“We need to think beyond the blogging box and become really engaged with what we are doing, because we could create something that will attract viewers.”-Steven Hodson, Mashable

I look at blogs like I eat a McDonald’s cheeseburger: one bite, throw away the wrapper. Most money-making-tons-of-hits blogs are great at giving the reader bite sized information initially, then allowing them to re-read for the detailed stuff. But before you feel the need to have your bloggers bullet point, embolded headings, write small paragraphs and use italicization let’s talk about why Student Blogs are different.

The Difference

The typical student blog reader is reading for the experience. They’re not coming to each page needing tips on gardening or pet grooming; they want to feel like they’re at your institution. The difference between the mainstream blogosphere and Higher-Ed student blogs is in what the readers are looking for. The mainstream reader needs the gist first and the details second. Readers of student blogs need details immediately.

Video Application

You may find articles like this one that suggest that video may be bad for blogs because of the time commitment a reader must make. The great thing about the Student Blog is that readers come to the site ready to invest some time.

Viral Videos usually succeed if they are highly instructional or have the “i’ve never seen anything like that before in my life “quality.” Sure, your log videos may not be viral smash hits, but they will be experiential and that is what’s important.

The Rules

• Video content posted in a blog can be anything you want it to be, because your blog readers are ready to take the time to watch your stuff.
• Video content posted elsewhere should be instructional or entertaining.

Check out that Mashable article and subscribe to their feed. They post some great stuff about web communications.

Flock is a web browser based on Firefox that allows the user to access their facebook, youtube, twitter, flickr etc. while browsing. One of my biggest obstacles as Digital Communication Coordinator is keeping the staff consistently motivated to check their SNS accounts. Flock actually makes me want to upload all those photos that I have sitting around. It makes me want to update my status–letting everyone know that I’m jump starting my car. The more active you are on facebook, the more you show up on your friend pages. They’ll look at your new pictures, they’ll comment, and they’ll ask you questions.

You can also look at media streams and easily message your Facebook friends with web, YouTube, and other Facebook content. It’s really easy to transfer your media from account to account, and you’re able to plug in Wordpress and blogger accounts as well.

You’ll have to just try this out. Here’s the link

Con: no myspace integration… yet

I started with nothing

Ok this isnt true. I had a laptop with video editing software. But that was it. I picked up a cheapo camcorder on Black Friday for 130 and I shot some film. I also used the built-in webcam to tape a How To Apply video using the stuff on my desk. Generally, you’ll want to have a video that’s two to three minutes in length. Post the videos in YouTube to start with and you can put little video windows on your myspace and facebook sites.

Your Video next to Kanye= Big Time

Podcasting is a bit different. It pretty big time because your videos are posted in the same online store as Kanye West. Students can put school in their search term and your institution pops up there with all those old school hits. Also, a podcast is a subscription… just like if you click on the orange button on the right side of the url bar on your browser (go ahead and click on it). Your computer and ipod will be updated with the newest content. Getting here is pretty simple and you may have the resources to do this at hand.

Get a Host

Podcasting works by creating a link to hosted content. iTunes may be invincible, but they don’t have the space to store your video. You need to store your video yourself. This is what a host is for. Check out Site5 as a hosting option

Also you can use this host to house your blogs and connect them to a url (www.thefreshman15.net). This is something that your institution can provide you with if their willing to do so. If not, the link I provided provides cheap hosting and cheap domain names.

Get a blogger account

Google makes podcasting easy so go ahead and set up a free blogger.com account. Each blog post needs to have a link to the file in the body of the post.

Get a feedburner account

When you create a new feedburner account, plug your blogger url into the burn a feed field. Be sure to check the I am a podcaster field. This will create a feedburner url that you will submit to iTunes. Feedburner is great for tracking your stats down to the nitty gritty. You can also export those stats to an excel spreadsheet

You have and iTunes account, right?

If you have an account (you need one) just go into your account settings and submit your feedburner URL as a podcast. You can go into the optimize menu in Feedburner to set up the appearance on iTunes. It takes a while for iTunes to sync up with your feed, but you can troubleshoot in Feedburner to see if you podcast is ready to go. The most common problem you’ll run into is MIME types. You can go into your options in Site5 and add the mime type of .m4v or whatever movie type you’re using as a video. There are numerous sites that tell you how to do this with ease. Feel free to ask me a question in the comments section and I’ll respond like lightning.

