College and university marketing is often about stories. This is especially true when managing the development or giving Web site for institutions. These sites don’t fulfill the need without stories or opportunities for your audiences to connect (or reconnect). Some must-haves on these Web sites, in my opinion, are:
Drive to action…
I caught a good article for non profits using social networks to move forward. The article is great, but a quote inside of the article gave me some goose bumps. You’ve heard me say it before, but it’s nice to see coming out of other’s mouths:
“Give up some control…
Reading this site and many other blogs, we certainly get enough daily bread of what to do with social networks. Over the past six months, we have seen SN (that’s what the cool kids call it) expand on integration…
For those in marketing (me being one of them), I hear many stories of frustration in building a visitor-centric Web site. You can control the message and presentation, but you will never be able to control where site readers enter the site, what sequence they move through pages, and when they decide to leave…
I’m talking to all the content authors out there.
Colleges are getting so much better at testing their sites by watching visitors. A simple view of how students, alumni, and other audiences move through your site on a daily basis can surprise administrators that spent months drowning in navigation labels and content placement…
You know an idea is successful when large corporations get into the mix. Also, spin-offs of a great idea also tell me when the idea has arrived…
In helping colleges understand how a Web site should be managed day-in and day-out, I am sometimes surprised at how closely Web content is held by a select few…
I had a chance to attend SXSW earlier this month in Austin. The leaders of the Web converge every year on this conference, and it’s an opportunity to rub shoulders with these giants.
I took particular interest in the sessions that were discussing the direction and uses of the Web’s place on mobile devices…
You may have caught this in University Business, but on Saturday, February 4th, Oklahoma Wesleyan University began auctioning off a year of tuition, including room and board, on the online auction giant, eBay.
Although this is admittedly to gain publicity for the institution, don’t write this off too quickly…
I recently caught a Webinar from x-pubs, which discusses the necessary changes that go into moving to full content management across campus. Emma Hamer discusses some of the problems and opportunities out there when changing to content management…