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If you haven’t heard yet about the awesomeness of the MiFi and how it’s going to change the way you think about media, allow me to explain.

The MiFi (available through Verizon and Sprint) calls itself the ‘intelligent mobile hotspot’.

Thinner and shorter than an iPhone, and as simple to use as pressing an on/off button, the MiFi is essentially a router in your pocket.  You’re able to connect up to 5 devices to it and use the signal.  On Verizon, I typically am on a 3G network and have averaged a 2.0mpbs download speed.  I rarely notice a lag in page loads.

At last check, the price of the MiFi was $99 with a $50 rebate. A $40/month subscription gets you a measly 250mb of data.  Upgrade to the $60/month package and get 5GB of data.

So how does this affect my job?

Two words: Streamlined Media.

With a MiFi, you have internet whereever you go, for whatever device you need (as long as Verizon really is everywhere they say they are!) To explain streamlined media and how you can take advantage of it, let me offer a few examples.

1) Event Photos live to the web

Go pick up an Eye Fi 4GB Explore Video SD Card for $99 and put it in your camera.  The Eye Fi allows you to upload photos as soon as you hit a pre-registered wi-fi network.  With the MiFi, you no longer need to wait to get back to the office to send photos. Do it on the fly, right from the event!!

Here’s what you can do with the Eye Fi:

1) Set the card to instantly upload photos to Flickr with a tag for the event.  We’ll pretend it’s Commencement. So we set up the Eye Fi to upload each photo taken to Flickr with the tag commencement2009.

2) Set up a page on your .edu website that will show all of the photos taken.  Link to it from your social web efforts, the home page, the commencement page, the live video streaming page, and more.

3) Put some simple code on it that will pull in photos from Flickr. (Put your username where the red is.  Find it here.) Use the API to create something like:

<iframe align="center" src="http://www.flickr.com/slideShow/
index.gne?user_id=XXXXXXXX@N00&tags=commencement2009" 
frameBorder="0" width="750" scrolling="no" height="750"></iframe>

4) Go wild!  Take photos and they’ll automatically be put on your .edu website.  No need to get back to a computer and get them uploaded, have someone resizing images and putting them on the web.  Streamlined.

2) Live Video anywhere on campus

If you haven’t realized that it’s time to get serious about video, wake up.  Video is becoming increasingly important and with the MiFi you can provide it.  Whether it’s using the same steps above to do YouTube videos on the fly or have a uStream feed from anywhere you have a signal.

And remember this that I talked about last January?? Next week, it will be 2 years to the day since I put together the plan for it at Butler.  With the MiFi, it just became that much easier. And yes, it’s coming to a campus near you very soon.

3) Campus Tour Enhancement!

This one comes from Adam Epstein at WPI (@epsteada on Twitter, blogs at http://epsteada.com/), and some discussion we had while I was at NEACAC last week. (If you want to see the slidecast of my presentation, it’s over here.) Adam talked about the possibilities of photos during the campus tour, and when the students arrive back to the Admissions office…. BOOM!  They’re already on the screen as they walk back in.  For a tech-savvy campus like WPI, that’s pretty cool stuff to show off.

So what can you think of?

There are probably 101 other ways to use this new technology, what do you have in mind? Where are we going from here as we get one step closer to an internet chip in our skin? :)  Leave a comment, I’d love to hear your thoughts.

Oh, and next time you’re at a conference, look for the BlueFuego connection.  And if you need an internet fix, come find me for the password.

We’re heavy in commencement season, which means hundreds and thousands of people are sitting uncomfortably close to strangers and relatives for what seems like eternity to watch someone walk across the stage for 15 seconds.

So what’s a person to do when boredom sets in and they’ve read the pamphlet 3 times?  For some people, it’s time to update Twitter.

So what’s an institution to do?  Find and Follow.

Get on http://search.twitter.com, search for your institution and try several variations.  Abbreviations of the name, acronyms of the school, and the words commencement, graduation, etc.   You might be surprised at how many people you find.  And isn’t that what Twitter is all about?  Expanding your network to be able to interact with and share information with people who have an interest or connection to your institution.

I’ve had this thought bouncing around in my head between client visits and strategy sessions… a visualization of the traditional recruitment funnel in terms of the social web.  This is what I came up with.

(Click Photo to Enlarge)

*NOTE* -   This chart is by no means inclusive of all sites or tools available. This chart is meant as a visualization of strategy to help you think about a framework for your recruitment efforts.  This chart is meant to be thought about, modified to fit, and executed as resources are available.

