Archive for the ‘Research’ Category

Last week my good friend Brad sent me along this story on BBC about a new partnership between Visa and Facebook, which starts out:

The company is giving $100 (£51) advertising credits to the first 20,000 US business start-ups that download its service via Facebook.

My first thought was “Where do I sign up?”, and now I know. This morning I was shown an ad on Facebook for The Visa Business Network. I added it to my account and within a minute I had a $100 credit code for Facebook Ads in my inbox. So just head to http://apps.facebook.com/visabusiness/sign_up and register today.

Make sure you read the Privacy Policy/Terms and Conditions (as always) to make sure that nothing conflicts with your institution’s regulations. It seems like a good deal for sure, and if you’ve been nervous about getting your feet wet in Facebook Ads, this is a great way to see how it all works!

Here is more from the email they sent me:

Dear Brad:

Thank you for joining the Visa Business Network! To help you grow your business,
we’re giving you a $100 coupon good towards Facebook advertising credit. Your
coupon must be redeemed and used by 9/28/2008.

Your coupon code is: ****-****-****-****

If this is your first time advertising with us, you can create your first ad and redeem your coupon at:
http://www.facebook.com/ads/create/?coupon=****-****-****-****

If you are a returning advertiser, you can redeem your coupon by the following:
1. Log into your Facebook Ads account.
2. Click on the “Billing” at the top of the Ads Manager.
3. Click on the “Funding Sources” tab on the Billing Summary page.
4. Click on “Enter Coupon Code” and enter your code as shown above.

Thanks for joining The Visa Business Network!

Sincerely,

The Facebook Ads Team

PROMOTIONAL TERMS: The promotional coupon code and the advertising credits are
valid only for purchase of advertising through Facebook’s online advertising
system. May only be redeemed by Facebook users who add the Visa Application.
Advertisers will be charged for advertising that exceeds the promotional credit.
Advertisers will need to suspend their ads if they do not wish to receive
additional charges beyond the free credit amount. Subject to ad approval, valid
registration and acceptance of the generally applicable Facebook Advertising
Terms and Conditions. The promotional coupon code and advertising credits are
non-transferable and may not be sold or bartered. Offer may be revoked at any
time for any reason by Facebook. One promotional coupon code per individual.
Promotional coupon code equals $100.00 USD which can be applied to the purchase
of advertising through Facebook’s online advertising system. Offer valid only
for sign ups using the coupon code or URL link received upon adding the Visa
Application. Expires 90 days from date the Visa Application is added to the
Facebook account.

With all of the tools readily available at your fingertips, how could you afford to not use them?

Yesterday I had a meeting with BUMegan about some communication for incoming freshman. Previously, the ‘welcome week newsletter’ has been a word document around 5 pages long. Gross. So we started brainstorming about what to do this year. Email? eNewsletter? Welcome Week Blog? Post the info to the Facebook Class of 2012 group and the BUForums?

So I went to my network of higher ed professionals on Twitter for advice.

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Let’s talk a little bit about expectations of an admission website, and the evolving nature of it. I’m going to speak in terms of the Whole Product Concept, which some of you might be familiar with. It looks like this:

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I’ve been thinking a lot lately about uses for Twitter in Higher Ed. I’ve said before (here):

[...] having the kids sign up for Twitter is just another barrier to communication. While I am typically an advocate for universities using services rather than reinventing the wheel, Twitter has yet to prove its stability to me.

There has also been a lot of talk about Twitter, how to use it in Higher Ed, what might be effective, what might not be, etc. I’ve sort of sat back and soaked this all in, watching developments at other universities and trying to think of how I can use Twitter to enhance a student’s experience on our site.

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Once upon a time, in an Admission office (let’s say… 1993), someone decided they wanted to change the early application deadline from December 1st to November 15th. This would allow them to have more time to read the early apps and make a better decision, and it would position them with the app deadlines of their competitors.

So Administration made a few phone calls, had the dates changed on the application and in the catalog for the next print cycle, informed a few people around campus, changed some wording in a few brochures, and all was good.

Enter the Internet.

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I’m back from a very refreshing week of fun and sun in Florida with my wife, and am starting to get settled back in the office and get caught up. While I was out I tried my hardest to avoid work email/RSS/Twitter, but it’s just impossible. To my credit, I left 75 work emails unread and 700 posts in my Google Reader, and did pretty well at avoiding Twitter.

Vacation also allowed me to take a step back and look my profession as a whole. I read or re-read a lot of great books:

• Fat Envelope Frenzy
• All Marketers are Liars
• The Price of Admission
• Cluetrain Manifesto
• Made to Stick
• Join the Conversation

Right now is a ’season of change’ for me both personally and professionally. Vacation couldn’t have come at a better time; in the week leading up to my trip our Director of Admission resigned, our Assistant Director had a baby and went on maternity leave, and our print coordinator (my counterpart) and main web designer who did the butler.edu redesign put in their 2 weeks. Needless to say, change is in the air. With new positions come new opportunities, both for those leaving and those arriving. Change can bring more change, good and bad. And while we are filling positions, there are a few things I can look forward to/lobby for.

