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How to Make Compelling Promotional Video for Higher Education. Date posted: September 4, 2013 Website design for colleges and universities is a constant challenge because of the need to express an abundance of information to a wide variety of audiences. While many sites continue to suffer from the common problem of trying to cram excessive data into too small a space, others are separating themselves from the pack by integrating multimedia content in innovative ways.

Entertaining and engaging visuals, audio and video are highly effective in resonating with all types of visitors, but particularly for prospective students experiencing your school for the first time. With improving internet speeds and web publishing platforms, including for mobile devices, it is easier than ever to tastefully integrate videos throughout your website. A university's home page is the straw that stirs the drink but specific audiences are likely in the long run to spend more time on interior pages where the content is most relevant to their needs. 1. 2. 3. Away with Words – Leveraging the Power of Images. Date posted: January 20, 2014 As the world spins faster and attention spans shrink by the day, social media has evolved from thousand-word blog posts to micro-blog tweets to the emerging trend of doing away with words altogether in favour of visual communication. Pictures fit our natural webpage scanning tendencies, helping us make sense of the vast loads of data we encounter daily.

For the growing legion of predominantly mobile users, snapping a quick photo with a smartphone is more convenient than typing status updates on tiny keyboards. The explosion of image and video sharing as we move into 2014 has had the dominant social networks scrambling to appease demand and higher education institutions seeking strategies to reflect this content marketing trend. Consider these compelling stats compiled by Hubspot: 90% of information transmitted to the brain is visual Visuals are processed by the brain 60,000 times faster than text Source Image Creation and Curation Crowdsourcing Content.

Leveraging Your Authentic Voice With Student-Generated Content. Date posted: September 25, 2013 As a new year of frosh carries their contagious excitement onto campuses worldwide, there is an opportunity for admissions departments to appreciate the changing climate of education marketing. This generation has become wary of the carefully crafted slogans and phrases that colleges attach to their brands, which eventually begin to sound indistinguishable for prospective students overwhelmed by an abundance of options. They want to hear from "authentic voices" they can trust.

Fortunately, you can probably hear some of these voices around you right now - it's easier than ever for your students to serve as online ambassadors for your school. Student-generated content has become synonymous with social media marketing, but in actuality the strategy goes beyond typical Facebook, Twitter and YouTube initiatives. Consider: Encourage Social Media Engagement Student-Generated Content Strategy Keep it Real! Control and Measure. Developing Donation Pages and Strategies. Date posted: October 9, 2013 Fundraising for colleges and universities can be a tricky balancing act.

While unrestricted donations are vital for sustaining and developing financial aid, research and several other institutional initiatives, excessive solicitation risks alienating alumni and provoking responses like "you only call when you want money. " Former students may feel their tuition payments were already more than sufficient and would prefer to spend their hard-earned dollars on the world's most vulnerable, rather than the perceived highly privileged pursuing university education. Regardless, universities including Duke and Princeton achieved record donations this year, and there are many success stories suggesting methods for schools to improve their fundraising efforts.

Coordinating media channels Online resources have revolutionized donation management, reducing reliance on more costly and intrusive techniques, such as telephone and direct mail contact. How Web Structure Can Increase Content Value. Date posted: February 8, 2013 Structure is everything. Granted, the recipe to a great web site contains a lot of different ingredients, including web design and development, content, social media, SEO, analytics…the whole nine yards. But a good foundation will allow these elements to work at their best, leaving you with a site that doesn't only look good, but functions well too. What’s more is that structure dictates content.

Consider audience, resourcefulness and purpose as the elements that make up the skeleton of the content on your site. Here are three essential steps to strengthening the overall structure and content value of your website. 1. The only way to properly evaluate the content on any given web page is to think about the type of audience that will be visiting that particular page. For higher education marketing websites, the most common audience groups are: Does the current content on your site speak to all of these demographic groups?

2. Do all of these pages exist? 3. Consistent Website Experiences with Intuitive Navigation. Date posted: November 12, 2013 A college or university's website is of principal strategic importance for engaging with a multitude of demanding audiences in an ever more competitive environment. Clear and compelling communications are a must for capturing the attentions of teenaged prospective students in particular, many of whom conduct their college searches exclusively on the web. As a vast majority of these searches are abandoned without any action taken, a perpetual question for admissions departments is how to create a stronger link between search and application. Following the prospect's path A useful exercise for any web designer is to trace the path backwards from desired action to undecided target market.