The Social Web Recruitment Funnel

The Funnel resembles a traditional recruitment funnel (suspects -> prospects -> applicants -> admits -> enrolled), and is designed to dissect 3 areas of recruitment:  Seek, Engage and Retain.

Seek.

The students are not always going to look for you.  Traditional methods such as name buys, print and email still hold a place in your marketing/recruitment arsenal.  But take a good look at web-based tools and sites, for example: Zinch, CollegeBoard and Cappex. Facebook might also be a method of seeking potential applicants and this platform can be leveraged as a great place for prospective student Q&A.  Use email and print to reinforce your message and to drive students to your social web efforts. Your .edu website is still important and things such as ‘Get more info’ need to be prominent and easy to find/fill out.

Engage.

This is where it gets fun.  Build your social web presence to start engaging and interacting with these prospective students.  Think outside of the box. Never before have we had access to so many opportunities to connect and utilize free tools, but approach with caution and don’t overwhelm your audience.  Don’t bite off more than you can chew.  It’s easier to make your web presence bigger. It’s much harder to shrink your web presence and cut connections and friendships with others on a platform you decide to no longer utilize or maintain. Allow them the opportunity to engage with you from the moment they show interest to the moment they step on campus.

Retain.

After the applications come in, your pool has decreased significantly in size.  Take the opportunity to create community with these students and allow them to interact with each other.  Host the conversation or set up a Facebook group for them to interact.  Promote it heavily through traditional methods such as email and print, but drive them to the conversation. If possible, scale back your efforts to a smaller collection of tools for this select group and focus on community management and getting them excited about your school and brand. Outside of the social web, continue interactions via yielding events and personal phone calls.  Use the web to enhance these connections and to network the students together.

Final Thoughts

These thoughts are from the 30,000 ft. view and hundreds of other decisions and ideas would go into each effort. A well-defined strategy would incorporate many, but not all, of these social web tools.  The most important thing is to know where your audience is and cater to them.

If you have any thoughts or comments, leave a message below or shoot me a message on Twitter (@bradjward).

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Are you ready to Ignite the Fuego and work with BlueFuego on your strategy? Contact us today.
Twitter for Higher Ed Webinar: Back by popular demand!  June 10th, only $99.  Click to Register.

Darryl from Plaid has recently posted his thoughts on the college visit process after a whirlwind trip in the northeast.  The post, titled how many $150K products do you buy from 20 year olds?, talks about many points of the college visit and selection process.  Here are some gems from the blog post:

————

+ What about having an admissions/marketing person on tour with a student guide? Co-presenting, for the win? Sales teams present to clients selling $150K products every day. Why not higher ed?

+ Everyone has a meal plan, quad style dorms, blue light security systems and lecture halls. Hand out a fact sheet to cover the obvious stuff that everyone asks (but must be covered.)

+ How could your tour be interactive? Is there a way to get the student/parent to participate?

+ Anywhere else in the consumersphere, you’re treated like a rockstar if you’ve got over $100K to spend. How could you treat potential students (and parents) like rock stars?

+ Every higher ed admissions/marketing person should book a trip to Vegas today and take the Zappos tour. Seriously. This is a tour of AN OFFICE, and it’s exciting, engaging, and you’ll want to work there. What could your university be doing to make your tour more Zappos-like?

————-

Go read the blog post today, and keep an eye out for future posts by Darryl on higher ed marketing!

I’ve been pretty deep in the research of 400 college and university Twitter accounts, and I’ve been impressed with both the adoption and the growth of this niche on Twitter in the past month.

We are looking at all types of accounts: Admissions, Athletics, Alumni, Departments and Colleges, PR, News, general institution accounts and more. Just wanted to share a few very brief stats and notes from the in-depth research.

• Of the 400 accounts we are tracking, 26% did not follow anyone new in the past month.
• The 400 accounts averaged a 93.3% growth in # of followers over the past month.
• Harvard, always known for its brand monitoring (no logos on shot glasses, etc.) was late to the @HarvardU boat. Take control of your brand, or deal with updates such as this one.
• Conversation is everything…………… or is it???
• A small handful of schools are in the top 10% of # of followers, # of following, and # of updates.
• Admission offices usually have the lowest # of followers out of all types of accounts.

One trend I’ve noticed is that higher education accounts just go out and follow EVERYONE, typically scanning lists of other institutions to build their following/follower numbers.

For a history lesson, here’s where I think it started.  Way back, nearly 18 months ago, a few of us who had become regulars with our personal accounts started branching out into institutional accounts. I consider @andrewcareaga the Nostradamus of Higher Ed Twitter with the tweet below. (Yeah… I was the only one who responded.)

