Week 12: Four More...Online Marketing Tools

I'm starting to feel as though a common theme with many of my blog posts are related to not being able to take advantage of the full spectrum of social media. I have come to terms with that and in doing so, realized that it gives me more time to spend perfecting a smaller scope of social media. Having said this, I can imagine four additional online marketing tools being useful for my department to expand and improve. These would be Yelp, Google +, LinkedIn, and having an RSS feed.

Yelp is a site that I have used for years especially when looking up restaurants, breweries, bars, and stores. It has been incredibly helpful and I have even used it to review a few businesses, although usually only after a negative experience. Since I typically use Yelp to determine between a variety of choices, I don't think it would help us in that regard since it is not as if the college has multiple general counseling departments. However, simply having reviews would help us to determine any areas that could use improvement or give us an opportunity to respond to any negative comments. Additionally, Yelp reviews may give students a better idea of the services that we offer as well as insight into our staff. I think that it would be minimal investment and could provide us with valuable information if students were willing to review us. We could also run promotion that if they review us, they can set up an earlier appointment if we are booked two weeks out, which is often the case.

Google+ is something that I am far less familiar with, but it seems like a good way to get information about other similar departments. We may not choose to do much posting on + unless it is just reposts from Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram. However, after browsing around the site, I can see how it is a great place to collect information that may be pertinent to what our department does. 

LinkedIn is great since our job is to help students reach their goals. This seems like a place that we can advertise and share a blog if we decide to take one on. Since counselors advise, inform, and inspire I see this as a great way to get more information out there. Unlike Facebook, Twitter ,and Instagram, I think that LinkedIn may not provide so much in the way of deadlines and important school information, but be more of a place for students to learn and explore the content that would be put up.

Having an RSS feed makes a lot of sense to me, simply because we are continually trying to expand, grow, and provide an information service. While it isn't necessarily a social tool, it can be extemely useful in keeping me and my staff informed on current trends, best practices, information, and news. This is highly important in any field if one is looking to improve a product or service. I'm going to explore these a little more for personal use before diving in for professional purposes.

I think it goes without saying that any sort of coupon site would not be even remotely feasible for us. For one thing, we don't charge for any services or meetings, so what would we be giving a coupon for? I do personally like the idea of Groupons, and I have used many in the past, but I have gotten mixed reviews from business owners. Many feel like they were being shafted or forced into offering a Groupon. Some friends who own a Strength and Conditioning gym have discussed that Groupon was a great way to get many people into the gym in a relatively short time. However, they also mentioned that you get people who are hopping from one gym just to save money with Groupons. If your product or service is good, oneline coupons may buy you some loyal customers for the long run. With that in mind, one has to determine whether it is worth it for a short burst of revenue.

Week 11: Budgets? We Don't Need No Stinking Budgets!

As discussed in my previous post, I will not have an option to use paid advertising given the nature of my employer. I don't see this as a disadvantage, rather an opportunity to be creative in using free resources to get information to our students in an attempt to better serve them. I am fully aware that instead of a monetary payments, the cost will come in the form of time and energy. From the lecture and readings, there seem to be many important factors which can contribute to success in unpaid marketing through social media. A few that I think will be especially needed for me would be to always make a conscious effort to continually market toward building a large and loyal following, creating appealing calls to action, and learning which demographics you want to target and when.

My first step is to utilize both social media and on-ground interactions and activities to increase our web presence and build a social media community. I can come up with the most creative inspiring posts in the world, but they mean nothing if they aren't reaching anybody. Luckily, we can use school resources and some budget to create advertisements directing students to our social media and even explain the benefits of connecting with us. As we are establishing a larger following we can use insights and other analytics tools to better determine when and what types of posts are most effective. I would then take the step to integrate that with calls to action, and as the lecture states, create a circular movement between our different platforms.