For example, our current CMS only allows me to change content on sites within go.butler.edu. I can’t control anything on the homepage, navigation, etc. and only recently got access to the callouts in the margins. (A post on that and web usability has been sitting in my drafts for months. I’ll get it out in after I have a little more data.) With the new web designer vacancy, I am going to lobby for access to the ‘ArtApp’, aptly named after the guy leaving. It is the ‘CMS backdoor’ that allows access to these sorts of things. No better time than now to cut red tape. I was hoping Art would give me the keys before he left, he has very similar feelings as me about the CMS limitations.

Another opportunity will be revamping emails, etc. Currently, I design emails and the copy comes to me. We’ve really worked over the past year at refining the copy into an ‘email-compatible’ format. I kid you not, previous emails have been more than 1.5 pages long in Word… imagine that in a 550-600px box. *shudder* The person leaving the position has been great at recognizing this need and helping to cut text before passing it on, and she has also been a wonderful liason for me to the print department for getting photos for emails. With the absence of this position, I am going to try and get access (finally) to the campus photo library for emails, and start working more on text edits and getting our electronic materials to match the print versions better.

All of these positions will be hard to fill; our team works so well together and hopefully we can find some people to step in and hit the ground running, but still be able to bring us some fresh ideas and thoughts on what we’re doing here. I haven’t even been here a year, and at times I feel myself slipping towards the dreaded rut of moving along with business as usual year after year using previous materials and methods.

In all, it’s good to be back. Do yourself a favor and take some time off if you haven’t recently. It’s healthy for you. Winter is pretty much gone, so get out and enjoy the weather. You don’t even have to go anywhere far; just enjoy a day to yourself. Take a photo walk around your hometown, read some books, play with your kids, work in the yard, wash the cars, clean out the garage, go to a presidential rally, or just do absolutely nothing. But take a day off. There is so much more out in the world other than work and keeping up with the 9-5. The blogs will be here when you return. The emails really aren’t that urgent. The project can wait a few more days. And when you get back, you’ll be refreshed and ready to start back up again.

It’s really hard to believe that nearly 3 months since I first posted about the Class of 2012 group on Facebook, and 2 months since I went public with the data tracking. I mentioned on that post that I would post occasional updates, and I thought the 3 month mark would be a good one.

Here’s the chart after 3 months, which is tracking Members, Wall Posts, and Discussion Posts:
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I know there’s a ton of Seth Godin lovers out there, so I wanted to post this real quick. He’s doing a conference call on Meatball Sundae for FREE. Considering seats at his events can go for upwards of $2000, this is a pretty sweet deal. The call is on Wednesday, April 9 from 12-1PT (That’s 3-4p for all us east-coasters).

Note: You have to actually own the book to sign up. For $25 you can buy the book and sign up, but you can also get it from Amazon for only $16.29 right here. You’d probably still get it quick enough to register, but no promises.

Enough of me talking, sign up here and listen to the man himself. And if you were wondering… yes, it will blend.

One thing that I have always been big on is ‘community‘. I love community, the feeling of being surrounded by others to share ideas with, have a good time with, and relate to. Community can build great connection with others, and it can make others proud to be a part of something. It is a big part of the vision that Matt and I have for BlogHighEd. So when an incoming link from a blog post titled “Discovering Community” linked to us, I felt a certain sense of accomplishment in that goal.

Then I got to thinking back to my early days of ‘community building’, in college as an RA, and remembered a presentation that I gave at a conference more than 3 years ago. So I dug it up last night and went through it, and found some slides that could relate to my job now. So I’m going to go through some of that, and make a few modifications as well.

The presentation is directly below, but it might make more sense if you follow along with me below it. At the end we’ll get into some direct implications for community in social media. Brace yourself, this will probably be the longest post in SquaredPeg history. What a great way to celebrate 100 posts! Stick with me, I think you will get something out of this.

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I’ve been sifting through about 4 months of Google Analytics, and I see some correlations to ‘The Long Tail’. (Note: if you haven’t read The Long Tail by Chris Anderson, go buy it now.)

When I read the book over winter break, it made total sense, and the book showed great examples. Then I got back to work and I’ve been struggling with how to look at the long tail and apply it to my work. At first I felt like I was just trying to make it fit, so I continued to ignore it. But every time I look at data, it pops back up. It’s not a thought. It’s not a pretty graph. It’s not fluff. It’s real, and it’s happening.

Here’s the main thing I see:
the conversation is in the long tail.

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