Search, texting, and Millennials’ brains

The real phenomenon isn’t Gen Y’s attachment to Google and texting. The truth is that you’re never too old, and once you try the technology you’ll be hooked, too. The human brain is wired that way, it turns out.

Slate.com ran an article this Wednesday called “Seeking,” which describes the mammalian brain’s natural eagerness for news and novelty. In fact, there’s research that animals in captivity prefer finding their own food to just having it given to them. (I’m going to try this out on my cat.)

Neuroscientist Jaak Panksepp coined the term “seeking” to describe the state of mind we’re in when we seek out new information excessively, compulsively, or even obsessively. Seeking is what makes us look up random facts about celebrities during a lunch date, or follow the blow-by-blow accounts of a friend’s ordinary day.

There’s an opportunity here. This instinct plays right into the search for an institute of higher education, the search for the right program on the right career path, the ideal environment and the most compatible people. Almost every interaction you have with prospective students and applicants will drive this seeking instinct, from visits to your website to live web chats to in-person campus tours.

With a little creativity, you can turn the marketing process into an adventure of discovery. Invite prospective students to a scavenger hunt (either on campus or online). Give them some “clues” that will lead them to an interview with a former student who lives in their town.

When your institution is already a good fit for someone, you can lead them to seek more information and make that discovery on their own.

Teen-written report disses Twitter, gives Millennial take on other media

When media mogul Rupert Murdoch was recently asked if he planned to buy Twitter, he said “no.” When asked if he planned to sell MySpace, he replied, “Hell, no!”

This simple formula of “social media-good, Twitter-bad” has been confirmed by 15-year-old Matthew Robson, who wrote a report for Morgan Stanley, “How Teenagers Consume Media.”

Click on the link above for the complete text of the report. Or read on, for some of the highlights:

• The two problems with Twitter are that complete strangers can follow you, and frequent texting can quickly become an unwanted expense that’s better spent on friends.
• Long-lasting batteries, touch screens, and devices that can connect with the internet are “in.”
• Black and white screens, or anything with wires, are “out.”
• Video games are highly popular,  and offer a lot of potential for marketers.

I don’t know exactly how you’ll apply this to recruiting Millennials in higher education, but it’s worth some thought. The type of information you produce and the ways you disseminate it should be determined by the devices young Millennials are using, and the media they enjoy.

Generation Y to researchers: Don’t get all atwitter over Twitter data

At University WebChat we’re ahead of our time. We’ve been talking about Twitter since as far back as the fall of 2008, when we discussed it in detail in our white paper and only a few million people knew what it was.

Now everybody’s climbing over their keyboards to get on Twitter. Even Oprah. “Celebrity Twitterer” is the new buzzword.

Then the quicksand began to ooze. At the beginning of this week, the Participatory Marketing network set the blogosphere on fire by citing some of the latest research, suggesting that Twitter is the stomping ground of Gen Xers like me. Millennials don’t do it, don’t get it, don’t like it, don’t want it.

Okay, so social media is good for marketing to and recruiting Millennials, except for Twitter, right?

Not so fast. There has been a battle all over the blogosphere and the Twittersphere between people who jump on the bandwagon and praise Twitter (often citing the research to promote their own agenda) and those who denounce the study. And then there’s a hopelessly convoluted mess of pundits who deftly grab a few valid points from each side.

I made a few halfhearted attempts to follow and understand the debate, and ultimately chose to ignore it. But just this afternoon I read another post on the matter that reminded me of what’s really important here.

Guest blogger Joe Flowers, a Millennial who apparently also qualifies as a 26-year-old Gen Xer, applies a light saber to the Gordian Knot of the Twitter debate. He basically points out the flaws of both sides in an intelligent yet laugh-out-loud sarcastic way.

If you’ve got five minutes to spare, you really should read his post, just for the entertainment value. Every graduate school should be wanting people like him to enroll.

