Considerations for Special Higher Ed Content Types

We know many of the ways that higher ed communications is unique in practice from other industries—the quirks of the academic calendar, the diverse range of audiences, the intense politics, working under a knowledge-centric mission, and so on. But another way in which higher ed stands out are the content types that only we get to wrangle—catalogs, handbooks, policies, program pages, and so, so much more. Just because they are native to … [Read more...]

Ask Me Anything: How Can Higher Ed Use Reddit AMAs?

The following guest post was written by Ryan Morejon, social media community manager, and Angeline Evans, former digital media manager, at Florida International University. You never want to dive into a new social channel without a strategy just because it’s new or just for the sake of being there. That’s why, at first, we were hesitant to experiment with Reddit at Florida International University. For one, we didn’t know much about it, … [Read more...]

Optimizing Your Content for the Social Feed

The following guest post was written by Mike Petroff, digital content strategist, Harvard University. Content strategy typically starts with planning for and managing content on your own website. Words, images, videos, and other elements all fit within your carefully constructed design. But, what happens when people discover your content in spaces like Facebook and Twitter? How can we prepare our content to visually stand out when it … [Read more...]

Storytelling with On-Brand News Content

News content plays a big role in higher ed marketing and communications. It takes center stage on our website homepages and many top landing pages — not to mention our email newsletters, alumni magazines, Twitter, Facebook and other social channels. We rely on it to maintain a timely, engaging web presence. Above all, we rely on news content to help tell our story. Yet how often do we consider what messages our news content is communicating and … [Read more...]

Power to the Humans: HighEdWeb 2014

The dream of higher ed is alive in Portland. That’s what we learned at the 2014 HighEdWeb conference, which made its first stop in the Pacific Northwest. As always, the conference was a great opportunity to learn, reflect, connect, and refresh our perspective for the challenges waiting back at home. A theme that pervaded many of the sessions at HighEdWeb was the idea of being human. The work we do as web content professionals is not about … [Read more...]