Recently in Strategy Category

I am collaborating with two Alumni Relations colleagues, Jennifer Eury of the Smeal School of Business at Penn State and Joseph Russell at The Goizueta School of Business at Emory University. We are presenting a panel on metrics around alumni relations (and in my case, communications) at an upcoming Association of Business School Alumni Professionals (ABSAP) conference. I have never met these folks, but we did conference call recently around our preso and our common theme about metrics: it's a moving target.

As we've explained in previous posts, in our office, we measure everything. Well, almost everything. At this point, we have very few ways to measure alumni engagement. There are the usual: alumni giving, event attendance, providing mentorships or internships, speaking in class. These, it can be argued, are indications of a level of engagement. We recently added an alumni blog that I would also argue demonstrates a level of engagement and building relationships, conversations and community.

In any event, whether measuring alumni giving or alumni engagement, why is it important? Well, to be honest, my boss and our advisory board think it is important. But even beyond this consideration, there are a number of reasons metrics are meaningful in my world:

• They help me determine where to invest time, effort and resources;
• They reveal what efforts and initiatives are and are not working;
• They expose obsolete practices and pave the way for new and innovative ideas;
• They educate internal stakeholders about the relevance, impact and success of creating alumni relationships;
• And, they can be inspirational to me and my colleagues for work well done.

My ABSAP colleagues are doing some innovative work themselves in the area of metrics. Smeal is launching a 1-5 scale to measure engagement and how it might relate to philanthropy. Emory is now including alumni participation in Social Media in how it analyzes alumni engagement and possible philanthropic tendencies.

In the end, no matter which strategies and tactics our programs employ, we will continue to seek the best information possible to inform us about what is relevant and important to our alumni want and how we can deliver.

Until my young colleague Kelly Dodds started in our office, she really didn't think much about her Digital Native status. She and her friends had always been online in some form or fashion through their Facebook pages, texting and on cell phones. She and her generation are truly wired in how they think and interact. But what of those of us who didn't come out of the womb with a cell phone and Facebook account? Is it absolutely necessary for one to have on online presence, an online "brand" as it were? There are those who would answer absolutely and emphatically, "yes."

I don't want to sound preachy or condescending, but, like it or not, we live in a wired world. If you are not a Digital Native, you had better be strongly considering upgrading your status to Digital Immigrant if you haven't done so already.

Which brings me to the point of this blog and that is our upcoming workshop "Professional Presence in a Social Media World." This will be a full-day interactive workshop designed to teach the unwritten rules of today's digital world. We hope that attendees will learn the new online tools and techniques to successfully conduct a job search and manage one's career online. The workshop presenters Carol Ross and Walter Akana are certified career coaches and Digital Immigrants as well having developed their professional presence online some years ago.  Carol describes the ideal candidate to attend the workshop and the importance of having a "public" life and an online presence.  Walter elaborates on the workshops features and benefits. You can get more information and register on our website.

Recently some free stuff came our way, which is always exciting (I mean, seriously, who doesn't love free stuff?). So our staff decided what would be even more exciting would be to pass it along via social media. Here is what we did:

- You scream, I scream: In our Spring 2010 issue of Portfolio, the alumni magazine of the Leeds School which is on its way to alumni mailboxes right now, I wrote about alumnus Scott Roy, owner and operator of Boulder Homemade, a local and natural ice cream manufacturer which supplies Whole Foods and other groceries and restaurants with yummy delicious frozen treats. Scott has had shared with us a video clip of its production process (part of an effort to make the alumni magazine more multimedia, which I hope to write about in a future blog post here). When I returned his USB drive, he generously gave me a box of ice cream samples to share with the office on that sunny day. So we in turned decided to give away some on our Facebook Page. We invited people to just show up; we took their pictures and shared that on Facebook, too. We saw a lot of smiles that day. 

 - Ignite Boulder 10: As a proud sponsor once again of Ignite Boulder, we were allotted 10 free tickets to use. Since it's such a hot local event, we decided it would be another engagement opportunity to give the tickets away via social media. We posted trivia questions on both our Facebook Page and Twitter accounts over two consecutive days. It was exciting to see people engaged (and engaged quickly, might I add, within minutes of posting the trivia) with these two social media platforms.

Some people actually thanked us (which I am a big proponent of social media manners, so thank you!, thankful people). Some of the winners were alumni of the Leeds School, an added bonus since two strategic goals of ours is to 1. strengthen relationships with key external constituents such as alumni, business community, and donors and to 2. increase external awareness and internal understanding of the Leeds brand.

Opportunities like this can show up without warning, and can be yours if you want it and embrace it, showing once again social media can work for you and your goals if you are social, active, and generous (and not just with the free stuff, but with your time and energy, too). 

As you would gather reading the previous posts on the Leeds 2.0 blog, we have worked to strategically integrate Social Media and current technology into our alumni relations and communications plan. So, when I recently posted a new position for my area, I had the occasion to see a number of resumes.  Clearly, many of the applicants had not bothered to read the job posting and tailor their application to the position. Even more clearly, those that had attempted to do so had not bothered to review our website and SM channels to understand our communications needs.  This, to me, makes absolutely no sense, especially in this economy.  So, along with the usual guidelines such as address to the correct hiring authority, and no typos, let me add this:

• Match your skills and experience to the position--if they don't match, don't apply,
• If your are confident that your skills will transfer, make that crystal clear to the hiring authority-there's a lot of competition, so be clear on what makes you stand out,
• With all the online information available do your homework and understand the organization,
• The professional world is evolving and technology is a large part of the change, adjust or fail,
• Also, just because you applied for something, don't expect to hear back (that is unless they contact you for a screening or interview)

Finally, hiring decisions take on even greater weight as we are all under pressure to do more with less.  I am not writing this to be snarky, I just want those in the job hunt to understand what influences those of us who seek to fill positions with the best talent.  Here's another take on ways to make your resume really reflect you. Also this colleague offers advice on creating your elevator pitch. After all, once you get the interview, you're going to have to tell them about yourself and you want to be prepared.

