Few university and college systems have embraced social media wholeheartedly. Most have no online community presence. Among those that do, many of their efforts to date have resulted in disappointing outcomes.

There are reasons for this. Online social media sites require a lot of work. Two, many university systems are reluctant to engage their audience in conversation since it implies a loss of complete control. Some have used their blogs, for example, as nothing more than an additional advertising site by cutting off comments. Online communities thrive on tremendous content and variety, which some institutions have found difficult to sustain. We help you meet all of these issues and have proved that the outcome can be significantly more potent – at less cost in time, money and energy – than any single other messaging tactic you’re using today.

Read more about our social media services for higher education… 

Share This

This week Sterling and I had the opportunity to speak with Jennifer Brady, Director of Marketing for UMassOnline. Coming on the heels of their blog launch just last week, Jennifer stopped in to tell us a little bit about their new endeavor and her reasoning and expectations behind the new online community property.

[Editor's note: The UMassOnlineBlog can be found here.] 

 

 UMassOnline Blog Launch: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download (370)

Share This

Last week, UMassOnline launched this blog. This week, from China, after an arduous journey, UMassOnline CEO David Gray posted this report, entitled 'China Via the Great Circle Route,' upon his arrival on the other side of the world. I hope I'm not the only person on the planet who finds this amazing!

Sure, the technology that shrinks distance and time is amazing. But what's incredible to me — and should be of interest to every person in higher education (and elsewhere) is that in the pre-blog era, UMassOnline might have issued a press release about David Gray's journey and its purpose. It would have taken days to write, edit and disseminate, few people would have read it, and it's likely it would have been largely ignored by the mainstream media. That would mean that no ordinary people with an interest in this would have been informed.

Now in the blog era, the UMassOnline blog community gets to hear the news immediately and straight from the first, best source. Gray landed, he posted, and seconds later people can read it, comment about it, and share it. That's amazing! 

Schools often receive media coverage when bad things happen, of course. Meanwhile, lots of the good things going on get little attention. Universities relying on the mainstream media to report their good news stories are routinely disappointed. Now organizations can go direct with their news, too. From anywhere. Anytime. I love that!

Share This