(Although I write this post with specific focus on higher education and non-profits, I think it’s a useful guide for start-ups looking to establish themselves on the Web as well.)
New and social media have been around for the last 15 years. But not until recently have they truly become interactive and conversational. The tools and communities that make up this medium continue to change the way we see, hear and touch the communities around us.
When I was hired as a communications director a few years ago, my job description in short was to educate the public about research, maintain a static website, and design print publications. It quickly became apparent that the old ways weren’t working:
Information changes too fast. News gets old quick, and to print/re-print to keep up with changes became expensive, and environmentally unfriendly.
Were we telling the right stories? We were feeding what we thought our audience wanted to hear. There had to be a way to “listen” so we could better apply our efforts.
Money and the Environment. The cost to print and mail materials – in dollars, trees and carbon footprint – are constant concerns in our world today. In other words, corporate social responsibility.
Walking the talk. This is unique to us, but as a leading computing- and technology-focused institution, if we cannot connect in a way that demonstrates the power of computing and technology, then we have failed to communicate.
Thus, we slowly began to transform our communications strategy and have arrived at the tools that make up new media and social communications today. (All this, in addition to many traditional media efforts that we still practice.) Here’s what we’re doing in higher education at UC Irvine’s Bren School of Information and Computer Sciences:
RSS. If you do nothing else, offer an RSS feed to your news, blogs, event calendars, videos, etc. You can probably gain 50% of your value simply by allowing your community to stay in touch with you, without having to actually check-in.
Blogs. Both students and alumni blog about what’s on their mind. Students most often talk about classes and social activities which paint a true picture of college life. Alums keep in touch and share their experiences about ICS and being in the real world. Both serve as great recruiting tools for students, parents and faculty.
Multimedia. Video profiles, audio snippets and podcasts engage the audience in unique ways. Digital media is portable, and when done correctly, engaging. We create videos profiling students, special lectures and events, etc. We maintain a presence on YouTube and Flickr. Here’s an example of a marketing video:
Social Networks. Today, we exist on LinkedIn and Facebook. But only on these two networks, for the reasons that they are the most reputable, and our particular community are most active on these two social networks. The beauty of participating in a social network it that its content is crowd-sourced – your community helps contribute to the cause.
Twitter. This is an experiment, but an inexpensive one. In fact, we automatically feed news through Twitter so that prospective students (@BrenAdmissions) and interested community members (@UCIbrenICS) can quickly follow us. We also “listen” to buzz in our community through Twitter and make efforts to engage with the “twitterverse”.
Second Life. TechCoast Island, our presence in Second Life houses a virtual Bren Hall. For our ribbon-cutting ceremony, we invited guests from afar to join in the virtual celebration concurrent to the live events. Today, it is used to model real-world research in a virtual setting… an innovative solution to conserving resources and money. We’ve even held lectures and meetings at TechCoast.
Share Functions. If someone wants to share and offer feedback on anything that is a part of your Web presence, let them. It’s the best way to create buzz and spread news organically. These functions can range from digg to del.icio.us to StumbleUpon and more.
These new and social media applications may not work for all ventures. In fact, I urge that each organization explore and understand their community and resources before investing too much time into these mediums. But given that you have an active online community that is willing to participate, and that you can produce enough content to keep your online presence from becoming stale, it’s worth at least giving the free resources a try.
Our strategy continues to change as quickly and often as technology and social media do. I’m curious to hear what other non-profit and educational institutions are doing in this arena. Do share!
