The SA Blog - Archive

Blogging Student Affairs and Technology

July 10th, 2010 | Posted by Eric Stoller in Marketing - (0 Comments)

I am thrilled to announce that I’m going to be blogging about Student Affairs and Technology for Inside Higher Ed (IHE). As an avid reader of IHE, I am very excited to join the IHE blogging team. I think that my posts on student affairs + technology will complement Joshua Kim’s blog on Technology and Learning.

Recently, I held a contest via Twitter to name my new blog. The incentive — a $100 Amazon gift card — courtesy of Inside Higher Ed. Several folks came up with interesting/creative blog names. I think the #SAChat Community provided the majority of ideas. Student Affairs folks are uber creative.

Here are my 3 favorite submissions:

Jeff Jackson: The Stoller Strikes Back, Return of the Blogosphere, Student Affairs….I am Your Blogger
Zack Ford: Challenge and Tech Support
ACUHO-I (sent via DM): Binary Code of Conduct

Choosing a winner from these 3 has been extremely challenging. Star Wars references, Sanford, and an entire Association…how cool is that?!! After more than a week of deliberate (intentional ) deliberating I have decided that the winner of the gift card is:

Zack Ford’s submission made me laugh. It’s subtle….and I love subtlety. The obvious nod / homage to Nevitt Sanford warms the heart. Challenge and Support is one of my all-time favorite, and oft-used, student development theories.

It should be noted that Julie Larsen was correct…the official name of my new blog is going to be: Student Affairs and Technology. The name needed to be something that would be simple enough that any IHE reader would know exactly what it was about. The blog also needed to be search engine friendly…”Students Affairs + Technology” is simple and searchable.

Stay tuned for my first official post on Inside Higher Ed!

Honorable mention:

Julie P-Kirchmeier: Stoller: Resistance is Futile

Niki Rudolph: Epic Stoller

Justine Carpenter: Tech Tips for SAPs

Christopher Conzen: The Stoller Coaster

academic advising, Academic Affairs, accessibility, Accessibility-Usability, admissions, back channel, blogging, Challeng and Support, dean of students, Enrollment Management, facebook, google, Higher Education, IHE, Inside Higher Ed, public-relations, RSS, social justice, Social Media, Student Affairs, student affairs technology, student conduct, Student Development, technology, Twitter, YouTube

Creating Campus Brand Ambassadors

May 18th, 2010 | Posted by Liz Van Lysal in Conferences | Creativity | Marketing | Technology and Programming - (0 Comments)

Last weekend I attended Ungeeked Elite in Milwaukee. Some have called it the South by Southwest of the Midwest, but I think it was more like TED. Each day, 9 or 10 speakers gave a 15 minute presentation followed by about 30 minutes of Q&A and discussion. This led to lots of great ideas for many of the attendees, including me. One of the speakers suggested we give away ideas for free to promote good karma, so here’s your free idea: campus brand ambassadors.

Many university communication departments hire an outside marketing firm to brand their campus experience (At UWM we’re “Awesome and Affordable“). Unfortunately, this brand doesn’t always mesh with the way students experience the university, especially if you consider how different an experience could be from the perspective of a new first-year student, transfer student, adult student, or remedial student. What if you gave a bunch of students a chance to experience their own 15 minutes of fame by being a brand ambassador?

Here’s how it would work:

Put out a call for participants. Just tell them they’ll be famous on the internet, and I’m sure you’ll get plenty of responses (maybe from some bloggers that already have current and prospective students as readers)
From all your volunteers, choose 10-15 that represent different parts of your student population (academic progress, age, ethnicity, socioeconomic status, hometown/state/country, GPA, etc)
Give these students a cheap video recorder and access to a collaborative blog. Provide quick training on how to upload/publish their content
Don’t give them too much direction, but let them know what topics aren’t appropriate (underage drinking, nudity, etc)
Advertise the site that hosts all their content soon after students start to publish

It would take guts to do this, but what are some possible outcomes?

