate more leads, a content marketing strategy that integrates print and digital media can help you drive business results.

  • Stamats Hires Sandra Fancher to Drive Innovation

    Stamats Hires Sandra Fancher to Drive Innovation

    Sandra has served as a trusted internal and external partner in digital strategy leadership roles over the last two decades. She has collaborated with client executive teams and mentored hundreds of colleagues in the creation and implementation of cutting-edge digital marketing strategies. “From my first conversation with the Stamats leadership team, I knew the agency was ready and eager to take the next steps with this already successful brand,” Sandra said. “Stamats’ partner-centric, UX-focused, solutions-driven approach aligned perfectly with my values.”

    Executive Vice President Bill Stamats, says Sandra joining the Stamats team in November 2018 was perfect timing. “Sandra has proven to be a great cultural fit, and her expertise is instrumental in supporting our growth and reflecting our commitment to higher ed and a growing portfolio of partnerships.”

    Innovation at Stamats

    As Chief Innovation Officer, Sandra has embraced the opportunity to combine passion for client success, digital strategy and innovation into one role. “Stamats fully embraces change, and innovation is about listening, then connecting and implementing. My first focus has been to create integrations between the incredible depth of experience and knowledge of the many disciplines in the organization. I’ve appreciated the opportunity to construct the role parameters as needed.”

    Sandra is eager for the opportunities that await. “Immediately, I was impressed with the significant advancement in predictive modeling and marketing automation at Stamats. The organization is already a step ahead of the competition in this area with potential for additional unique and exciting applications of their technology.”

    More than 70 percent of all higher education institutes have partnered with Stamats over the years. Under Sandra’s leadership in 2019, Stamats will increase its robust digital services offerings in higher education, as well as strategically expand into additional B2B markets.

    About Sandra Fancher, PMP

    Sandra holds a BS from Northwest Missouri State University and is a certified Project Manager Professional, Pragmatic Marketing and ScrumMaster.

    X formerly Twitter: @sandrafancher

    LinkedIn: sandrafancher

  • Stamats Hires Top Content Marketer Mariah Obiedzinski to Expand Service Offerings

    Stamats Hires Top Content Marketer Mariah Obiedzinski to Expand Service Offerings

    As more clients ask for actionable, conversion-centered content, Stamats is prepared to heed the call. In December 2018, Mariah Obiedzinski joined the Stamats team as Director of Content Services to expand web content creation services at Stamats and help develop and launch a new content marketing program.

    Mariah has a decade of digital strategy experience, having helped small-to-enterprise clients achieve millions of revenue-generating pageviews through engaging, actionable content marketing techniques. She is a nationally recognized expert in the content marketing industry. “Relevant, actionable content—from the words and headings to videos, podcasts, images, and calls-to-action— is a win-win for organizations and site visitors,” Mariah said. “When properly executed, content marketing can drive upwards of 50 percent of total web traffic, resulting in substantial return on investment and user satisfaction.”

    Peter Stamats, CEO, says Mariah’s addition is a strategic growth opportunity for Stamats. “We have always been founded in content and publishing. The future is digital, and we are adjusting our content delivery strategies to support growing client demand. So far, our clients are extremely pleased with their results.”

    Content Marketing at Stamats

    For the last decade, Mariah has provided content expertise and digital project management to clients ranging from independent organizations to national academic institutions. “Effective content governance and content marketing is about meeting people where they are with a clear, useful, measurable user experience. What hinders most organizations is how to marry these concepts while maintaining an optimal publication and distribution process — that’s what Stamats will provide.”

    At Stamats, Mariah will collaborate with Chief Content Engagement Director, Christoph Trappe, to grow a data-driven, conversion-centric content marketing program. Christoph said, “Mariah is a recognized content marketing expert who always puts the client’s needs and goals first. She will certainly help our clients across industries take their content marketing programs up a notch and drive business results.”

    “The progressive attitudes of the team members at Stamats is remarkable,” Mariah adds. “For such a tenured, respected company to venture into a new enterprise content marketing program is thrilling and humbling all at once. I’m eager for the opportunities with this program in 2019.”