So what does this have to do with the trend of ‘follow everyone!’ Back then, we were lone rangers on uncharted territories.  We stuck together. Our follower lists were tributes to other brave souls giving this new tool a try at their college or university.  And somewhere along the way, it became standard. But also… back then, we didn’t really know what we were going to use the tool for. # of Followers, # of Following, it didn’t really matter.  There was no one else to talk to because you didn’t know who else was around. (Unless you were using Tweetscan, which is sooooo 2007.)

So is it good or bad to follow and everyone? We’ll talk more about that at the webinar.

With Twitter’s phenomenal growth (1392% from Feb ‘08 to Feb ‘09), it’s time to get serious.  Time to make Twitter work for you, and make it accomplish something.  Chris Brogan recently said that we are now in the ‘prove it’ stage of social media. And it’s the truth. It’s time for practitioners to step up to the plate and make something happen. And it starts with a strategy and knowing what you want to accomplish.  It’s more than following 500 random people and more than waiting for people to come follow you.

And that’s exactly what we’ll be talking about in the Twitter for Higher Ed webinar in 2 weeks.  Hope you’ll consider joining the rest of the schools who are ready to get serious about Twitter and who want to work smarter, not harder.

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Twitter for Higher Ed Webinar - 2 dates!  April 9th or 10th.
Only $99 to attend.  More information here.
Bring your pen and pad.

Last Friday’s post was the 200th post published to SquaredPeg.com.  It’s been a great ride so far, thanks to all of you who read and share this blog with your coworkers, boss, colleagues and others.

The subscriber #’s for this blog have really grown in the past 6-8 months, which means you might have missed a lot of the early content.  Some of it was pretty bad, but some is worth mentioning again. Here is a list of the ‘top 10%’ of SquaredPeg…. 20 posts to take a first look at, or revisit if you’ve been around since the beginning.  Enjoy!

Top 6 Posts (# of Views)

1. FacebookGate (December 18, 2008)
2. 10 Reasons to Monitor Twitter (September 23, 2008)
3. Flickr, Your Electronic Photo Database? (April 24, 2008)
4. Want $100 in free Facebook Ads? (June 30, 2008)
5. Try this one on your Boss (February 12, 2008)
6. Class of 2012 Facebook Research (January 3 - July 31, 2008)

Top 5 Posts (Comments)

1. FacebookGate (December 18, 2008 - 262 comments)
2. Implementing Social Media on your Campus (December 9, 2008 - 43 comments)
3. Let’s Kick it up a Notch (August 8, 2008 - 30 comments)
4. Transitioning out of a Job (January 26, 2009 - 21 comments)
5. What’s the ROI of Social Media? (October 29, 2008 - 21 comments)

Top 4 Favorite Ideas or Thoughts

1. Lifecasters: Second Try (January 29, 2008)
2. Twitter with Student Bloggers (May 15, 2008)
3. Taking Chats to a New Level (October 30, 2008)
4. Good Project Graveyard [Part 2] (November 25, 2008)

Top 3 posts that never got a comment:

1. The Way Users Do Things (December 14, 2007)
2. Good Project Graveyard [Part 3] (December 1, 2008)
3. Blue II is Live (March 3, 2008)

Top 2 posts I wish I hadn’t written:

1. Keep an eye on Twingr (November 14, 2008)
2. SocioTown: A 3D Social MMOG (November 21, 2007)
   

1 post that changed my life:

1. The Value of Face Time (September 13, 2007) - The beginning of the path towards BlueFuego.  Good stuff.

Thanks again to all of you who read or subscribe (RSS or EMAIL!). I really appreciate it.

This post wraps up Integration Week at SquaredPeg.  Be sure to check out the posts from Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday!

Today I’m lending the platform over to my partner and co-founder of BlueFuego, Joe Gaylor. Joe has spent the last week working on some very interesting research.  Over the past several months we have noticed that some schools are very up front with their social media efforts, other bury their hard work deep in a 3rd level text link.

While we don’t have specific research on this, we can tell you one thing:  To your target audience, the Facebook ‘F’ is probably just as familiar as other ‘brand name’ logos. So why not put it where they can see it? If you have a great Facebook page with tons of quality content and engagement, brag about it!

Analysis of Social Media Callouts on .edu Sites

Read it all..

This 4th installment of the impromptu ‘Integration Week’ follows 2 examples of integrating social media into your current tactics and a brief discussion on Monday about the topic.

Today I want to share a simple, effective way that you can drive traffic to social media efforts on the web.

Yesterday I received an email from Nancy (@nancypricer on Twitter, as you may know!) about her registration for the upcoming Twitter for Higher Ed webinar. What I love about the email is how she has linked several social media sites of her University in the signature!

