Higher Voltage

The Volt podcast returns, as guests Jon-Stephen Stansel and Krista Boniface explore the toll that managing higher ed social media communications takes on the professionals on those front lines. Host Heather Dotchel is our guide, as Higher Voltage (formerly the Hashtag Higher Ed podcast) kicks off.

When was the last time you were creative? Did you take a moment to recognize your own accomplishment? Did you share that feeling with others? Creativity is a sticky subject; difficult to identify and harder to hone. And yet, we are surrounded by it, personally and professionally. In the season 2 finale of the Hashtag Higher Ed Podcast, Amma Marfo, speaker and consultant at Fun Enterprises, joins the show for a special in-studio episode to talk about all things creativity. We discuss how to recognize your own creativity, getting comfortable with sharing your projects and accomplishments, why higher education is ripe for new ideas, and how to breed an environment that lends itself to creative thinking.

According to the 2018 e-Expectations report, cost/tuition information and scholarship opportunities are the two primary reasons prospective college students visit your website. And yet, across higher education, financial aid pages are littered with insider language, fine print, and confusing instructions. But Calvin College has taken a different approach. In this episode of the Hashtag Higher Ed Podcast, Nate Hibma, Assistant Director of Web Services at Calvin College, shares the story behind Calvin's take on college affordability, “Cutting the Price Tag.” We discuss the casual voice and tone of the content, how Hibma and his team structured the page for scannability, and why talking talking to students (and parents) about financial aid in a style they understand is more important now than ever. See the Page: https://calvin.edu/offices-services/financial-aid/affordability/

Across higher education, marketers are routinely being asked to increase their content production. And yet, in a 2018 survey by TerminalFour, the majority of marketers said their marketing team and budget had either not changed or decreased in the past 24 months. How can marketers work smarter, rather than just harder? In this episode of the Hashtag Higher Ed Podcast, Justin Laing, Senior Manager, Strategic Marketing and Communications at the University of Queensland, discusses his initiative to repurpose content, with a goal of producing ten pieces of content from one hour with a researcher on campus. We talk about where this idea came from, the logistics of repurposing content, and Justin’s advice for implementing this idea on your campus.

Whether you personally own a voice assistant or not, you’ve certainly heard about their growing popularity. One in six US adults (or around 39 million people) now own a voice-activated smart speaker, and 50% of all searches are projected to be voice searches by 2020. But can voice assistants work on campus? Do we need them to? In this episode of the Hashtag Higher Ed Podcast, David Hakanson, Vice President, CIO, and Chief Innovation Officer at Saint Louis University, discusses the decision to place Amazon Echo Dots at SLU’s 2,300+ residence areas, how his team implemented the deployment in just three months, how students are using these devices, and how SLU is balancing access to information with student privacy concerns.

A CRM, or Customer Relationship Management platform, has gone from a nice to have to a need to have in higher education. But implementing this technology isn’t as simple as flipping a switch. In this episode of the Hashtag Higher Ed Podcast, Jay Murray, Associate Vice President of Enrollment Services at Western Connecticut State University, discusses WCSU’s decision to adopt TargetX, the process for fully implementing a new CRM on campus, and the ways WCSU continues to use TargetX to expand, automate, and personalize its prospective and admitted student communication.

When it comes to social media, it's easy to focus on the fun and funny. A clever .gif here, a cat meme there, rinse and repeat. But in February 2018, the social media team at BYU adopted a much more serious tone on their Instagram Story. In a series of videos and text updates, featuring students, staff, and faculty, BYU proactively talked about sexual assault on campus. In this episode of the Hashtag Higher Ed Podcast, Jon McBride, Media Relations and Social Media Manager at BYU, shares the genesis of this idea, the key to earning institutional buy-in for the idea, the unanticipated Instagram feature that helped make an immediate difference for students, and the surprisingly stressful component of the project.

You’ve undoubtedly heard the word “authenticity” thrown around recently. Perhaps at a conference, in a webinar, or even in your own conversations. But while the word itself has become a bit of a buzzword, the meaning behind it is everything to today’s prospective college students. In episode 29 of the Hashtag Higher Ed Podcast, Jason Boucher, Manager of Social Media at the University of New Hampshire, shares how his team at UNH is using current students to publish authentic social content, and why they’ve honed in on Instagram Stories as their method for doing so.

Last spring, Butler University made headlines when they sent care packages from their mascot, Butler Blue III, to the dogs and cats of admitted students. In this episode of the Hashtag Higher Ed Podcast, Kristi Smith, Associate Director of Enrollment Marketing at Butler University, and Michael Kaltenmark, Director of External Relations at Butler University, discuss this innovative approach to yield marketing, the genesis and planning of their dog- and cat-vertising campaign, why they felt confident taking a risk on this unique approach, and what the response has been like from current students, admitted students, and their parents.

Back in the 1980s, higher education institutions discovered a new way to reach student households at a fraction of the cost of television ads: name buys. Since then, name buys have morphed into a multi-million dollar industry, with colleges and universities across the country investing in the practice. But are name buys really the best we can do? In this episode of the Hashtag Higher Ed Podcast, Jens Larson, Director of Student Communications at Eastern Washington University, shares his legal, ethical, and ROI concerns about list buying and identifies alternative marketing tactics he has used to build a more sustainable prospective student pipeline.