    More than 70 percent of all higher education institutes have partnered with Stamats over the years. In 2019, Stamats will increase its content services and content marketing offerings in higher education, as well as strategically expand into additional B2B markets.

    About Mariah Obiedzinski

    Mariah is a two-time presenter at the international Content Marketing World conference. Her areas of expertise include content conversion strategy, integrated digital strategy social media, writing and editing, and interviewing for blogs, podcasts, videos, and webinar. She holds two BAs from Mount Mercy University.

  • Building a Better Website: 8 Usability Mistakes to Avoid

    Building a Better Website: 8 Usability Mistakes to Avoid

    Key team members such as information architects, visual designers, and web developers must each have a good understanding of usability principles in order to deliver a stunning college or university website.

    At Stamats, we understand the importance of usability. Creating a compelling, research-based, data-driven user experience requires an investment that many institutions and colleges are hesitant to make. With the goal of improving usability no matter what your budget, we’ve condensed eight of the most common usability mistakes we see on higher education websites.

    1. Structuring Sites for Internal Audiences Only

    Many institutions that take the time to evaluate their website’s IA (Information Architecture) go about it the wrong way. While it may make perfect sense to your board members and staff, structuring a website around your various departments or products is a very institution-centered approach. There’s a good chance that this structure will alienate some of your most valuable audiences —including current and prospective students. While it’s important to meet the needs of all constituents groups, remember that your website is the foundational marketing tool for reaching external audiences.

    Tip: Conduct user testing to truly understand what structure will work best for website visitors who may not be familiar with your institution. Talking to real people to discover their questions, needs, and challenges can provide a whole new perspective.

    2. Not Realizing that Information Architecture Is Critical Across a Website’s Lifecycle

    IA categorizes information in a structured way so audiences can find what they need quickly. As the centerpiece of your website design and development, IA supports the visual design, content, functional requirements, and technical implementation of the website. Without an intuitive structure in place, users will get discouraged and quite possibly leave the website without ever having the opportunity to learn more.

    Tip: Invest in Information Architecture. Your website should clearly point users to the information they’re looking for with the fewest possible obstacles. As your website evolves, reevaluate your IA to ensure that it still supports user needs, goals, and tasks.

    A wireframe sitemap of a website.

    3. Skip Usability Testing

    Usability is a technique for evaluating a product and/or website by testing it on users in order to better understand interaction and behavior. By directly observing how real students (and other important constituents) use the website to complete tasks, testing can offer valuable design insights. For example, something as simple as moving calls-to-action from the left side of the screen to the right can make a big impact in the user experience, bolster your brand, and encourage click-through.

    Tip: Conduct thorough usability testing by engaging 5-7 hand-selected individuals from your target audiences. Monitor and record how participants navigate your test site to complete common tasks. Pay close attention to areas that are unclear, have confusing design cues, or have key points that go unnoticed.

    4. Using Confusing Terminology

    Over the years, we’ve found that many institutions are offering exactly what their target audiences need, but they’re calling it the wrong thing. For example, working adults who are considering taking classes at their local community college may not identify with a website section entitled “continuing education.” And in other cases, high school students don’t always self-identify as “undergraduate students.” Many are simply unfamiliar with the term.

    Tip: Think like a student. Use plain language and descriptive text whenever possible. To test your terminology, listen to your audiences (we can’t emphasize this enough). Focus groups comprised of prospective and current students are an easy way to learn more about what makes sense to users and what leaves them confused.

    5. Not Writing for the Web

    Academic writing tends to be formal and verbose. When writing a thesis, dissertation, or research report, it’s strongly encouraged to be as detailed as possible. However, the web is a different animal. Your site visitors are looking for specific pieces of information and they are looking to find that information quickly.

    Tip: Strive to keep prospective students’ attention and communicate the top benefits for attending your institution quickly. It’s best to hit the highlights using brief statements with links that invite the reader to dig deeper. Write content that’s easy to scan quickly and use sub-headings to break content into short sections. Call out important facts and figures with different formatting and helpful icons. Use bullets and numbered lists wherever possible.