Increase the involvement of your brand ambassadors on campus
Attract prospective students that already have an idea of what the campus experience is like, perhaps increasing retention because they already know it’s a good fit
Discover what your university’s brand looks like from a students’ perspective

Some universities do a version of this, like MIT’s admissions bloggers, and the Alverno College Your Power campaign. Have you heard of a comprehensive program like this? Do you think it could work? Would anyone have enough guts to implement a program where students control their branding?

I’d like to give credit to Jun Loayza, who gave the talk that inspired this idea.

So You Want To Make A Facebook Page

November 10th, 2009 | Posted by Liz Van Lysal in Marketing | Myspace/Facebook Best Practices | Social Networks - (0 Comments)

This summer I created our department's Facebook Page and Twitter account.
Since then, other offices on campus have asked me for advice on Page
creation, gaining departmental buy-in, and increasing student
interaction. Although I can talk for hours about the intricacies and
possibilities of social networking, a beginner really only needs to
learn three simple steps. If you're unaware of the difference between
Pages and groups, learn more here.

Three Keys to a Successful Facebook Page:

Keep administration in the loop. At the very least, make
sure your direct supervisor knows you're creating the page. If you need
data to justify Facebook participation, check out this presentation by Dr. Rey Junco about Facebook and student engagement. If you face resistance to social networking, try these 7 Creative Ways to Introduce Social Media to Your Team. Also, many of the bloggers on this site can offer anecdotal information about Facebook use on their campus
Be intentional when choosing Page administrators. If
you're in the position to have access to more than one potential
administrator, make sure you have a mix of people that (1) have
knowledge about your department, (2) understand the how-to's of
Facebook, and (3) have lots of Facebook friends on your campus (or in
your target audience).
Add content, THEN advertise. Too often staff/students get
very excited about a new social networking opportunity and want to
advertise it to the public right away. I would recommend taking a few
weeks or months to build content (complete your profile information,
add photos and videos, post status updates, etc). If you followed Step 2 and used your well-connect administrators to suggest fans of your
page, word-of-mouth should already have garnered some fan interactions.
Only when your page looks like something that would entice student to
come back should you consider advertising it in official publications.
When you make the decision to do this, take any opportunity you can to
make your social networking presence legitimate. For example, we
provide links to our Facebook Page and twitter account on our
department's homepage.

These three steps should get you started. From here, your
interactions should lead you to develop your Page in the manner that
best serves your population.

How to Successfully Create a Digital Web Ambassador for Your College

October 29th, 2008 | Posted by Tom Krieglstein in Marketing | Myspace/Facebook Best Practices | Online Tools - (0 Comments)

As discussed many times on this blog and countless other blogs around the web, colleges need to be more active on social networking sites to engage new, current and former students. Not just the college as a whole, but individual departments within the college can benefit by having a web presence.

Often times the first question is whether to operate an account with a personal name so it looks more real, or use a school/department name so it looks more official?

Experimenting is happening both ways with various results. Here are two examples I’ve followed that might help your school/department develop a web presence.

The Personal Account:

Art Esposito is an academic advisor at VCU and has a personal Facebook account that he uses to engage his advisees. A quick browse through his profile and you can see him mixing personal and business contexts in an effective way.

He does state upfront his intentions with using Facebook for advising. It may not be needed down the road as advising on Facebook becomes the norm, but for now it’s good so students feel more comfortable engaging you with some predefined intentions that can dispel any worries they have in befriending you.

Remember to mix in personal information from time to time so it is not just business all the time. Otherwise it makes you seem stale and robotic. Use your best judgement as to what personal information to share. A rule of thumb is if you wouldn’t share it in the classroom with close students, don’t share it online.

Art currently has 855 followers on Facebook and through his use of posting videos, blogs, and links among many other tools he is effectively utilizing his personal account to be a better advisor.

The challenge with a personal account is what if Art leaves his job, switches positions, or gets a spot on Oprah’s show and becomes world famous as Art the Advisor? What happens to everything he’s built up on his account?

