Hashtag Higher Ed

Josie Ahlquist, higher ed communication consultant, Walter Kimbrough, President of Dillard University, discuss the importance of university leaders being active and authentic on social media.

With Giving Tuesday just around the corner, we talk about the state of institutional giving in 2020, and the ways that colleges and universities will leverage Giving Tuesday to create their own dedicated days of giving before the fiscal year is out.

Matt Jennings, editor-in-chief of Middlebury Magazine, joins Higher Voltage to discuss the award-winning publication's shift from print-first product to digital-only (for now), and what changes will be permanent.

In this week's Higher Voltage, we explore the different kinds of agreements and compensation schools offer these students, the guidelines and safeguards they put in place, and the importance of leveraging these authentic voices and their digital savvy to help show prospective students what their life on campus (IRL or virtual) can look like.

Higher ed marketers want to portray their schools as diverse and inclusive. But how do they do that in a way that is authentic and doesn't misrepresent the actual makeup of their student bodies? Kevin Tyler and Alice Cheng-McConnell explore with our host, Heather Dotchel on the latest episode of Higher Voltage.

Accessibility in Higher Ed Communications – Alexa Heinrich and Erika Boltz by eCity Interactive

Higher ed marketing professionals love a good conference. So how are folks connecting and learning from one another with the traditional conference calendar blown up?

The Volt podcast returns, as guests Jon-Stephen Stansel and Krista Boniface explore the toll that managing higher ed social media communications takes on the professionals on those front lines. Host Heather Dotchel is our guide, as Higher Voltage (formerly the Hashtag Higher Ed podcast) kicks off.

When was the last time you were creative? Did you take a moment to recognize your own accomplishment? Did you share that feeling with others? Creativity is a sticky subject; difficult to identify and harder to hone. And yet, we are surrounded by it, personally and professionally. In the season 2 finale of the Hashtag Higher Ed Podcast, Amma Marfo, speaker and consultant at Fun Enterprises, joins the show for a special in-studio episode to talk about all things creativity. We discuss how to recognize your own creativity, getting comfortable with sharing your projects and accomplishments, why higher education is ripe for new ideas, and how to breed an environment that lends itself to creative thinking.

According to the 2018 e-Expectations report, cost/tuition information and scholarship opportunities are the two primary reasons prospective college students visit your website. And yet, across higher education, financial aid pages are littered with insider language, fine print, and confusing instructions. But Calvin College has taken a different approach. In this episode of the Hashtag Higher Ed Podcast, Nate Hibma, Assistant Director of Web Services at Calvin College, shares the story behind Calvin's take on college affordability, “Cutting the Price Tag.” We discuss the casual voice and tone of the content, how Hibma and his team structured the page for scannability, and why talking talking to students (and parents) about financial aid in a style they understand is more important now than ever. See the Page: https://calvin.edu/offices-services/financial-aid/affordability/

Across higher education, marketers are routinely being asked to increase their content production. And yet, in a 2018 survey by TerminalFour, the majority of marketers said their marketing team and budget had either not changed or decreased in the past 24 months. How can marketers work smarter, rather than just harder? In this episode of the Hashtag Higher Ed Podcast, Justin Laing, Senior Manager, Strategic Marketing and Communications at the University of Queensland, discusses his initiative to repurpose content, with a goal of producing ten pieces of content from one hour with a researcher on campus. We talk about where this idea came from, the logistics of repurposing content, and Justin’s advice for implementing this idea on your campus.

Whether you personally own a voice assistant or not, you’ve certainly heard about their growing popularity. One in six US adults (or around 39 million people) now own a voice-activated smart speaker, and 50% of all searches are projected to be voice searches by 2020. But can voice assistants work on campus? Do we need them to? In this episode of the Hashtag Higher Ed Podcast, David Hakanson, Vice President, CIO, and Chief Innovation Officer at Saint Louis University, discusses the decision to place Amazon Echo Dots at SLU’s 2,300+ residence areas, how his team implemented the deployment in just three months, how students are using these devices, and how SLU is balancing access to information with student privacy concerns.