(click photo to enlarge)

We all send email.  A lot of it, actually.  So why not make it work harder for you?  This struck me as an extremely easy example of a way to drive traffic and get some eyeballs on your hard work.  If you’re an admission counselor, think of how many students/families you email with in a typical recruitment cycle.  You’re bound to get some clicks and some new fans/followers.

Tomorrow, to finish up Integration Week, I’m excited to share some research that Joe has been working on for over a week, dealing with social media integration.  It’ll be a great end to the week, and you won’t want to miss it.

—
Want to join @nancypricer and @tarletonstate and learn more about Twitter for Higher Education? Sign up for the upcoming webinar on April 9th or 10th!  Only $99 to attend. Learn more and register at http://twitter-higher-ed.eventbrite.com.

This great post by Ron Bronson wanted me to talk a little more about a slide I use in several presentations, dealing with your .edu website vs. social media. One line in particular that stood out to me in Ron’s post is:

But using social networks can’t be viewed as a panacea, instead, we need to establish why we’re using them and adhere to that purpose.

Before you establish why you’re using social networks, I’d encourage you to first take a look at your foundation.

As a homeowner, you want to make sure your house has a solid foundation.  If you build on a bad one, you might be alright in the short run but you’re as good as done over time. No one wants to build on a bad foundation, and your social media efforts should be no different.

I always use this slide in presentations before diving into the ‘fun stuff’. Why?  Because without a solid website, you’re like the homeowner who’s building on sand.  Schools are using social media to essentially have new avenues to reach out to people, connect with them, be a part of the conversation, and build that relationship. But are they applying to your school there? Are they asking for more information? Are they giving a donation?  For most schools, no (and I would say… not yet, but soon). For most colleges and universities, you are using these tools, but the end goal is to get them to take action on your website.

Here’s the point: You can do the coolest stuff on Facebook or Twitter or YouTube, but if the student gets to your site and can’t figure out how to apply or get more information, you have failed. Make sure your .edu website is solid. In most cases, it is… but a little usability testing can go a long way. (PS - you can do it with $10 and 10 minutes.) Do the little things now and you’ll succeed in the long run.

How’s your foundation?

Following suit of Paul, Andrew and Karine, here is a list of the conferences I’m attending or speaking at in 2009. Mixed in will be a few BlueFuego Webinars and other Webinars that are still in the works.  To keep track of speaking engagements down the road, visit http://bluefuego.com/presentations.

If you’re going to be at any of these, don’t hesitate to get ahold of me ahead of time or during the conference so I can be sure we meet up. BlueFuego is planning tweetups at some of these conferences, so more info to come on that as we get closer.

2009 Presentations and Conferences Attending:

• Innovative Branding and Marketing for Higher Education, Feb. 23-25 in Singapore, Singapore. I presented on how to integrate social media into a recruitment strategy.
  • Already happened! Want to hear more on my thoughts or see slides and video from this presentation? Head over here.

• SXSW ‘09, March 13-17 in Austin, TX. I am co-presenting a Core Conversation panel with Dylan Wilbanks (University of Washington) titled “The Web In Higher Education: What’s Different?”.
  • DON’T FORGET! Higher Ed Tweetup/Meetup at SXSW, March 15th.  Click here to RSVP on Upcoming.

• MACAC, April 29-May 1 in Grand Rapids, MI.  I am co-presenting with Andrew Meyers (Hope College) on using social media in admissions.

• OACUHO, May 24 in Toronto, ON, CA. I am presenting a 4-hour workshop on social media.

• NEACAC, May 27-29 in Springfield, MA.  I am co-presenting with Drew Millikin (Saint Michael’s College) on ‘Your Mom Reads My Blog: The Power of Web 2.0 in College Admissions.’

• EduComm Conference, June 16-18 in Orlando,FL. I am presenting ‘The Recruitment Long Tail’.

• eduWeb Conference, July 20-22 in Chicago, IL. Details TBA.

• NACAC ‘09, Sept. 24-26 in Baltimore, MD. I am presenting on ‘Integrating Social Media into your Recruitment Strategy’.

• Innovative Educators Webinar, Fall 2009. Details TBA.

• Academic Impressions Webinar, Details TBA.

I really, really love conferences.  Great opportunity to meet all of you in real life and make new friends. Can’t wait!

I still have some availability to speak through 2009, so email me at brad(at)bluefuego(dot)com to talk about your event’s details. Can’t wait until a conference to hear more about effectively using social media at your University?  Contact BlueFuego to get a 1-on-1 session!