Leeds 2.0

 

Greetings from the ARC lounge, nothing makes blogging cooler than saying you are doing it from a lounge setting.  So we are going to start this session of the lounge with a little Q and A...

Tyler, it is obvious you do quite an array of very valuable projects; what is your favorite?
The first week of every month I hitch up my pants, crack my knuckles, throw on some of R. Kelly's greatest hits ("Step in the Name of Love" is a classic), and begin compiling our department metrics for the month.  What has started as a simple two page spreadsheet taking about fifteen minutes has amassed eight pages and three hours of work; with numbers used across a spectrum of presentations and strategies within the school. 

Why should I capture metrics?
This blog is all about how to communicate with our audiences, specifically emphasizing how social media campaigns can extend awareness and reach to audiences.  But proving a ROI is key to these campaigns so pages and pages of metrics become necessary.
So without discerning all my metric secrets and calculations, I feel it proper to share some of the revelations I have come to while compiling the numbers month after month.   And most importantly remember that these are purely quantitative numbers and do not speak for the qualitative interactions with your audience (though several social media platforms try to).

Man you sold me, so what Metrics should we capture?
Ideally having some set of numbers for everywhere on the web you are present is the goal; and most platforms have some sort of way to capture numbers so why not do it?

The big boy.
Our beautifully and intricately designed website leeds.colorado.edu is just bursting with content and information and we love to see what people are looking at using Google analytics.

We capture unique views for:

• the top 10 pages visited
• the top 10 alumni pages visited
• clicks on homepage
• Avg. Time on pages
• Geographic areas for certain pages
• Navigation summaries for homepage spotlights (as well as what percent of views are coming from the homepage versus alternate routes)

E-mail marketing
We love Constant Contact and we always capture open rate, top 5 links, and unique click throughs per our monthly newsletter sent out.

Blogs 
We are incredibly proud of our blogs at cuboulderblogs.com, and using google analytics we capture which blog is getting the most traction as well as individual posts that are popular.  (Like this post will undoubtedly be). 

Press
We use a wonderful combo of Meltwater News and Vocus to analyze press hits per month versus target peer/aspirational schools.  As well as making some beautiful visual charts of our progress that are great for presentations.
Social Media

Twitter
Followers and number of tweets, as well as tweets per day via tweetstats.com
and if your exceedingly bored reading this, check out our twitter page.

Facebook
Eventually everyone will realize that facebook fanpages are so much more useful than groups because fanpages allow you to get "facebook insights", which means they give us/you some very valuable numbers unavailable to facebook groups. 

We capture fans, views, photos, posts, comments per month.

Becoming a fan of Leeds is the cool thing to do by the way.

LinkedIN
Members, discussions, job posts - don't you want to get in on this action?

YouTube
Videos, unique views, comments, which video is getting the most traction.

Zmags
Putting our publications in a sweet online format gives the ability to see some qualitative aspects of our publications; as well as the general quantitative numbers you would get with google analytics.

We capture views per publication, zoom and click throughs (inferring people actually reading), and avg. time on each publication.


This is a very raw display of what we capture, (we do capture a little more than presented above), but this is the basic set.  Then I use these numbers to compare these to previous months and years and find patterns, what is working, what isn't, and find the right numbers to report.  And then push out what is popular in every communication channel possible.  In the end, these numbers need to compliment your communications strategy; and finding what proves your strategy is working is the goal...so good luck, and feel free to click these links and add to our numbers.

Isn't all this metric madness hard Tyler?
Yes, I probably deserve a huge raise.

Posted by Tyler McAnelly

As a kid of the 90's, I can't imagine not having an instant way to connect with all my friends on the Internet. I've been through all the web phases, starting with MSN messenger and AIM in 5th grade. The next cool thing was the jump to MySpace in the early middle-school days, followed by the migration to Facebook once you hit high school. Today I have a MySpace, Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIN account, not to mention my old AIM and MSN messenger accounts, as well as a Google, Yahoo, Hotmail, and school email account!