For higher education recruiters, the key demographic tends to be tech-savvy teens, but this can be segmented further according to various factors, such as your audience's age, level of education, consumer and social media habits, and perceived preferences. Intuitive navigation. Why Your School Needs A Student Blog. Date posted: November 23, 2011 Source As schools rely increasingly on social media to interact with prospects and students, blogs have taken the backseat in many schools’ online marketing strategy.

Blogs are pivotal tools in building a strong social media presence: a blog improves SEO results, ensures ownership of the content they post elsewhere, and gives prospects an extensive and researchable database about the school. Most schools are aware of these benefits and have launched “official blogs” to enjoy them. This “official” approach to blogging may actually be hurting your marketing efforts and keep your blog from fulfilling its main goal: give insight into your students’ day-to-day life and stand out from competition. A mutually beneficial activity As opposed to generic blogging, student blogging is a mutually beneficial activity for your school and the students taking part in it.

A great tool to stand out from competition A student blog is a great way to make your school stand out. Are In-Depth Articles in Your Higher Ed Content Strategy? Date posted: December 27, 2013 You’ve probably noticed In-Depth Articles coming up on your Google search engine results pages. In-Depth Articles (IDAs) were introduced back in August 2013 to Google search engine results pages (SERPs), in an effort to provide a new type of content for the approximately 10% of searchers who are known to be looking for detailed content on broad topics. Here is an example of the In-Depth Articles section that was presented to me recently in a SERP when searching on the keyword, “admissions”.

Why are In-Depth Articles important to your Recruitment Efforts? IDAs are important to marketers for a number of reasons. Getting an article or post listed as an IDA could be a very good thing for your search traffic volume. So how does Google select Posts for In-Depth Article Status? Here's what we’ve pieced together from Google’s guide and research conducted by various SEOs on what the optimal characteristics are of an IDA: References on In-Depth Articles: 3 Steps to Create an Effective Student Blog | Social Media | Education Marketing. Date posted: November 24, 2011 In our last post, we discussed why creating a student blog is a great way to stand out from your competition.

We showed how the theme and format of this blog is closely intertwined with your global social media strategy and how you wish to position this new blog. Now that you have a theme for a student blog, how do you make it a reality? 1. Choose the right Ambassador The answer to “Who should write for our school’s student blog?” 2. Once you have chosen your Ambassador, have him/her sit down with the head of the Communication Department to present your school’s general social media strategy and the part played by the student blog in it. 3. The last key to making this student blog a success is to commit to delivering good quality posts on a regular basis, at least once a week.

What have you tried to make your student blog a success? Noelle Visani Passionate about web and content marketing, I write about all things social media in higher education. 3 Ways to Boost Student-Driven Web Content. Date posted: March 1, 2013 Just as classrooms rely on student participation in order to thrive, a college or university website needs student-led content in order to bolster the energy and voice of your overall web branding. In relation to those who visit your website, student-driven content will allow your site to act as a catalyst to the academic experience offered at your school.

It will also play a crucial role in education lead generation, so it is up to you to offer visitors the type of content that will answer the questions that they are likely asking themselves: What does it mean to be a student at this college? What do the students stand for? Student-led content is just one element of ensuring that the information on your website is engaging and relevant. Here are just a few types of student-driven content that you can add to your college or university website: 1. There are so many engaging ways to allow students to host blogs directly on your website. 2. 3. 3 Reasons Your School Needs A Student Blog.

Date posted: September 2, 2011 While some schools have been multiplying student blogs, many educational institutions are still reluctant to let their students do their PR. Although they require stringent rules and a well thought out strategy (who writes? What? Who responds? 1. As a former student, how many times did you make a decision regarding your schools based on brochures solely?

2. You already knew this. 3. Like any other social media platform, student blogs reinforce your online referencing and the sense of community around your institution. At Higher Education Marketing, we can help you tailor your social media strategy for specific targets. Noelle Visani Passionate about web and content marketing, I write about all things social media in higher education.