A few examples from this week's assignment can be seen on Facebook and Twitter. On one Facebook post, I asked the community if they have already scheduled an appointment to meet with a counselor and posted a link to a recent video made by our department on how to prepare for a counseling appointment. I then posted a call to action when, after reminding new students of the first day for their enrollment, I urged them to visit our website or call our department for an appointment. Similarly, I posted on Twitter a link to our Facebook page, letting students know that they can get more up-to-date information their, and that they should "like" us. I would like to get more creative with these posts, such as using hash tags for specific ongoing campaigns. I saw another school use a specific hashtag for students to post why they love that school. As I learn more about social media, I'm excited to explore the opportunities with these smaller details.

While these are just some basic ideas and concepts to follow, I know that time and energy are going to be the major factors. My goal is to demonstrate the benefit of social media to the point where it is no longer a pilot for our department, but an added responsibility of our job description. While that will naturally create the time necessary to work on this, we need to "find" time to put in until then. Some practices are going to be more time sensitive, such as listening to conversations and engaging appropriately, while some may be more long term goals, such as researching and learning from similar departments and industries. We are already experiencing benefits of social media and some practices have been adopted as part of our job, and while I'm hopeful of this continuing, I know that we have a lot of work still to do.

Week 11: Online Advertising

I found this to be one of the more difficult assignments that we've had, for a few reasons. The first is that, given the nature of my department, we would never have a budget to use for paid advertising. The truth is, we have more customers than we actually need and one major goal of implementing social media in our department was to disseminate information more efficiently and effectively once a web presence and following were built.

With that in mind, I was fairly limited in the "possible" Facebook ad types that we could use if a budget were ever allotted for social media. Mostly, this would be for promoting our page, raise attendance at an event, increase engagement on our apps, and boosting posts. Frustratingly, every time I attempted to enter a URL for the option to increase engagement on apps as well as raising event attendance, I was prompted with an error. I was then recommended to try instead to "Use Clicks to Website". I ended up making a few of these, as seen below, which directed users to the department page, or pages with information on these events.

If I were selling a product or service, I would consider getting people to claim an offer, reaching people near my business, and increasing conversions on the website. Even with these options on Facebook, LinkeIn, and Twitter, I felt that the information at the end of the lecture would best serve businesses that I may work with whether for-profit or not-for-profit. I think that the beauty of Social Media is that businesses can organically build large followings with time, effort, and creativity. Paid advertising to me is contrived and rarely entices me to be a consumer. I find it annoying on television, on the radio, and it often makes me not want to be on Facebook. I follow companies that offer great information and that naturally make it seem like getting my money is NOT their top priority, even though it usually is.

Below are a few sample ads that I created on Facebook. They are fairly simple and I feel that first building an audience over time through engaging and informative posts and information could accomplish similar results at a much lower cost.

Week 10: Blog Comments

Below are a few of the posts that I particularly enjoyed and commented on. I especially found Cheryl's helpful given her experience with email marketing in the past.

San Diego Seamless Drywall Taping - Audra Najera

Ultragamer - Connor Blackwood

Mary Bentley & Assc - Cheryl Grosso

Solana Beach Library - Pat Tirona

Week 10: Email Newsletters

The overall goal in utilizing a newsletter would be two-fold and very different than a for-profit business. The first would be to better disseminate information in an effort to support student success. We have noticed that students are very often not well-informed on the services, resources, and tools offered by the college, and better marketing of these have proven to increase awareness. For this reason, a once-a-semester newsletter would not properly serve that purpose. I feel that 2-3 newsletters each semester would serve as excellent reminders, particularly around mid-terms, for the offerings to be used by our students. If possible, we would provide a "welcome back" email at the beginning of the semester, "keep your head up" email around mid-terms, and a "you're almost there" email right before finals. Each would contain tips and tools to utilize when students get stressed out.