    6. Not Developing Clear Calls-to-Action

    While most websites have compelling and informative content, many fail to give the user clear direction about what to do next. Website visitors may be new to the process of searching for information about courses, financial aid, housing, etc. Effective calls-to-action makes it easier for users to take the next step in their journey.

    Tip: Focus on the primary tasks and informational needs of your users (e.g., register, schedule a campus visit, or request more information). Use clear language and leverage visual elements such as buttons and graphics that catch the users’ attention.

    Info-graphic of of how a CTA can be used on a website.

    7. Neglecting Accessibility

    We’re happy to report that this mistake is becoming a rarity as more schools focus on making their websites accessible for all audiences. Updates include everything from the way the website is coded to the visual design (color contrast, type size, etc.) and the content itself (captions for videos and images).

    Tip: Determine the level of accessibility that’s required for your school and become familiar with those guidelines. Then, conduct an audit to see where the site is meeting criteria and where it’s falling short. Having clear documentation about what needs to be updated will help you to prioritize areas that need the most work.

    8. Not Capitalizing on Advances in Technology

    It’s the responsibility of website creators to design delightful user experiences across all digital platforms. Small elements on the website —from HTML5 video starting automatically to image roll-over animations —factor into a website’s overall usability.

    Mobile usage has continued to increase with no end in sight. Recently, Google announced that in the US, more searches take place on mobile devices than on desktops. This means that if a prospective student uses Google to search for your institution, there’s a good chance that first encounter will be on a smartphone.

    Tip: Get creative and embrace technology! Schedule regular brainstorming sessions with your team to generate new ideas to make your website stand out. Always remember to revisit your strategic goals before making any site changes. Once you’ve determined what technology will help you achieve the best results, you’ll be even more inspired to develop a memorable site experience.

    From website design to CMS integration and content strategy, Stamats offers a wide range of services designed to help schools fully embrace the Digital Age. Find out more about our digital solutions here.

  • 7 Tips for Getting Great User-Generated Content

    7 Tips for Getting Great User-Generated Content

    comScore, one of the leading audience tracking platforms, sums up the power of UGC by noting that brand engagement rises by 28% when consumers are exposed to both professional and user content.

    Review platform, Bazaarvoice, looks at it another way. Their research shows that 86% of millennials say that user-generated content is a good indication of the quality of a business or service.

    UGC For Higher Ed Marketing

    For colleges and universities, UGC is particularly appropriate for mid- to late-funnel nurturing communications, helping prospects envision themselves on your campus, building camaraderie among accepted students (to improve yield), and showing real-life outcomes. But it goes beyond that.

    When you identify these sources of content, you also uncover potential fodder for profiles, vignettes, and narratives for enrollment publications, web and microsites, and alumni communications.

    Stacy Goodman writes in the NewsCred blog, “…it’s about the ability to capture an unscripted moment. It’s about creativity, authenticity and perspective. It’s about relaying a deeply personal experience that simply can’t be objectively recreated by a brand.”

    7 Ways to Uncover Great UGC

    1. Use the power of the hashtag.

    A search for #adelphiuniversity on Instagram reveals over 7,000 photos, including shots of acceptance letters, campus beauty, student life, diversity, and other topics that might sound and look “forced” or inauthentic if they were produced by the brand itself. Be sure to search for all the common variations, abbreviations, and nicknames for your institution.

    2. Think about an inclusive hashtag.

    Like any content marketing, UGC should be about “them,” not about you. Consider actionable hashtags such as #CU4me or #UTforU.

    3. Ask for it.

    How about displaying hashtag signs asking for participation in dorms, dining halls, the campus store, and elsewhere on campus, encouraging students to share their experiences?

    4. Create a contest.

    Think about the kinds of content students are already posting about your institution, then create a contest that aligns with images like those. SUNY Plattsburgh did a digital scavenger hunt, asking students to capture images of themselves at all of the iconic locations on and around campus.