What he doesn’t flat out talk about, although it’s implied in almost every word, is the importance of authenticity. These crazy, time-wasting debates usually come up because someone puts self-promotion ahead of simply being honest and sincere. Whenever this happens, bureaucracies respond by dumping a bunch of  money into the non-issues that emerge, everyone else jumps in to give their two-cents’ worth, and it’s all downhill from there.

So what should we do?

Lindsay Schutte offers some good, actionable advice in her post: Don’t chase latest technology.

This isn’t about Twitter. It’s about being real. Millennials know when you’re not.

New report on social media in college admission offices released

From the Magna Publications Press Release:

The report, which is based on the first statistically significant longitudinal study on the use of social media in college admissions, demonstrates the rapid pace and expanding breadth at which colleges are adopting social media technology to both recruit and research prospective students.

The report’s lead researcher, Dr. Nora Ganim Barnes, a professor of marketing and director of the Center for Marketing Research at the University of Massachusetts Dartmouth, presented her findings today in an online seminar titled Adopting Social Media: What New Studies Say. Hosted by Magna Publications, the seminar is now available in CD and/or transcript format. To order a copy, visit http://www.magnapubs.com/catalog/cds/602243-1.html

“There is evidence of enthusiasm and eagerness to embrace these new communications tools, but there is also evidence that these powerful tools are not being utilized to their potential,” said Barnes. “Schools using social media must learn the ‘rules of engagement’ in the online world in order to maximize their effectiveness.”

Email, relevance, and Millennials

A while back I said that “email is for old people.” Karen Bannen from B to B Magazine would beg to differ.  In a feature post yesterday, she cites a study from the Participatory Marketing Network and Pace University’s Lubin School of Business that concluded nearly a third of Millennials responded to relevant email.

Ah, relevancy. The study stressed that Millennials want more control over what and how much email they receive. What this means as a recruiter is that you need, at least, to segment your email.

The good news is you’re probably already doing this. Your mass emails are probably tailored toward different recipients based on region, possible academic major, grad or undergrad, and maybe even personal data such as ethnic background, family income level, or parents’ occupation.

If you’re really good, you might have some software that tracks response and eventual matriculation by category as described above.

Now here’s a free business idea. Pandora lets you give each song a thumbs up, thumbs down, or re-categorize it. FaceBook lets you ‘like’ a post. There are online programs such as StumbleUpon that let you rate and review a website.

What I’d like to see is a widget you can install at the end of your email that lets recipients approve or disapprove in the same way, and software that could tabulate the results and help you spot patterns.

If this has already been invented, let me know (leave a comment).  If not, maybe someone who is reading this post could create it. I don’t ask for any royalties, just let me be one of your first customers.

This would be an invaluable tool for making email more relevant.  Any takers?

Old media is dying… are you ready?

The VenturaCountyStar has a neat article that paints a depressing picture of old media– you know, those venerable standbys such as movies, books and television — and blames everything on our favorite demographic: Millennials.

Book sales are declining, newspapers and magazines are going belly up, advertising dollars are deserting radio and fewer folks are queuing up at the box office

Not a pretty picture, but it’s the statistics that appear later that are most startling:

— Television: Network audience share has fallen by a third since 1985.

— Radio: Listenership is at a 27-year low.

— Newspapers: Circulation peaked in 1987 and the decline is accelerating.

— Magazines: Total circulation peaked in 2000 and is now back to 1994 levels.

— Books: Sales growth is lagging the economy as whole.

These old formats are losing favor because the attention of the youngest generation is focused solely online. Even more telling are the toys Millennials say they crave in surveys:

Millennials also responded favorably to questions about potential devices that would give them even more digital capability. Their eagerness for new technology not only significantly exceeded other generations but the survey population in general.

Clearly it’s time to engage in these tech toys. Does your school offer students a cool iPhone application that makes scheduling classes easy? Send a marketing piece about it. Create an iPhone app that lets people check on the status of their application, with updates as the application moves through the admissions process. Send text message reminders of key admissions deadlines.

Create a Facebook group for admissions office and link to it from your homepage, or a Facebook quiz about facts about famous alumni of your campus.