The School/Department Account:

Schools are not so good at creating a digital web presence that feels natural to both the school and the student, but it can be done. To find a good example, I had to turn to the corporate world.

The Chicago Tribune created a digital web presence called ColonelTribune. The first reaction of many, myself included, was that this was going to be lame. But CT fought back and through an amazing mix of persona building and valuable content, CT has become an effective PR tool.

I follow CT on twitter and am impressed at the Tribs ability to give a voice and personality to their fictitious character. Most of CT’s updates are links to articles on the Trib’s website, but ask CT a question and he’ll respond, challenge his thinking and he’ll respond. All of it builds up to a persona that is real enough to not dismiss as fake and valuable enough to want to follow.

The challenge with a fake persona is…well…it’s still fake. Though I enjoy CT, I don’t feel as connected to him as I do Art and relationships go a long way in education.

If you aren’t already doing so, I think every school/department should experiment, like Art and CT, with using social media to engage new, current and former students.

What other examples are there of schools/departments effectively using a digital web ambassador?

Mission Impossible? Making a Statement

September 5th, 2008 | Posted by Debra Sanborn in Campus Issues | Creativity | Leadership Training | Marketing - (0 Comments)

Earlier this summer Del Suggs challenged us to create contemporary mission statements that address why we do things. Sure enough, upon examining the missions of my scholarship and exchange programs, I found dusty and tired lists of the services provided, but not much about the benefit. The statements were certainly not representative of the active, evolving organizations or the students in them.

I struggled for weeks with rewriting why we do things in order to convey a new message of the vibrant nature of our students and goals. I found the best inspiration at a summer staff retreat. The homework exercise required writing a personal mission statement. And BAM. That’s what it took. My struggle to define program mission statements had been hampered because I needed to define myself.

Helpful resources were found here and here to point me in a new direction for crafting a personal statement. By redefining self and the values that shape my work in student affairs, my program mission statements found new life and purpose.

Facing mission statement impossible? Try looking within.

Here is the test to find whether your mission on earth is finished. If you’re alive, it isn’t. –Richard Bach

Do you have a personal mission statement? How does it enhance the work that you do?

The New Age of Student Event Marketing – The 2D Barcode System

February 2nd, 2008 | Posted by Tom Krieglstein in Marketing | Technology and Programming - (0 Comments)

Sandra is sprinting as fast as she can down the hall so she isn’t late for her Chemistry class. Halfway down the hall she approaches a table staffed by the Student Soccer Club who are trying to recruit new members. Sandra has always had a passion for soccer, but knows she can’t be late for the class. As she goes by the table, there aren’t any paper handouts for her to grab, instead she pulls out her cell phone and takes a picture of a 2D barcode sitting on the table. “Thanks!” she yells as she rushes on to just make it to class on time. Moments later her phone vibrates with an incoming txt that lets her know when the next soccer pick up game is, a link to the soccer club Facebook group, and a link to RSVP for the next game.

It’s called 2D Barcodes and Case Western Reserve University is the first large scale school to test the system. From student event marketing, mapping bus routes, and in class Q&A, 2D Barcodes, or QR Codes, will probably be the next big technology to hit your campus and become a normal part of everyday life.

Case Western is working with Mobile Discovery and Scanbuy to make the new technology happen. Only people with a Case.edu email can sign up at Mobile Discovery and download the software needed to translate the 2D codes.

Set up is not as easy as point and shoot yet, but I suspect that as it becomes more popular, there will be more open source options that allow anyone to take a picture of any bar code and receive information. That is if schools will be ok with opening up more.

Clipart/Stock Photos = Cheap

October 18th, 2007 | Posted by Tom Krieglstein in Creativity | Marketing - (0 Comments)

vs. or vs.