Comic by Graela

In a strategy to create greater visibility for Leeds, we have launched a media campaign to showcase our talented and accomplished alumni and faculty. We chose alumni that exemplify the core strengths and values of the school: knowledge, the whole person, connection and the entrepreneurial spirit. Alumni include John Wood ('86) who founded the non-profit Room to Read, and authored Leaving Microsoft to Change the World, Sarah Siegel-Magness ('95) who founded So Low and also co-produced the Oscar- nominated movie "Precious". Also included is entrepreneur Laurie Vargas ('95) who recently founded her company Vargas Wealth Management, and Steve Lawrence, the academic director of the Deming Center for Entrepreneurship as well as professor and head of the management division.

With the help of our friends at Greenhouse Partners (where we have several alumni), we created the campaign and are currently running these images and content about the school in strategic media including Fast Company, Wall Street Journal, New York Times, and Colorado Biz. We have some special outdoor promotions including posters on alternative transportation in Denver.  Plus we have blanketed Denver with coffee sleeve promotions along with hosting a free coffee give-away as well.  Why Denver? We can't afford a national mass marketing campaign and Denver is a key market in terms of general perceptions of the school, especially with regard to the business community.   

Our hope and plan is that we will see positive spike in perceptions of the Leeds School in our annual awareness survey of key audiences we conduct in the early fall.

 

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

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! 

The team was chatting about the fact that Leeds, founded in 1906, is one of the oldest business schools in the country. That's over 100 years old, which in this digital age might as well be a million. I'm sure back then the only tweets heard were birds up in the trees, and poking your neighbor, unlike today's activity on Facebook, might get you a swift kick in the shin. But "back then" people still communicated, and while slower and more localized, it had many of the same functions/purposes as our technology today. I can imagine that:

• They made announcements at large public meetings or on street corners (like blogging and twitter in that you send it out to whomever to read/hear, and other people "re-tweeted" in the same way)
• They had conversations one on one (email)
• They stood on the street with sandwich board signs around their necks (blast email)
• And, they always looked for new ways to do all these things which leads us to today and all the things we do.

My point? With all the wonderful innovation, the twittery, bloggery, shiny technology, don't lose sight of the basic human and institutional needs: Tell compelling stories, engage your constituents and make them nod in agreement, comment on a blog post, write an email, or call the school to get more involved.

What do you think, was communication really so different today than it was 100 years ago?

Reading the WideFoc.us post on Content and Conversation: The Only Things That Matter, I am again reminded how ephemeral the technology we use to communicate with each other, and how important and lasting the actual conversation.

Whether it's Twitter, blogs, Facebook, whatever, WideFoc.us says,

"You should use social media tools to propagate your content and to engage your audience(s) in meaningful interactions--conversations that you start, but also ones already occurring that are relevant to you. It really is that simple."

Simple, yes. But that kind of simple is real work. So we continue to ferret out, understand, and hone our stories. Our care and attention in this area is what sets us apart and gives value to our constituents. Not how many "friends" or "followers" we have.

So we work hard on finding and telling the interesting, compelling, and sometime flat-out jaw-dropping stories of the people and events shaping lives at the Leeds school.

Photo/Flickr   In some undergrad journalism classes at CU, students are plugged in and encouraged to tweet findings from the Internet that relate to lecture. Attendance and multiple choice questions are gauged by iClickers.

As I sit amid Pandora-streaming hip hop, logged into Facebook and Twitter, I sometimes forget I'm at work. I'm actually at the Leeds School of Business, which is far, far away from my academic home - the journalism building - both physically and philosophically. In the communications office, new messages chirp from Tweetdecks all day. If we're not filming a professor for our Youtube channel, you can probably find us at a social media webinar, making Flash slideshows of networking events, starting threads on Linkedin or hatching new apps for our Facebook page. The comm team is on the edge of its specialty--communications.

 

But as a journalism grad student, I thought journalists were supposed to be the master communicators. Why is the new wave of media taking longer to engulf the J-school? As an industry, journalism has been sluggish to adopt new media even though the public has asserted its preference for it. After all, it's normal for institutions to reject change when they are entrenched economically and culturally in tradition. (For example, 70% of a newspaper's overhead comes from paper production and distribution. Wouldn't it make more sense for them to develop their Web presence STAT and start eroding their biggest expense?)

 

My boss, a longtime broadcast and print journalist, gave me a couple ideas. First, the communications team is a new, small group that is far more flexible than, say, a newsroom. Second, they weren't bound to the legacy and norms that go along with journalism. They could create a Facebook and Twitter personality without worrying about appearing biased or opinionated--taboos for traditional journalism. Third, while they have to prove their campaign produces results, they have more room to take risks. 

 

Now the journalism school can't afford NOT to take the risk. And it's on the right path:  We just got digital kingpin Rick Stevens from Southern Methodist University, an expert in new media and consultant for news companies who are trying to keep pace with technology. And Sandra Fish, who Twitters in her sleep and has a social and professional network to rival AT&T.

 

My time at The Leeds School has shown me that if you sink your teeth into it, social and digital media offer visible and quick rewards. You don't have to be a super savvy blogger or tech'ed-out computer geek. You just have to jump in and build a presence. The Leeds communications team wasn't afraid of taking the plunge, which is why it's ahead of the curve. I think the sooner journalism programs do that, the better chance we have at remaining a vital part of the conversation.