Podcast: The Web and the Changing Admissions Game

From the Chronicle of Higher Education’s “Tech Therapy” podcast series:

Warren Arbogast and Scott Carlson (Photograph by Ron Aira)

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Paper or plastic? Express Check-In Comes to the College Fair

From the Chronicle of Higher Education:

Eric Hoover writes, “Pens and pencils are so last century. And at some college fairs, they may soon become obsolete.

Recently, the National Association for College Admission Counseling introduced bar-code scanners at several of its national college fairs, which attract 750,000 high-school students each year. The technology allows applicants to share their contact information with colleges — without having to fill out cards at booth after booth.

Under the new system, students can complete an online registration form that requires them to submit their names, telephone numbers, and home and e-mail addresses, as well as their ages, ethnicities, and areas of academic interest. They then get their own printable bar codes to take to the fair.”  Full article.

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.

The ten most wanted criminals on FaceBook

There are a lot of places on the Internet where conversations are happening right now about your program, college or university. There are opinions being shared, horror stories being traded and first hand accounts being made at every hour of every day.

These opinions, rants, conversations and dialogues all affect the decisions of prospects every day to apply to your school, to visit your campus and to send a deposit. Trying to control your message and your brand online can be an overwhelming thought.

But it really it isn’t that hard. Take this bit of news from the FBI: In an effort to expand their efforts to capture wanted criminals, the FBI has setup Facebook, Twitter and YouTube sites to provide updates to the public. If a red tape laden federal bureaucracy can embrace these tools, why can’t you?

From TechCrunch’s coverage:

The FBI is willing to do just about anything when it comes to tracking down bad guys. They did the widgets thing last year. And today they announced that they’ve “set up shop in several social media websites.”

While Twitter’s usefulness is yet to be demonstrated, these tools are at the least a great way to disseminate your message.

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.

The webcam college interview

The News & Observer has a neat article about Wake Forest University’s new interview approach: virtual, that is, with a web cam:

Starting this month, any applicant can request a virtual interview with a Wake Forest admissions officer via webcam and the Internet. It’s part of the university’s new admissions process that emphasizes personal interaction and no longer requires applicants to submit SAT or ACT test scores.

This is such a great idea. It lowers the barrier of entry for applicants wanting to interview, reduces travel costs for WFU’s staff and creates the opportunity for more personal interactions for admissions counselors. It’s a win-win for everyone.

I think the quote from David Hawkins in the article really drives home how technology can be useful:

“It’s kind of interesting that we’re using the technology to be more personal,” Allman said. “It allows the personality to come through and it allows us to ask them questions.”

There really isn’t any cost to conduct video interviews. Loads of prospects have them (or they have a friend whose laptop they can use), web cams cost less than $50 and free chat tools like Google Talk and AOL IM include video chat. It’s cheap, easy and you won’t even need to ask your IT guy for help.

Well, maybe not.

We’re number one!

According to MarketingCharts.com, the United States has overtaken the UK as the #1 source of web browsing through mobile devices such as iPhones.

There are a lot of implications for this, but at least two are directly relevant to admissions officers.

First, this data reinforces the need to direct more of your marketing/recruiting resources towards text, chat, and other online, real-time recruiting efforts.

Second, it raises the question of whether your institution’s website is mobile device-friendly, or at least has components that are.  Consider a user with a very tiny screen, who has to do a lot of scrolling and maybe some squinting along the way.  Are they likely to notice your most important links and announcements without a healthy amount of enthusiasm and effort?

Or will they just do what Millennials do, leave your web page after 3 seconds, and post another tweet about lunch?

A case study of Case Western

We noticed this week that Case Western University used a blog post to advertise a recent web chat powered by our product University WebChat. Very cool!

It looks like Case’s Mandel School of Applied Social Sciences uses their blog as a primary tool to disseminate news about their programs and recruitting efforts. They have stories advertising their PhD program, coverage of relevent studies being published and profiles of key faculty and staff.

Case is making a great effort to outreach over the Internet, and a blog can be a great way to do that. Why not try it? You can get one over at WordPress.com, Typepad and Blogger… and pleny others.

Millennials overwhelmingly use Internet to research college choices

Insights on Admissions Marketing — a cool admissions blog I just found and added to our blog roll — has a neat post covering an eduWeb presentation about the behaviour of Millennials searching for colleges.

The write-up is a great summary and I recommend you read it. Here is my favorite statistic:

75% of time spent in researching a college is done on-line.  While assuring that your house may be in order relative to the Admissions web site, you must assure that your main .EDU homepage is effective as well, if not more effective in engaging prospective students.

Overwhelmingly, potential students are using the Internet to learn about your school. They are finding about your program not by calling you, not by visiting you, not by reading your mailings but by looking at your website.

One of the major reasons we created University WebChat was to offer a simple tool to let admissions counselors extend their customer service experience online and engage with Millennials in the medium they are most comfortable (the Internet).

It’s critical you ask your admissions team this question: Are we maximising our recruitment effort by engaging with our prospects online with every tool available?