No matter how cute the clipart puppy is, if it’s on a piece of marketing material for an event, it screams cheap. Many schools use clipart because they think it’s the only free way to use images. Not really true. The web has many great resources for you and your student leaders to get free, high quality images that you can use for your marketing. Here’s a brief list:

Sxc.hu is the largest free photo site on the web with millions of images. I use this one all the time as my main source.
Stockvault.net has over 8,000 royalty free photos for personal and education projects.
Openstockphotography.org is a search engine that goes through all of the Wikimedia Commons images, which as of April 2007 was over 1.3 million.
Flickr.com is run by Yahoo and has millions of photos uploaded by amature photographers from around the world. The trick with Flickr is each photo has a different set of copyright settings attached to it, so you’ll want to read about Creative Commons before you grab the photo you love.

Here’s to happy photo finding and better looking marketing materials for campus events.

Your Facebook Network(Tips and Tricks)

I’m sure by now you are fairly familiar with the Facebook interface. Many users don’t use all of Facebook’s features.

The Network page can be a very powerful tool, but the Facebook interface does not allow the Network page to reach it’s full potential. The reason? The only way to access your network is by clicking the network link at the top of the page.

It doesn’t really jump out at you. I think it would be a lot more effective if the News Feed dedicated a portion of the page to list Network Activity.

So what does the Network Page do?

The Networks page lists
Shows all the upcoming events in your network.
Shows all the recently posted items in your network.
Shows all the recently active groups among members of your network.
Shows all the items in your networks marketplace
Shows network statistics such as top music, movies, and Interests, TV shows, Books, and also displays percentages such as sex, political views, and relationship status
.
Shows nearby Networks
Provides a discussion board and a wall.

So what can I do with all this?

Let’s start with the groups.

While searching through the active groups in your network you may stumble upon one titled Fall 2007 Freshmen, or something of the sort. This is a great place to promote, and Recruit. Tom recently posted a blog discussing this The Strange Power of the Go Getter Freshmen.

There may be other great active groups in your network you can promote with. Take a look, just don’t over advertise, because nobody likes spam, and overuse of these groups will begin to look like spam.

Let’s move on to the people in your network.

Near the top of the Network page six random members of your network will be displayed. Above these six members will display how many people are in your network, and a couple links to search or browse within your network. I don’t see much use with the browse feature, as it only displays ten random people in your network.

Click the search link, and then continue on and click the advanced link. I’m sure you have seen the advanced page before, but have you ever used it for student affairs networking? The advanced search page allows you to search within every portion of a Facebook profile. From the basic info to contact info, personal info, education info, and work info. If you are looking for any particular characteristic to promote, or recruit from you can easily search it from here.

Have you ever wondered which staff and faculty members have signed up for Facebook? Well it’s fairly easy to find out. Scroll down till you see education info, and in the school status drop down menu you will see staff, and faculty. select whichever one you would like to search, and click the advanced search button at the bottom of the page

What do your students like to do? what are their interests? Sounds like you need to put out another survey. No not at all, Facebook already did the Assessment for you!! Check the Network Statistics page and you may find what you are looking for. The best part is you can click each particular interest and get a list of the people who have added that interest to their profile.

How can you use this? Look at each category, is there something that jumps out at you that you can create an event about? perhaps if there is a particular type of music that is popular you can have a dance focusing on that type of music. Maybe under interests you see a sport such as ultimate frisbee, why not host a tournament. Look under the movies category, why not play one of the top movies for your students? Be creative, and you can put together a great event.

Does anyone else have any networking, promotional or recruiting tips or tricks that they use with Facebook?

How to Create a Facebook Flyer

Facebook made it incredibly simple to create targeted ads based on location, sex, age, keywords, political view, relationship status, education status, and workplace. These target ads, called flyers, are a great and cheap way to market your events. If you’ve never tired it, here’s a quick tutorial to get your started:

Step 1: Log into your Facebook account

Step 2: Scroll to the bottom of your profile page and click on "advertisers"

Step 3: Click on "Order Facebook Flyers"

Step 4: Click on "Flyers Pro"

Flyers Basic allows you to pay-per-flyer-impression which means that you will pay around $10 to have the flyer appear 5,000 times on Facebook. With Flyers Pro, you only pay when someone clicks on your ad instead of just appearing on their page. I think this is the more effective approach because you are only going to pay if someone is interested and if they don’t click through, you still get the flyer-impression on their page, but you don’t pay for it!