A Content Marketing Matrix for Higher Ed: Entertain, Inspire, Educate and Convince. Date posted: September 23, 2013 Creating fresh, relevant web content every week, as you implement your content strategy, is probably one of your greatest challenges. The toughest part of the process is often coming up with a good content idea and making the decision how to implement it.

I am sure you are familiar with the concept of writing to the different stages in your recruitment funnel, establishing awareness with you target audience through to their decision to register. That’s pretty obvious. The “content marketing matrix” infographic below asserts how different types of content format can be best applied across this two dimensional matrix. Source: First10 & Smart Insights Let's explore a higher education marketing example for each of the four major quadrants: 1) Entertain – Includes games, competitions, quizzes, virals, mobile apps, etc 2) Inspire – Includes endorsements, testimonials, forum comments, reviews, etc. Inspiring an target audience is a very serious challenge. Strategies for creating high quality content for lead generation in... Content Marketing with Student Blogs. Date posted: September 27, 2013 Content marketing has officially become the leading strategy to engage web viewers and increase search engine recognition.

Delivering relevant and valuable information establishes a level of trust and loyalty, making prospective students feel closer to a college or university. I wrote earlier this week about integrating student-generated writing, photos, video and audio into your content strategy and development to share an "authentic voice" with your audiences. Blogging continues to be the primary content marketing tool, particularly when enhanced with keyword-rich links, images and video. When it comes to content, the general rule is the more, the better. Empowering your students to contribute stories about their university experience can create sufficient content volume for SEO while providing that increasingly valued personal touch. Authentic Story Telling It is the stories unique to your school that set you apart.

Provide Clear Goals Final Thoughts. 5 quick ways to make your college’s content more viral online. Date posted: July 31, 2012 Visual marketing has never been stronger. Facebook, Twitter and YouTube are increasingly relying on images to complement their text-based platforms, and with the growing craze of image-only platforms such as Pinterest, your school should definitely invest in visual content. It is now possible, with only a few images, to create a brand identity, condense and explain large amounts of information, and drive student engagement. How can you do all of this? One word: visibility. Source image: www.alleecreative.com Here are 5 quick tips to make your content more visual and therefore sharable online: Make existing content more visual with infographics: The appeal of infographics comes in how they present an otherwise dense topic in a simple and easy-to-understand format. Here is a more detailed guide to optimize your images for Google. Popular visual content for schools: Student-generated content: Results: Testimonials: Shots of testimonials to add value to the board.

4 STEPS TO DRAMATICALLY IMPROVE YOUR COLLEGE’S WEBSITE CONTENT. Date posted: July 19, 2012 The quality of your college’s website relies heavily on great content. Many schools have understood the importance of great content and thus have moved their web offices from IT to marketing. Quality content allows you to enhance the richness and usability of your website, and without it your efforts to bring attention to your campus and programs and to have visitors take action on your website will be of no avail.

Here are 4 steps to ensure your site’s content is and remains compelling: 1. Audit The purpose of the audit phase is to answer the following questions: What content do we have on our site? In order to answer these questions, you will need to look at the quanitative and qualitative aspects of each page on your website. Page title URL Character count Last updated Content type (Html, form, PDF) Calls to action Picture/video content Name of the person who is in charge of the page 2. What is not working according to our objectives?

3. 4. 4 steps to dramatically improve your college’s website content. Telling Your School’s Story with Student Testimonials | Education Marketing | Google Analytics | SEO. The Biggest Social Media Mistakes (a Jay Baer Interview) | Socia. Social Content Marketing. Social media examiner. Social Content Marketing. Content Marketing. How to Implement Your Content Sharing Strategy for Higher Ed: Part I. How to Implement Your Content Sharing Strategy for Higher Ed: Part II. 5 Best Practices for Building Better Program Pages. Strategies for Creating Quality Content for Lead Generation in Higher Education. Essential Elements of a Powerful Program Page. Homage to Google Reader (or Why RSS Should be Part of Your Content Development Strategy) Establishing a Content Culture at Your College or University.

4 ways to create powerful student testimonials for your school. What are the best Google Reader alternatives? 3 Ways to Boost Student-Driven Web Content. Money Matters for Financial Aid Pages.