Plugging your podcast 

Here’s an idea: Why don’t you create a url specifically for your podcast files, and then redirect the main url to your feedburner site. So say your site is called myuniversitypodcast.pp. When you email your students, you can just include a link to myuniversitypodcast.pp and when they click on the link it will redirect them to the feedburner subscribe page. The page has tons of subscription options, including itunes. You could also just ask the student to search for your school in iTunes, but this does it for them.

How to Promote

For a while now, I’ve been plugging our different avenues of communication in four ways

• email- it’s good for some things, granted a good percentage of students don’t do email. I’m also pretty cautious of how many times I email students about this stuff. The students who do care may start to delete my emails along with the continental sky points notices if I inundate their inbox with shenanigans. A great way to plug your stuff is to put a limited number of links in the signature of your email. So you’ll automatically notify students in a non-mass email sort of way.
•  Phone Calls- So I’ll talk to a student about what’s going on on the web, but the trick is… telling someone where to find something is a pain if they’re not navigating on the web as you direct them. You can give them urls (pbablogs.com) or locations on a web page (click the blue letters below my left ear on the about me page) but mostly this is just you making yourself feel good about getting the word out. You won’t notice traffic increases this way. I’ll remedy this in the last paragraph.
• Cross Plugging- I should probably come up with a better term… maybe later. So if you’re running a student blog, have a student put a link in their post to a video on YouTube and then plug the PBA podcast at the same time. Niceeee. (That was nice with 4 Es… spell check can’t handle me) Maybe you get crazy hits on your admission site… Throw up some banners linking students to other content.
• Print Publication - Ok so this isn’t something that I’ve tried out, but I hear it works well. Even better, why don’t you print up something like a club flyer (uv coated glossy 3×5 card) plugging your site. While your at it… put your IM on your business card.

Resolution- Closing the Black Hole

For your print publications, your phone calls, even your emails… It’s a great idea to have a single site to direct students to and let them experience the fullness of your web presence. It smacks of simplicity, but it’s important that you take all the difficulty out of finding out about your school. Any friction and they’ll give up and miss the cool stuff you’ve been posting. You owe it to your students to make things easy.

What’s more, you could just have all of these resources out there and no one uses them like a library in a national park or something. And your central site could look a lot different than what I have in mind. It could be something as simple as a links page on your admission site, or a whole separate web site. Just put all your stuff in one place.

Today’s post may be a breath of fresh air to some (one out of two readers). No joke: YouTube is meant to host unprofessional videos. Getting a custom made myspace background for your admission counselor pages takes away their souls. Facebook is meant to not have layouts and too many special applications. So the pressure is off!

In fact, it’s a good idea to purposely not shoot a podcast in HD (though people have gone there). The most succesful podcasts that I’ve made have been strong on the fun and content and weak on the flashy. Sure my transitions may have been off and my camera a little shaky, but prospective students found them really helpful. I put most of my effort on conveying a point in a clear way. If we were giving a tour of a residence hall, I made sure there were times I would pause and just let the viewer look at the dorm room. If we were telling the student about the purpose of a preview day, we would make sure the visuals weren’t distracting (made a slow transition slide show of pictures from the previous year’s event) and put a voice over of a current student explaining the event on the audio track. If the topic was boring, I used the toys on my desk to describe the process (How to Apply) and then put some cheesy computer music as the soundtrack.

It’s Called MySpace and Facebook, Not CorporateFront and CarefullyMarketedMailer

Let your counselors be people on these sites. Let them (make them) post their favorite appropriate song as background music to their site, or a background of LA Galaxy, or pictures of their kitty. This attracts students to their sites. Prospective peeps don’t go to myspace and facebook to look at a school, but they will definitely sign on to socialize with people and your institution may come up in the conversation. Ironically, this generation stares at a monitor (or three if you’re Al Gore) to socialize.

So the little guy wins in creative online marketing. Sure you’ll need an adaquate amount of man-hours to put into developing and initiating a online presence, but most of what I suggest on this site is free technology (besides purchasing a domain–your institution should be able to share its web hosting). As I’ve said in this post, you won’t need a graphic designer or video production crew to draw prospective student interest.