The other goal would be to more effectively provide information as answers to questions, in an effort to decrease unneeded appointments. In an ideal world we would have plenty of counselors and available appointments to serve our entire student body in convenient and timely manner. Unfortunately, in peak periods we have been known to book up close to one month out, and oftentimes students have made appointments unnecessarily. Many of these students have questions that could have been answered in our catalog or website, but students don't find these two resources easily accessible. I would venture to say that a bimonthly publication schedule would best serve this purpose, with the bulk of the content coming at the beginning and end of the semester when we reach high peak periods.

Below I have listed some content that I feel would be useful in newsletters offered by the Counseling Department:

• Updates on student support resources such as the Math Learning Center, Writing Center, Tutoring Services, library databases, workshops and events for topics such as study habits, transferring, test anxiety, etc.
• Counselor/Staff/Faculty Spotlight where we will have a guest contributor discuss anything from their academic journey, personal and professional history, thoughts on MiraCosta, or tips for being a more productive student.
• Updated list of deadlines
• Timely tips for students with information on how to start the semester off right, getting over the mid semester slump, studying habits, de-stress techniques, etc.

I think that this content would be sufficient to start out. I'm sure that reader feedback and more experience writing would offer insight as to which content is most effective and where content should be added. 

Week 9: Pt. 2 Categories

In the few blogs that I currently read, categories are extremely helpful as an easy way to find past blogs or explore unseen content. This would be especially true for my business, especially given that we are providing information and services instead of products.

In the interest of have a clean look and easy navigation I would start off with just a few categories, as described below.

Study Skills and Tips

If we were to incorporate a blog in our department, I believe that this would be the category containing the majority of information. Our office is a little like the library reference desk of the college in that we need to know a little about everything, or have the tools and resources to be able to find information. We are constantly referring students to other departments for the specific services that they require, and our counselors themselves teach classes on college success. We would want students to be able to find a tip they may have read about months ago, but can't remember exact keywords. This category would be a great way to find this.

Deadlines

This information would not be as relevant, as it becomes obsolete fairly quickly. If the deadline to drop a class was on July 1st last year, it most likely wouldn't be the same this year. However, students occasionally ask us for past dates and this category would have everything neatly organized.

Transfer Information

As community colleges continue to transfer students to four-year universities, there is a definite need for this valuable information. As policies and guidelines change, students want to stay apprised of the information, and it would be useful for them to be able to refer back to what might be considered outdated information. The reason for this is that as long as students are continually enrolled and working toward a goal, they are held to the standards of what they started with, rather than the changes. This applies to our college's policies for earning Associate Degrees and certificates.

Student Stories

These posts would be our testimonial page. Students would have an opportunity to tell their journey that of coming to MiraCosta for academic, personal, or professional growth. In a way, this could take the place of guest posts, and they could be used to fill space when time doesn't allow for a post.

Personality in Blogging

I came across some excellent thoughts from Marilyn K., Audra N., Angela T., and Pat T. on when to add personality in a blog. In reading posts from some of our other classmates, I saw that there was some confusion in the distinction between adding personality and making it personal. I may have misunderstood the blog topic, but I feel like a blog must have style and demonstrate the writers voice, which I also call personality. On the other hand, making a business blog personal may achieve some goals, but overall could drive readers away or alienate others. I think it would be best to avoid making a business blog personal and instead, start a personal blog.

Week 9: Blogging Pt. 1

To be perfectly honest, I don't know if I'll use a blog for the business that I've chosen for this class. While I think that a blog could be useful for our department, it would be more appropriate to have the counselors blog as they are trained experts in the field. Given how impacted our department gets, it would be far too difficult to find one or a few counselors to commit to blogging even once a month.

Still, in an ideal world, one could potentially add a lot of personality to a blog in our department. In fact, I think that having a blog with personality would be absolutely necessary given the demographic we are trying to reach and the type of information that we are providing. Seeing students day in day out, I realize that academics are not a high priority for a large portion of the student population. Therefore, adding interesting and pertinent information in a manner that students can relate to is necessary to build and maintain a decent following. I think that having guest bloggers would be very useful and help with maintaining the followers with fresh posts. For instance, a blog from a former student who tells a little about where they are now as well as tips, tools, or resources that has helped them succeed in their goals not just academically, but  personally and professionally as well. We could also have guest bloggers from different departments on campus sharing information about their areas of expertise.

