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Buzzwords, such as “native advertising,” “brand publishing,” “custom content,” “sponsored content” and “corporate journalism” are fresh industry lingo for what advertisers have been trying to do since the dawn of advertising – appeal to potential customers with content. Though the ultimate goal of content marketing has stayed the same, the agencies and mediums of delivery are vastly different. Companies are turning to web content experts to produce ads that reinforce their brands while matching the editorial voice that the site’s dedicated readers have come to expect. Upworthy — a website for viral content started in March 2012 — creates content marketing for clients. They recently created “Watch the Spread of Walmart Across the Country in One Horrifying GIF” and ran it on their site for the AFL-CIO. “Our goal in this process was not to advertise for the AFL-CIO or to promote companies,” said AFL-CIO digital strategies director Nicole Aro. “It was to instigate conversations that are happening around what … Continue reading
Posted in: Enrollment Marketing, Higher Ed Marketing, Social Media
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Facebook announced on Tuesday morning that it’s testing such ads in the News Feed with a handful of advertisers. USA Today is calling this “…a move that takes aim at massive spending budgets for television ads.” Rather than having to click or tap to play, videos will begin to play as they appear onscreen – without sound – similar to how they behave when shared by friends or verified Pages. You can read more details about how the videos will work here: https://www.facebook.com/business/news/Testing-a-New-Way-for-Marketers-to-Tell-Stories-in-News-Feed Facebook has offered video ads for some time, however, the auto-play feature is new. Prices for a 15-second auto-play video ad are said to range from $1 million to $2.5 million!
Posted in: Social Media
Amber Mac outlines her ABCs of social media in the book “Power Friending.” Mac’s “Rules” chapter details authenticity, bravery and consistency as the three precepts for growing a brand socially. I agree with Mac’s three tenets, but would add a “D” for “delineate,” imploring social media purveyors to choose carefully which channels they use to spread their message before gobbling up every network in site. Now, I know the rule of thirds, this, and that The Jackson 5 probably wouldn’t have knocked “Let it Be” from number one with a song called “ABC … D.” But hear me out. Delineating your social media wants from your needs weeds out channels that don’t fit your brand, preventing spreading resources too thin. Is that expensive YouTube video of your restaurant’s world-famous bologna sandwich any better than a picture or description posted on Facebook or Twitter in a fraction of the time? Are the hours you spend posting photos of your hydrofracking hose … Continue reading
Posted in: Social Media
Amy mentioned in her last post the strength of Pinterest as a marketing channel. Pinterest is now the third-largest social network behind only Facebook and Twitter. For marketers, Pinterest is one more channel in the marketing toolkit that we need to think (and worry) about. In the realm of the higher education marketing industry, Pinterest presents an interesting opportunity, which can help reach a completely different segment of your prospect population. But how do you use Pinterest to give a sense of who you truly are as a brand? The first step is to figure out the core of your brand. The next step is to share that brand ideology, and that’s where Pinterest can be very powerful. Here are five things to keep in mind when sharing that ideology on Pinterest: Truly represent brand culture: Trying to choose which college to go to is a big decision. What a prospective student needs to feel is comfort with the brand, … Continue reading
After a three-month test period with select members, Pinterest announced Monday that it will begin rolling out a new site design to the rest of its 48 million+ users. The design changes are relatively subtle. In the newsfeed, amount of space bordering pins has been reduced to allow for larger images and a cleaner layout. Profile pages have likewise been condensed to show more pins in less space. Easier to get around – the navigation is more intuitive Pins are bigger and they’ve added more information related to pins, so it’s easier to find things you’re interested in. One of my biggest pet peeves was losing my place while browsing on the mobile app. Now, when you scroll through pins and click on something that interests you, the back button lands you right back where you were no matter how far you’ve gone. Why should Pinterest be a part of your digital marketing plan & SEO efforts? Pinterest is becoming … Continue reading
Posted in: Higher Education Branding