If all else fail, try this out: Pull three of your work studies into a room and ask them what the last three online sites or tech devices they used. Pick one from something all three use and create something that runs on it.

Give a little fun away for free and sneak in some neat information about your program- you’ll be surpirsed at the attention you get.

Go on, just try it.

Millennials have “Grown Up Digital”

“Technology is a part of their life, it’s like air,” says Bill Tapscott, author of “Grown Up Digital.”

I wanted to share this great podcast from December from net@nite with Amber and Leo.  Author Tapscott discusses how the net generation is a force for change and how the cynical views of this generation don’t hold up.

You can download the first chapter of “Grown Up Digital” here.

What’s true for Millennials is twice as true for Hispanic Millennials

Scarborough Research released a study on marketing to Hispanic consumers. Reaching this rapidly-growing demographic should already be high priority for you, and the Scarborough study confirms that recruiting Hispanic Millennials requires a strong Internet presence.

The highlight of the study is that Hispanics are 211% more likely to download content from the Internet than the general population.

Music is the number one download for this demographic, as it is for most. But if you produce videos, podcasts, or a PDF of your college catalog the Scarborough study may offer some encouraging news.

In a 2007 report, the Hispanic College Fund found that almost 98% of Hispanic high school students claimed they wanted to attend college or university. Obviously, many of these students haven’t followed through on their dreams, but our job is to recruit the ones who have.

Given such a plugged-in group within the ultimate plugged-in generation, your institution should have lots of great online content for Millennials to plug into. I can’t think of a better plug for blogs, podcasts, online video and chat rooms.

Make an appearance at NAGAP through Web Chat!

National Association of Graduate Admissions Professionals 2009 Conference, New York

Kathy Hua-Di, Recruitment Coordinator for the University of Southern California School of Social Work, and I will be presenting on Thursday (4/23) at the National Association of Graduate Admissions Professionals (NAGAP) annual conference in New York. If you won’t be there in person, read on to find out how you can make an appearance also, via web chat!

At our session, Technology 101: Recruiting Millennials Using Web Chat, we’ll be discussing how and why to use Web Chat to recruit millennials.

The generation of students entering college this year have never known a world without the Internet. Graduate schools that don’t communicate using newer technologies run the risk of missing out on some of today’s top students.

Fortunately, you don’t have to be tech-savvy to reach Millennials, or Generation Y. Web-based chat is an example of how new Internet technologies can be adopted at a low cost and with little training. Kathy Hua-Di will provide an overview of the electronic communication tools that are natural for this year’s incoming freshman and suggests ways that these tools can become an integral part of the admissions process based on her experience using Web Chat at the University of Southern California’s School of Social Work.

I’ll be providing a demo, and discussing some research findings about how recruitment professionals are using webchat, who they are inviting to chats, and who is participating in web chats.

If you won’t be able to attend, but would like to make an appearance at the conference, join the following web chat room at the specified time and date, and you’ll be able to participate in a live web chat during our conference session! If you plan to participate, please send me an email, so I can acknowledge you in the Web Chat during the session.

Join the NAGAP Web Chat Conference Session Live
Thursday, April 23, 2009
8am PDT / 9am MDT / 10am CDT / 11am EDT
http://nagap.universitywebchat.com/chat6843/

I hope to see you there!

Why “advertising” to Millennials doesn’t work

Email is for old people.

The results of two interesting studies came out this week. One, conducted by Participatory Marketing, yielded many discouraging numbers such as the fact only 28% of Millennials feel the email they get from companies is relevant.

“Ahah!” says the marketing expert, “we’ll just advertise on FaceBook!”

Sorry. The other discovery of the week was that 81% of social networking ads are “not relevant” to Gen Y.

What does work? Well, the Participatory Marketing study reveals an enthusiasm and wish for “innovative ideas” that involve, well, participation. And even when a company’s social networking ads don’t work, a group started around the brand will attract enthusiastic members.

The upshot of all this shouldn’t be surprising. In a world of constant chats, text, and instant messaging, Millennials want interaction. They’re just not receptive to traditional, static forms of marketing.