    5. Incentivize participation.

    All students love swag. Consider using college-branded promotional items to encourage participation, at least until your campaign gains organic momentum.

    6. Host a community blog.

    The search gurus at MOZ built YOUMOZ, a communal posting space. Members vote with a thumbs up or thumbs down, and the winning posts are advanced to the main blog space.

    7. Mine review sites.

    Customer reviews bask in the glow of credibility. Put good ones to work for you!

    As marketers, it’s our job to create dialogues. What better way for us to do this than to find new opportunities for content creation?

    To share or get ideas for UGC at your institution, email us today!

  • Is Your Website a Destination—Or a Disappointment?

    Is Your Website a Destination—Or a Disappointment?

    Of special interest to me—both professionally and as a parent—are college and university websites. Facing increasing competition and a rapidly evolving marketplace, schools must ask themselves, “Is my website a digital destination, or a disappointment?”

    Since all digital roads—social media, organic and paid search, digital display and retargeting ads, and email campaigns—lead to your site, it must be up to the challenge. Engaging and useful content, a clear brand voice, information that’s easy to find, and tasks that are simple to complete are must-haves for today’s discerning audiences.

    Particularly for prospective and first-year students (typically, digital natives) college and university websites are essential tools of connection. Prospective students rely on your site to discover who you are, weigh the academic and social experiences you offer, and gauge outcomes.

    For first-year students, your site is a tool of engagement. It helps them expand their social circles, explore extracurricular activities, and take full advantage of academic opportunities and career-building resources.

    Take some time to explore your school’s site with the user experience in mind. From the perspectives of a potential student and current freshman, ask yourself these four questions:

    1. What’s the Overall Experience?

    Is the site an effective digital marketing tool? Is it well-organized with intuitive navigation and clear CTAs? Does it include virtual tours, success stories, and other key information to help prospective students get a feel for the school and its culture?

    2. Can I Easily Find the Information I Need?

    Is key information organized and presented clearly? How quickly can you find specifics on academic programs, tuition and fees, financial aid, housing options, and internship opportunities?

    3. Are Tasks Simple to Complete?

    Examine the process for scheduling a campus tour, requesting more information, applying, and registering for a class. If a form is involved, does it contain unnecessary fields? What obstacles could be removed to make the process easier and faster?

    4. Does the Site Support the Brand?

    Often, brand updates and site updates aren’t carefully coordinated, resulting in a disjointed brand experience. Does the website express your school’s current brand platform? Are key brand messages reinforced across the site? Is it well-integrated with social media channels?

    Prioritizing the User Experience

    A discipline all its own, user experience (UX) refers to the process of designing and creating digital products that provide meaningful and relevant experiences to users.

    Now more than ever before, colleges and universities of all sizes are realizing the importance of UX and putting resources behind it. Besides supporting every institutional initiative from recruitment to capital campaigns, UX also:

    • Ensures site is ADA compliant, increasing accessibility and minimizing legal exposure
    • Helps institutions better understand, prioritize, and engage audiences
    • Defines user journeys and facilitates desired actions
    • Encourages users to interact with and share content
    • Maintains consistency across the site and provides a framework for site updates

    Regular usability testing is a crucial component of UX. The testing process involves giving real-world users specific website tasks to complete. As users work through each task, technicians collect information by observing body language, tracking eye movement, and soliciting feedback in real-time.

    Monitoring how real people interact with your site is an effective way to determine whether visitors are:

    • Navigating your websites without getting lost or frustrated
    • Following established user journeys
    • Completing priority actions successfully
    • Encountering bugs or functionality issues (crucial during site updates or redesigns)
    • Leaving your site with a positive or negative impression

    If hiring a dedicated UX professional is out of your school’s reach right now, consider tapping into the talent pool available on campus. By creating an UX internship for computer science, IT, or graphic design majors, you can improve your institutional website and help motivated students develop valuable skills.

    Stamats’ website services can also help. We offer scalable UX design, assessment/testing, and consultation services. Email our digital strategy team to learn more.