A CRM, or Customer Relationship Management platform, has gone from a nice to have to a need to have in higher education. But implementing this technology isn’t as simple as flipping a switch. In this episode of the Hashtag Higher Ed Podcast, Jay Murray, Associate Vice President of Enrollment Services at Western Connecticut State University, discusses WCSU’s decision to adopt TargetX, the process for fully implementing a new CRM on campus, and the ways WCSU continues to use TargetX to expand, automate, and personalize its prospective and admitted student communication.

When it comes to social media, it's easy to focus on the fun and funny. A clever .gif here, a cat meme there, rinse and repeat. But in February 2018, the social media team at BYU adopted a much more serious tone on their Instagram Story. In a series of videos and text updates, featuring students, staff, and faculty, BYU proactively talked about sexual assault on campus. In this episode of the Hashtag Higher Ed Podcast, Jon McBride, Media Relations and Social Media Manager at BYU, shares the genesis of this idea, the key to earning institutional buy-in for the idea, the unanticipated Instagram feature that helped make an immediate difference for students, and the surprisingly stressful component of the project.

You’ve undoubtedly heard the word “authenticity” thrown around recently. Perhaps at a conference, in a webinar, or even in your own conversations. But while the word itself has become a bit of a buzzword, the meaning behind it is everything to today’s prospective college students. In episode 29 of the Hashtag Higher Ed Podcast, Jason Boucher, Manager of Social Media at the University of New Hampshire, shares how his team at UNH is using current students to publish authentic social content, and why they’ve honed in on Instagram Stories as their method for doing so.

Last spring, Butler University made headlines when they sent care packages from their mascot, Butler Blue III, to the dogs and cats of admitted students. In this episode of the Hashtag Higher Ed Podcast, Kristi Smith, Associate Director of Enrollment Marketing at Butler University, and Michael Kaltenmark, Director of External Relations at Butler University, discuss this innovative approach to yield marketing, the genesis and planning of their dog- and cat-vertising campaign, why they felt confident taking a risk on this unique approach, and what the response has been like from current students, admitted students, and their parents.

Back in the 1980s, higher education institutions discovered a new way to reach student households at a fraction of the cost of television ads: name buys. Since then, name buys have morphed into a multi-million dollar industry, with colleges and universities across the country investing in the practice. But are name buys really the best we can do? In this episode of the Hashtag Higher Ed Podcast, Jens Larson, Director of Student Communications at Eastern Washington University, shares his legal, ethical, and ROI concerns about list buying and identifies alternative marketing tactics he has used to build a more sustainable prospective student pipeline.

For most marketing professionals, producing an institutional podcast is something that has recently become a professional goal. Tim Cigelske is not like most marketing professionals. On this episode of the Hashtag Higher Ed Podcast, Tim Cigelske shares the ins and outs of his years-long run of producing three podcasts for three distinct audiences at Marquette University. We chat about the various levels of planning and formality that encompass Marquette’s podcasts, why podcasting is ripe for experimentation, and Tim’s lost opportunity to team up with NBA superstar Dwayne Wade.

You undoubtedly deal with myths about your institution. From assumptions about student loans, tuition, and acceptance rates, your audience can easily take rumor as gospel, to the detriment of your admissions and marketing efforts. But how you are addressing those myths? In Wisconsin, one support foundation is dishing out facts and ice cream, one scoop at a time. In this episode of the Hashtag Higher Ed Podcast, Tod Pritchard, Director of Media and Public Relations for the Wisconsin Foundation and Alumni Association, describes how his team came up with the idea of touring the state of Wisconsin in a refurbished 1957 International Harvester Metro van, the impact of their #getthescoop campaign for UW-Madison, and the surprising medium that’s helping them spread the word about this unique marketing campaign.

Have you ever heard someone say “don’t read the comments”? Across the web, the comments section is often affiliated with trolls, who incite others through polarizing opinions and offensive language. But on the University of Georgia’s Undergraduate Admissions blog, the comments section is a treasure trove of prospective student insight, with blog posts that occasionally receive more than 300 comments from interested UGA students. In this episode of the Hashtag Higher Ed Podcast, David Graves, UGA’s Senior Associate Director of Admissions Operations and Evaluation, joins the show to talk about the blog he has run since 2009. We discuss the challenge of keeping content fresh in a cyclical environment, the pros and cons of blending the personal and professional on Twitter, and how one person keeps up with so many prospective student questions.