Not until I entered the real world, if you will, at age 16 when I got my first professional job, did I realize that this many forms of web contact was not normal for the non web native. It amazed me that "grown-ups" had limited ways to access their friends or colleagues in a matter of seconds. But why would they? They didn't grow up thinking of a catchy screen name, or changing the display picture every three weeks like my peers and I did. They do not have over 500 tagged pictures available of themselves on the web, or wall-to-wall posts dating back five years, but they could, and hey, it could even help their businesses. I'd like to believe that this epiphany of teens my age helped spark the social media uprising in professional businesses everywhere; I know my former boss sure liked the idea. Three years later I find myself working in the Alumni Relations/Communication department at Leeds School of Business. Never before have I seen so many professionals using social media outlets! Leeds' Facebook friends outweigh mine 3:1, and I don't even have half the amount of Twitter followers. So good job kids of the 90's, we've created a new form of marketing for businesses, and it's working.

Posted by Kelley Dodds.

Last week, Leeds sponsored Ignite Boulder 8 (or Igneight as some dubbed it) at the Boulder Theater, Boulder, Colorado. Ignite, for the uninitiated, brings together techies, geeks, artists, and hipsters to hear select speakers address often zany, crazy topics and hilarity ensues (for more, see Melanie's earlier post). Ignite 7 was the first  I attended, though I did watch part of Ignite 6 online. I7 was the reason I decided Leeds should sponsor I8. Not only did one of our professors, Peter McGraw present, but also Leeds MBA Joel Gratz as well, plus the crowd of over 800 attendees included many alumni and current students.

What is amazing about the event is how fun it is; the presentations range but can include techy clever, borderline insane, marginally uncomfortable and downright touching. What sets the event apart is how consistently authentic it is. Though I have only been to two now, they both exhibited the same great level of excitement and energy.

During our pre-party, photo above, at the Boulder Draft House, we had a chance to talk with presenters and attendees about what makes Ignite Boulder special. So, don't just take my word for it, check out what they had to say. Many thanks to Andrew Hyde and the other Ignite volunteers for such a great event!

If you've ever watched one of our YouTube movies, you're probably wondering how we feed our channel with such riveting and regular content. Almost every week we interview a faculty member about his or her latest compelling research on social entrepreneurship, emotional buying or word-of-mouth advertising. Then the production team, usually Dean and Melanie, hand off the digital camera to me--the video editor.

First I fire up the 17-inch MacBook Pro, a sleek silver goddess among laptops that I use to edit Leeds videos. I plug the Flip or AVCHD cam into the data port and drag the raw video files onto the hard drive. I double click on Final Cut Pro, the same video editing software used in Hollywood filmmaking, and import this new mysterious media.  A horizontal strip of tape, the timeline, appears along the bottom, with several preview windows and tool palates filling the rest of the screen. I drag the new media into the timeline and squirm in anticipation as it renders.

15 minutes...

 7 minutes...

19 seconds...

Render successful! Time to edit. I hit "B" to activate the blade tool, which I use to cut the video into chunks, kind of like hitting return on the keyboard.  Once I've found the natural flow of the story, I start rearranging chunks, just like dragging and dropping sentence fragments in Microsoft Word.  I snip tangents here and there but micro-edit as little as possible. Then I slap some transitions in between the cuts and add some captions and text slides to make it as seamless as possible.  By now our videography is so slick that I hardly need to adjust coloring (which negates the unkind glow of fluorescent lighting).

Then I submit my story to the "deflavorizing" process, where we take out anything that sounds kitschy, confusing or off-color. We watch the short video several times with a hypercritical eye. Are there any dropped frames? Does that anecdote make sense? Should we edit out her laugh or keep it?

Now all I have to do is hit File<Export<Quicktime Conversion and voila-- I've made another movie! Go check it out at youtube.com/ColoradoLeeds.

Posted by Molly Rettig.

We are happily sponsoring tonight's Ignite Boulder, AND it is sold-out! Looking forward to a fun and informative show. For those, like me, who have never been before, Ignite is:

"...a night of presentations with a twist. Presenting on a subject of their choice, speakers have exactly five minutes to teach something, enlighten us, or simply inspire--backed by twenty slides auto-advancing every fifteen seconds."

