Bob Johnson's Blog on Internet Marketing

Is MySpace the right space for college marketing efforts?

One of my smartest friends in this business says "No." He can't understand why organizations think that a website presence in a Web 2.0 environment designed for individuals is a good marketing move. And he reminds me frequently that the "cool" people are fleeing MySpace in search of a new frontier where everyone can still be free.

That might be true. I certainly would not bet any part of my retirement funds that it isn't. But despite my friend's thoughts, interest in MySpace for marketing is growing at colleges and universities. In my March issue of "Your Higher Education Marketing Newsletter," I had two entries about marketing on MySpace. They were far and away the highest interest items measured by people who clicked on the relevant links, more than double the next most popular.

I haven't seen a response that strong since the first time I included something on Web writing about two years ago.

One college was featured, Drury University. If you go to http://www.myspace.com/druryuniversity you'll find an elaborate attempt to take advantage of Web 2.0 features by this "Female, 100 years old, Springfield, Missouri" resident.

Time for a prediction.

I'm just starting to work on a "Trends and Tribulations" keynote presentation at the eduWeb confernce in July about the future of online marketing communications. And I've got a strong feeling that what you see here for Drury will move over to regular college websites over the next few years as organizational formality crumbles. Expect more content decisions based on what web visitors want to find (and what they create) rather than what organizational decision-makers think is right and proper.

It won't happen overnight. But it will happen. And so part of my eduWeb presentation will focus on how Web 2.0 is already starting to spread into the world of higher education websites.

For a peek at the future, visit the Drury MySpace website.

For more on eduWeb, visit http://www.eduwebconference.com/

Posted by Bob at 03:05 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

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This one has escaped in previous Google searches for college and university presidents who blog, unless my eyeballs just were not tracking well. Our new entry started to blog back in May 2006.

Allen Edwards, president of Pellissippi State Technical Community College in Knoxville, TN writes long and short entries on topics ranging from his discovery of the term "helicopter parents" (short) to how public schools can better prepare students for college by paying more attention to ACT benchmarks for success in English composition, biology, social sciences, and algebra (long).

President Allen Edwards blogs at http://www.pstcc.edu/president/

If you know of a college president who blogs and isn't listed here yet, send me the name at bob@bobjohnsonconsulting.com and I'll add she or he to the postings.

Posted by Bob at 08:06 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

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Flying back from Orlando this morning reading USA Today... and the story about how colleges are reconsidering the use of merit aid as a recruitment practice. You can read the article at http://www.usatoday.com/news/education/2007-03-14-merit-aid_N.htm

This made me think about how almost no schools provide decent web content about merit aid practices. In a world of "reality" marketing, this is one subject that is seldom treated with any realism.

USA Scoops Hamilton College Website

The USA Today article mentions that Hamilton College is taking the plunge and elminating merit aid for the new class of 2008. That's pretty major news indeed, not only for higher education in general but for future middle class students considering Hamilton who do not quality for need-based aid according to the stringent federal guidelines. And we know, of course, that many families don't consider loans as a desirable form of financial aid.

A visit to http://www.hamilton.edu/ and a review of the news stories didn't reveal anything about changes forthcoming in the merit aid practice. A search for "merit aid" found the list of current merit scholarships but nothing about any planned changes. The 2008 freshmen are of course juniors right now and many of them are well into the college selection process. Let's check back in a few days and see if the USA Today article prompts new content about this on the Hamilton website.

Muhlenberg College Still Does it Best

Meanwhile, my favorite content on how financial aid awards really work at many colleges is still found at Muhlenberg College. "The Real Deal on Financial Aid" tells future students and their parents that the mix of grants and loans a student receives is driven in no small part by how much the college you've applied to wants you to enroll. That, Muhlenberg, admits is best called "preferential packaging" and is in widespread use. See the content at http://www.muhlenberg.edu/admissions/aid.html

Let's hope that more colleges take the Muhlenberg path and present more realistic content about financial aid, student debt, and much more. If reality marketing (no, that's not an oxymoron) is really growing, that will start to  happen soon.

Posted by Bob at 10:31 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

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Late on Friday afternoon and I've just finished answering 38 questions from the Writing Right for the Web conference hosted by Academic Impressions last Monday.

This question exercise is one of the benefits of a web presentation over a live one... you end up with a list of more questions than time would permit at a live session. And the questions do lead to revisions and updates for the next conference. I've done 4 web conferences now and learned from the questions from each one.

One of my favorites this time was from someone who equated the ability to reproduce print publications posted to a website as a PDF as a form of "print-on-demand." That was a new one and an interesting twist on how that term is usually used.

In the "trade," print-on-demand refers to the ability of marketers to order up professional publications from a printer as they are requested by customers or prospects. Great idea, but the key element here is that professional printers are producing the pieces. Print-on-demand was not always superior quality years ago, but today the quality can be quite high.

For me, the term just doesn't fit for what would come off a website. First of all, you won't get a bound publication when you print your PDF version of an alumni magazine. And you for sure are not going to get high quality color reproduction unless you are using photo-quality inks and papers in your printer when you demand your copy.

No, the term just doesn't fit.

To see how to put your alumni magazine on your website, visit my favorite Carleton University example at http://magazine.carleton.ca/

To learn more about what print-on-demand can do today in higher education, visit the Print on Demand Institute at http://www.podi.org/ and search for the examples listed under "Vertical Market" for "Education & Government."

The bottom line... if you want someone to have a copy of a print publication, mail it to them.

Posted by Bob at 03:29 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

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The Academic Impressions meeting here in Boston ends today... and then on to the Writing Right for the Web web conference on Monday. Over 120 colleges are signed up for that event, another encouraging sign of the continued strong interest in how to bring the best web content possible to our visitors.

From the list of people at this conference, I've added one new position to the master list at the August 8 posting of titles of web editor and web writer and similar spots. That brings the total to 36 so far.

The new position added is:

• University of Massachusetts Dartmouth, Web Writer

I'll be checking the list of primary contact people for the web conference soon to see if it contains anymore spots to add. If so, I'll post those next Monday or Wednesday.

Posted by Bob at 08:42 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

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