Step 5: Add the info you want to your flyer

Facebook will update your flyer in real time so you know exactly what it will look like when it’s live. You can add text, links, and photos to your flyer.

Step 6: Set a budget and the search criteria for who should see your flyer

This is where the power of the flyer gets impressive. You can narrow your listing down to only a select group of people if you want. Filter by location, sex, age, keywords, political view, relationship status, education status, and workplace. Only those people will see your flyer.

Step 7: See your results

Your flyer will appear on the side of a Facebook profile. And again you will only pay when someone clicks on your ad.

Step 8: Monitor your progress

Facebook allows you to monitor how well your flyer is doing. Click on either of these two tabs and you will see data for your flyer. You can also go back and adjust your flyer’s content or search criteria at any time.

Emergency Text Messaging Part 2: Who should I choose?(A comparison analysis of four services)

This day and age it seems like everyone has a cell phone, many schools are beginning to tap into that technology, and use text messaging to inform students when needed.

Since the Tragedy at Virginia Tech, many schools are trying to get an emergency contact system in place. What better method than text messaging. Individuals usually carry their cell phones around with them, and a text message can deliver an immediate detailed message.

Many companies offer features that allow organizations, and clubs on a college campus to sent out updates, announce meetings, or advertise upcoming events.

This comparison analysis will compare and contrast some of the top text messaging services.

The Services

E2Campus

Costs $1 per user per year, is a good deal for smaller
campuses, but can get pricey with a large population.

Offers unlimited groups. Which can include emergencies, events, sports teams, and can even
include different campuses of a college.

Allows for unlimited group admins

Access to the E2Campus application is available from your
PC, mobile phone, or a PDA

Informz

Has a one time setup fee of $300

Annual Licensing fee is $2,000

Text messages can be purchased in blocks, and range between
6 and 8 cents depending on how many blocks you purchase.

Informz_2

With all the setup fees this product can get pricey, It may
be efficient for a larger campus to afford this, but may be way out of the
budget of a smaller school.

Gives you the option to purchase a dedicated short code for
$14,000 a year, which means you will get your own 5 digit number to be
texted.

For $1200 a month you can purchase a custom vanity code, which
allows you to chose a short code so it is easier to remember.

Mobile Campus

Offers a free service, but will spam you with text message
advertisements which will burn out the medium very quickly, and may result in
negative effect on text message alerts from your students.

Jyngle

Offers two services. The Standard "Free" service is designed for smaller groups. The standard service does have a banner at the bottom of the text which says"Powered by Jyngle". This banner is designed to spread the word of the service, but a representative
at Jyngle informs me that it may be used for ad space in the future. Still for being free I would not complain about the tiny ad at the bottom of the message.

The second service Jyngle offers is the Enterprise service. This is a pay per message service, and does not contain the banner at the bottom of the message. The rates for this service are $0.03 per voice message and $0.06 per SMS. Jyngle offers the Enterprise Service to schools for free for emergency use.

Pricing Comparison

This chart compares pricing of the four services.

This chart compares each service prices based on the size of a student population. Note Informz block pricing is based upon 10 texts per student.

There are other services available which I was unable to acquire the pricing for. Some of these include

Rave

clearTXT

PromoTXT

If you have any experiences dealing with any of the vendors mentioned, or any vendor not listed above please share them.

Creating Campus Brand Ambassadors

How to Successfully Create a Digital Web Ambassador for Your College

Mission Impossible? Making a Statement

The New Age of Student Event Marketing – The 2D Barcode System

Clipart/Stock Photos = Cheap

Your Facebook Network(Tips and Tricks)

How to Create a Facebook Flyer

Emergency Text Messaging Part 2: Who should I choose?(A comparison analysis of four services)

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