From the videos I have seen of previous presentations, the slides advancing every fifteen seconds really puts the pressure on and quickly separates a greenhorn PowerPoint newbie from a hardened corporate/start-up seeker of V.C. funding PowerPoint jockey. But the fun part is you never know who's going to to flail and who will shine under the bright lights of the Ignite stage.

So, from the Ignite blog, tonight's presentations are:

Ryan Wanger: Topic: (Almost) Nothing is Irreversible: A Guide to Decision Making
Kate Brown: MacGyver your way through dangerous situations: Lifesaving hacks from the sport of triathlon
David Mejias: A baby, a bird and an Afro: How to plan for and make conceptual photographs.
Ali Schultz: Game (ig)Night: The shortest distance between two people is a good laugh.
Tara Anderson: Pain & the Art of Long-Distance Backpacking
Cris Silva: Brazilian Portuguese for Foreigners

Josh Mishell: Minimize Your Hangover & Maximize Your Awesomeness: How to Thrive at a Beer Festival
Lisa Seaman: Clap Happy!
Leela Turnage How Drug Smuggling and A Run-In With the Mexican Army Helped Me Ace Spanish Clas
Matthew Lenda: There IS such a thing as bad music, and it will be the end of us all.
Nick Armstrong: Nerd-gasm AKA The Life Lessons of Geek Heroes
Julie Wallace: Working with SCIs
Gina Bugiada: Drugs, Sex, Love and Environmentalism: 20 things I've Learned During My Move From NEW YORK to Boulder

Learn more about Ignite and join us beforehand for free food and beer from 5-6pm at the Boulder Brew House, or on Twitter @bldrdrafthouse.

Browsing Google Reader at the blogs that I follow, I noticed a new post from Andy Shaindlin's Alumni Futures blog titled: 2010 Alumni Relations Issues for the Year Ahead.  As alumni relations is what I do here for the Leeds School of Business, I figured it would be beneficial to see what Mr. Shaindlin had to say. His main points asked how alumni relations professionals can continue to be relevant and useful and meaningful to our alumni in the face of changing times and advanced technology. With the proliferation of social media and peoples' ability to organize into groups through online tools - do they still need and want us to do that for them? With the extensive reach of Google, Facebook and the white pages online, do alumni still need our help finding and connecting with other alumni?

Andy suggests the answers are yes, and I tend to agree. In this day and age, our alumni EXPECT that we have a presence in these new online spaces and they WANT to be a part of the School's official fan page, group, etc. on Facebook, LinkedIn, etc.

And we are happy to have them.

But this major shift in how we communicate with our alumni was not obvious or immediate. Many universities and schools had and still have online communities exclusively for their alumni (including CU's Forever Buffs Network and Leeds' LeedsLink). However, as the space of social media has developed, we've come to learn that exclusivity is not always where it's at. For instance, we have been posting job openings to LeedsLink thinking our alumni would find this as an exclusive benefit and visit the site in order to see what jobs were listed. However, my director and I met yesterday with our Career Connections staff to discuss using LinkedIn instead of LeedsLink to post jobs. The group consensus was to find alumni where they already are and to make our LinkedIn group more relevant and dynamic by giving people what they want - opportunities for jobs. Instead of assuming alumni would want to take the extra step to look for jobs on LeedLink, we recognize that we should provide value to them in the space that they already inhabit, LinkedIn.

As this is a brand new change to how we operate, we don't yet know how it'll go, however, I'm optimistic that it will be well received. Exclusivity is sacrificed as alumni could easily forward and share the job posting with whomever they please in their various networks, however, that is the way the world works these days and who are we, alumni relations staff, to stop them!

For a complete list of how you can connect to the Leeds School using social media, including Linkedin, please visit: www.leeds.colorado.edu/socialnetworking

 

I am absolutely thrilled to announce that the Leeds School is a sponsor of Ignite Boulder 8 (#Igneight Boulder, if you will) on February 10 at the Boulder Theater. You can learn more by visiting the web site for Ignite Boulder. If you haven't been, you may be asking "What the heck is Ignite Boulder?"

I love this question.