I find myself wondering IF it would ever make sense to not have personality in a blog. I started thinking about other businesses that may not require and what I realized is that the nature of a blog is to demonstrate personality in providing information or perspectives. I wouldn't see a point in using a blog for anything less, since most businesses can send out email blasts with product updates or press releases. Most companies just have that information on the website, while another tool may be needed to direct the consumer/client/user to the website. This, in my opinion, is where an interesting blog would come in to play. It is a further way to brand yourself or your company. I think back to how many bloggers that I used to follow now have thriving businesses with products and services that correlate to what they were first blogging about. They were able to monetize their following despite not having started with an actual business. Speaking for myself, I would not have followed them initially had they not had interesting content and an interesting way of providing content through personality and style.

UPDATE: After reading a class member's post, I wanted to add a clarification to my existing post. While I believe that personality is necessary in creating an interesting blog and build a following, I don't want that to be confused with expressing personal opinions. If blogging for a business, I think that common sense should be used when inserting personal opinions, and if possible references should be used if anything is being sited. For example, a blogger with a nutrition business may post about the negative effects of gluten and siting research or studies would be extremely helpful. On the other hand, if that same blogger began to blog about their opinion of abortion laws in the U.S., and unless they were an expert in government and law, they may alienate some of their followers. Keep in mind, I am talking about non-relevant information. By all means, I want to read about farm subsidies that pertain to nutrition, especially if it is from an expert and is well sited.

As a society we are now provided endless methods of expressing our opinions from something as subtle as "liking" a candidate, or pulling out the soapbox and writing countless posts on through a personal Twitter and Facebook account. Unless it is relevant to the business, I don't need to see personal opinions in the blogs that I read, and I plan to follow the same guidelines if I blog for a business.

Week 8: Twitter

I feel like I may have needed to be in a more creative frame of mind to get better use out of the keyword search. Using the different "Words" advanced search options, I tried a variety of keywords at first. My attempts included, but were not limited to, education, academic counseling, academic advising, school counseling, Oceanside, and inspiration. I found a few users with this approach, but felt like I was just following people in order to complete the assignment. What I found was that without being profit driven, I was mainly looking for users to borrow ideas from and to retweet. The other criteria were finding organizations that seemed to be on the cutting edge of educational technology, innovation, and practices. After more unsatisfying attempts, I proceeded to look up people, businesses, schools, and organizations specifically by name. Similarly to my Facebook adds, I started with local colleges that our students most often transfer to. I then tried an individual, Sir Ken Robinson, who has done extensive work with creative approaches to teaching and increasing creativity in schools. In many ways I used Twitter more like somebody would use Pinterest. I chose users with the intention to identify, share, and try to implement the ideas that I might come across from those I follow.

Once I began adding more of these users, I was able to more than double who I followed by exploring the suggested users that were coming up. The next part of the assignment came in extremely handy, given my now wide array of users that I was following. I created five lists to help organize the different users that I was following. What was nice about I see the benefit in using these lists, for one I can find users much easier without having to search down the list or through my news feed. I can also see how I would find inspiration from some users posts and having users organized by lists allows a much easier way to search for preferred users.

The Twitter account that I am using for this was created at the end of 2014, however it has been used very sparingly and only for dissemination of information. While this has been extremely useful, I see that this doesn't garner much engagement, and really doesn't make for a very interesting profile. I found some great ideas from exploring other schools posts and I plan to implement them this week. I originally thought to strategize the ones posting the different ideas, in case I wanted to save some if we get a larger following, however there is no sense in saving any aces up my sleeve. This week I will be sending a few tweets with calls to action. With these being students, I feel that the best time to tweet is mid-day to afternoon since students typically sleep in later and are busy with their social lives in the evening. I'm optimistic for responses, but with so few followers I'll be realistic with my expectations.