While higher education marketing professionals traditionally equate the “new year” with the turning of an academic calendar, starting in September, the approach of 2013 gives us good reason to offer 5 New Year’s Higher Education Marketing Resolutions. 1. Reach Across the Aisle. Colleges increasingly recognize the value and wisdom of working in collaboration with peer schools that share a geographic base or demographic/psychographic profile. Confident schools recognize the concept of “right-fit” and realize that by raising the overall pool of inquiry and interest, all schools benefit. While formal organizations link colleges in every manner possible — by denomination, geography, prestige — it’s often ad-hoc collaborations that produce real innovation and spark. In a smaller state like West Virginia, for example, a handful of liberal arts colleges might benefit from raising the overall profile of private education in an area not well known nationally for its residential, four-year college options. 2. Cultivate Keyword Literacy While higher education marketing professionals have largely … Continue reading
No region in the world understands the countervailing forces of hope and despair related to the manufacturing economy more viscerally than Southwestern Pennsylvania. As a young adult, I witnessed first-hand the cataclysmic fall of Big Steel when the region added 124,000 new unemployed people — fathers, mothers, siblings — in a flash of economic destruction between August 1981 and January 1983. In the 30 years since, the United States remains undecided about the most fundamental questions. Can American workers and companies compete in a global workforce and market? Do our schools and education bureaucracies effectively prepare young people for advanced manufacturing careers? Will companies invest in American workers rather than reflexively seek cheaper labor? Elliance has seen the power of smart manufacturing marketing to make a difference for companies seeking bigger/better customers globally, and a stable, reliable workforce locally. We apply many of the same concepts of “right-fit” matching from our work in higher education marketing to the world of … Continue reading
Posted in: Branding, Manufacturing Marketing, Search Marketing
Social media is increasingly important in creating brand awareness, generating inquiries and at improving yield (the percentage of accepted applicants who choose to signal their intention to enroll by paying a deposit). Recruiting international students from emerging economies is vastly different from recruiting students from US & Europe in four important ways. First, they are typically making decisions jointly with their parents and even grandparents; second, they are surrounded by recruiting agents eager to advise them; third, they are inundated with study-abroad websites; fourth, they are not seeing many US colleges and universities in their search results because international SEO investments have not been a priority . Consequently, social media has become an important decision making tool for the college decision. Smart schools are pioneering social media techniques to build trust with prospective international students and their families. They are: 1. Crafting a country-specific strategy. What works in China won’t work in India or Brazil. 2. Creating and managing presence … Continue reading
A couple of weeks ago, a little-known company called App.net publicly launched a grand experiment. Founder and CEO Dalton Caldwell announced a crowd-funding campaign to raise $500,000 in 30 days, for a new social networking platform that aims to compete with the likes of Twitter – except without the help of advertising. “We will never be ad-supported. Our product is the service that we sell; it is not our users.” -Dalton Caldwell If you think Dalton Caldwell sounds a little kooky, you’re not alone. The announcement alone sparked a firestorm of controversy over on that other popular social networking site, where reactions ranged from ecstatic to skeptical to downright scornful. “No one would pay to use another Twitter,” the objections essentially went. Additionally, a lot of people think App.net is reinventing the wheel – and needlessly so, considering Twitter’s success to date. But in the two weeks since Mr. Caldwell launched his project, it has experienced unanticipated success as +15,000 … Continue reading
Here we go again. Today, a link was being shared around our office and in my Twitter stream. It was a link to an article .Net Magazine ran Wednesday, featuring expert opinions on the content of another opinion piece it had run back in May. The upshot of the first piece is that social buttons on websites are dumb and should be done away with forthwith. The upshot of Wednesday’s piece is that some people agree with the first piece, whereas some other people do not agree with the first piece. Here, I took a screen shot of the title and byline so I could share it with you: I especially like the positioning of the social media buttons directly beneath the title, although I’m not personally a fan of treating comments so differently than social media buttons, and I furthermore find myself wanting to know how many people have tweeted, liked, plus-oned, inlinked (come on, it should be a … Continue reading
Posted in: Social Media