Why? I get excited. Words fail me. I blather on like a kid hyped up on candy and the promise of a new puppy. It's one of those experiences people annoy you with by saying "You *just* have to be there to know what it's like." Ignite Boulder describes itself as "a night of presentations with a twist." More on that here. If you ask me, it's a twist like a rollercoaster of ROTFLMAOs brought to you by pithy presenters armed with a microphone, an unrelenting Power Point slideshow, and hopefully enough brass to deliver cheeky yet educational information on topics that makes you go "huh!" to the usually sold-out, 750-seat auditorium. Past topics included "Food Porn: Behind the Lens" by photographer Jen Yu, "How to Jump Off a Cliff" by climber Steph Davis and "Reward and Risk" by extreme adventure videographer Michael Brown. You can catch all the past presentations here. I also love that Ignite Boulder relies solely on word of mouth and social media avenues to sell out the Boulder Theater, in addition to pre- and post- events. Impressive, no? 

The Leeds School wanted to get involved this time around because it seemed like we already were well-represented at past Ignite Boulder events: One of our faculty, Pete McGraw, presented on the tongue-in-cheek topic  "From Wrong to Funny," (research on humor) and we saw in the seats a few familiar faces of faculty, staff, alumni (past presenter and predictor of the pow Joel Gratz, for example) and students hobnobbing with the best and brightest minds of Boulder.  

I've only attended two Ignite Boulder events so far (they occur every two months) and despite being a rather behind-the-scenes kind of gal, I always leave Ignite Boulder dreaming about possible topics that lil' ole me could present because I do indeed catch the spark that is Ignite Boulder. I feel like the crowd wants you to succeed, or least they support you as you flounder gloriously in your speech or the timing of unforgiving slides. I have a theory that presenting at Ignite Boulder is kind of like karaoke: you just gotta find your song/topic and then rock the hell out of it. Which we plan to do as a sponsor of what is becoming a must-attend event in the Boulder community. Got a great idea of how we can do that? Let us know! And stay tuned for more about our sponsorship of #Igneight Boulder ...  

...... in the meantime, buy your tickets here (only $10, yo) and vote for the presenters you'd like to see here.   

Our graphic designer Kristen Weber (who is amazing by the way), just dropped by today to drop off the cutest EOY gift for the office. That got me reflecting on all of the many people and businesses who have positively and generously helped our office and the Leeds School itself over the last year.

Certainly Kristin through her company SugarDesign (@Sugardesigninc on Twitter) has helped shape the look an feel of most all of the Leeds School's publications over the last several years. So, Kudos Kristin. I'd like to give a shout out to many of the others as well so here they are in no particular order:

• Kathryn Marshall, Mitchell Ashley, Elaine Schoch and Patrick Ward at (104West.com) for their assistance in helping us craft a Socal Media strategy as well as helping educate our faculty and staff about SM.
• Amber Hickory, MBA '05 and Pete Burridge and all of the folks at Greenhouse Partners for their expertise, creativity and surely patience in working on new branding and messaging for the school.
• Michael Warden, Associate Vice Chancellor at CU-Boulder for providing cover through this branding process.
• Patrick Walker at Goodbye Blue Monday for his excellent service with all of our special promotions over the year.
• The amazing Carol Ross who helped on two fronts with our alumni and current students through the Naturally Networking teleseminars and the our team through her coaching work a Carol Ross and Associates.
• Marley Hodgson, MBA '03 and founder of Mad Greens that catered our recent Tweetup.
• Gary Bennett at D & K Printing and Kim Warner of CU Communications for guiding our efforts and press checks with our biannual 36+ pager 4 color Portfolio magazine.
• Jeremy Tyson at NSO Press who also does amazing print work on many of our other publications.
• Leeds Alums Nora and Patrick and crew at Front Range Catering for their professionalism and flexibilty when our Homecoming event for 300+ suddenly had to move inside when we were visited by the proverbial 6-8 inches of "clear to partly cloudy" snow.
• Brady Foster and crew at Hip Gifts for saving our alumni awards and thus the alumni awards ceremony from less the perfect recognition items.
• Award-winning photogs Glenn Asakawa and Casey Cass and Andi Farber and Patrick from our photo department.
• Our media liasons, Bronson Hilliard, Greg Swenson, Peter Caughey and Malinda Miller-Huey.    
• Mark Detterick and Bryn Samuelson, our erstwhile budget people (some say bean counters, but these folks are non-trad accountants---hey, they love The Office).
• Christy Orris and Visda Carson for hanging in there with us as we crunched out a strategic plan.
• Finally, the Leeds Alumni Relations and Communications team, Dean Pajevic, Sarah Martens, Melanie Sidwell, and current and former students Tyler McAnelly, Molly Rettig and Gabrielle Makray who manage to get an incredible amount done and done well in '09.

Of course the problem with a list is that I might leave someone out here who really deserves our thanks. If I have done that, I am sorry. Again, my/our most sincere thanks to these folks for all of their support. Also, thanks to the many alumni, donors, friends, business people and businesses who have suppored the school in so many ways this past year. Have a great 2010 everyone!   

 

Last night I attended the Leeds School's December Recognition Ceremony in the beautiful Macky Auditorium on CU-Boulder's campus. I always find myself enjoying graduation ceremonies more than I expect to. Even though I'm not graduating, it's still a great feeling to be in a room filled with optimistic young adults, and overly-proud parents (a few with airhorns - seriously), and to hear inspirational speeches from those who taught these individuals, and others that have been successful in their lives. It's the ultimate 'feel-good' event.

However, as an alumni relations and communications staff member, I can't help but hope that these graduates' whole experience at Leeds was a 'feel-good' event. It's the students that loved their time at Leeds that will be more likely to keep in touch after graduation and let us know that they moved out-of-state or switched jobs. It's the students that participated in clubs and received scholarships that will care about the student experience of future Leeds students. And it's the individuals that got to know their professors or received assistance from our undergraduate advising or career offices that are most likely to come back and speak in classrooms or help future Leeds graduates find jobs.

There are some in the audience last night that may never return to campus nor be heard from again. However, on the other end of the spectrum are those that will remember Leeds and the education and the experience they had here. We'll see them in the future celebrating Homecoming, reviewing undergraduate resumes, serving as mentors and making donations to the school.

And of course there is everybody in between. 

The good news is, nowadays, with social media and instantaneous communication, we have a much better opportunity to stay in touch with the "everybody in between". And perhaps, just maybe, more of these in-betweens will appreciate the continued Leeds connection and find themselves being active and engaged alumni afterall. Well, that is our hope - and our job!

Like most of you, we track our social media, website, email, and PR metrics. And like many of you, all metrics are going up in terms of new users, unique users, robust views, etc. Our YouTube channel has been a standout in the last six months as we've seen a monthly doubling of viewers. It won't be that way forever, but it is great to see so much interest!

But a lot of people stop with the numbers. For example, we all see Twitter-ers with 10, 20, 50,000 thousand followers. That's great. But how many are really engaging their followers? Creating the level of connection with them that will turn them from a number on a website into an active participant in their story? I'd bet not too many. A lot of followers are just taking a quick look at their offerings, like scanning a menu, but not sitting down for the meal.

That's where we will continue to differentiate ourselves. We've got "more eyeballs" now, more menu viewing, but we want our constituents to sit down at the table with us and join us in a meal. And that meal is all the ways students, alumni, businesses, and our friends can engage with the school. For example, people engage by:

• Posting photos on our Facebook page.
• Updating their contact info on LeedsLink.com, our alumni networking site.
• Retweeting useful information on Twitter.
• Sending us their success stories via Class Notes.
• Attending events like Homecoming, or Networking Naturally, or alumni events in Denver, Chicago, San Francisco, or New York.
• Attending financial knowledge events like the Business Economic Outlook Forum, insight into the upcoming year of the Colorado economy.
• Sharing their knowledge via the Executive Insights events.
• Mentoring our students.
• Hiring our students.
• Growing their skills through our Executive Education classes.
• Giving via scholarships and other methods to help our students succeed.
• And more. Lots more.
  

This list is ordered a bit from easiest to more challenging, but like a menu, we offer everything from appetizers to four course meals. It's our job in communicators to make sure that we help all our wonderful constituents sit down at the table and enjoy all Leeds has to offer.

Contact us to learn more!