Jordan Miller: The University of Michigan’s Social Media Director

So, naturally, I asked Jordan if she would be willing to answer some follow up questions about this new position. She agreed and provided the following answers.

Describe your organizational mission and how it is reflected in the structure of social media/web in your division and university. How has this current structure evolved?

The University of Michigan considers social media to be a very high priority (as every major organization of any type should at this point), and that reflects in my placement as a direct report to the VP for Global Communications and Strategic Initiatives. I have a lot of flexibility in what I’m able to do and how it’s implemented, as well as being part of a group of very smart, experienced people who understand higher education and can help me do my job better.

Personally, my mission is to make the UM the key center of thought for social media in higher education and beyond. I want us to combine our academic resources with our focus on social media and emerging technology development to become a resource and a benchmark.

How often do (will) staff and management discuss social media and content strategies? Are these meetings part of a regular routine or as needed? Please describe and provide examples.

Naturally, I discuss it daily. That’s my job. And as I bring on a staff, that staff will be solely dedicated to social media as well. I am constantly in communication with people across the university, including faculty, staff and students as well as more marketing-focused administrators, helping make the transition to a new way of thinking, sharing, and doing. There’s a misconception that because we’re a large, prestigious university we must all be dinosaurs. That’s not the case at all. I have encountered virtually no resistance whatsoever — in fact, I have found people at UM to be very open, receptive and excited about social media and how they can take advantage of it. This is a research institution. People are looking for new and better ways to communicate and solve problems. For me, that’s a great environment to work in.

How do you collaborate (or hope to) with other campus communicators? Is there a committee or group of people for sharing and learning? If so, what form does it take?

I collaborate constantly. We have a large cross-campus forum for communicators, as well as several smaller strategic and communications groups that meet regularly. I also meet bi-monthly with the social media managers for the University of Michigan Health System and UM Athletics, and monthly with a newly-formed group of campus staff who are solely dedicated to social and digital strategy within their departments and units. We meet regularly in person, although I’m starting to work with some digital video solutions to help us meet remotely in a way that’s still engaging (so no one tunes out!).

How do you (or plan to) measure the success of your social media strategies? Is this measurement reviewed and contributed to by senior leadership such as the President, Provost, etc?

As any social media manager knows, measurement is the bright, shiny object we’re all reaching for. It’s still not an exact science. At U-M, we’re currently implementing enterprise-level measurement and reporting tools so that we can track conversation levels, sentiment and reach not just for the central brand but for athletics, the health system, and our various colleges, schools and units to get a holistic picture of where we are, where we should be, what we’re doing right and how to do it better. This will be both campaign-based and also based on our day-to-day activities.

To say that the number of fans/followers is a good measurement is widely-regarded as old thinking, but I disagree. If more people want to hear what you have to say, it means you’re creating and sharing good content, and people are sharing that content with their friends.

What level of autonomy do you have in order to respond quickly to social media needs?

I have almost complete autonomy to respond and, as I bring on staff, they will have the same. That doesn’t mean that I don’t call in for advice on different types of questions: I’m a voice, not an expert on everything. I’ve represented major brands in the social space for a while, and even though I make mistakes sometimes, it’s important in most situations to be able to respond quickly. The exception is in crisis situations, where we have a dedicated cross-campus team that will work together to make sure our messaging is consistent across all platforms for safety reasons.

Do you have enough staff to accomplish your goals? Why or why not?

I’ll be building staff as we discover our most pressing needs, as well as where we need to bring in new resources as opposed to taking advantage of some of the talented people we already have on campus. Michigan is a world-class university, and we’re a public university, which means we have to be very strategic with how and where we apply resources. That being said, the University takes social media seriously, and we know that means it isn’t free.

Thank you to Jordan Miller for taking the time to provide these answers. Please follow Jordan on Twitter @_jordanmiller_ or visit http://www.socialmedia.umich.edu

I want to learn more about why this post seemed to have such an impact on our community.

My review of the post’s analytics reveal that this issue appears to have resonated with staff from particular colleges and universities. A cursory review of these institutions’ homepages seems to indicate that these staff members might be challenged by some of the issues I mentioned.

So I’m writing to ask: What resonated with you? Which components of “Your .edu Website is Too Complicated” do you relate to the most and why? I want to hear from you so that I, and my community of readers, can better understand why this issue challenges you, how you deal with it, and why so many people paid such close attention to this post.

Contact me and share your opinion. I will share your comments and feedback anonymously (unless you ask to be quoted openly) in another follow-up post. I believe we have much more to discuss regarding complex websites in higher education. The analytics clearly show that this conversation can be productive for all of us.

Please take a moment and share your thoughts.

Obviously, the wireframe is a humorous illustration that I strongly believe still holds true. The wireframe in that article may seem oversimplified, but when you think about it, this is what all higher education homepages are trying to accomplish.

Why are .edus getting so complicated?

Psychologist Barry Schwartz in a Ted Talk said “…if everything is possible, you don’t have freedom, you have paralysis. You decrease satisfaction and increase paralysis. Everybody needs a fishbowl. The absence of a metaphorical fishbowl is a recipe for misery and disaster.” View Ted Talk: Barry Schwartz on the paradox of choice.

University websites try so hard to be everything for everyone. Not wanting to make anyone unhappy (especially internal stakeholders) with a site makes it unfortunately more complicated. Many times, it seems that the only strategy is NBNW — new boss, new website. And, the temptation to out-design and out-build your old (or current) site leads to muddied strategy guided by an uninformed belief that users want more, and more, and more piles of content, choices, and technology tricks. As a result, I have observed a resurgence of quick links, huge sliding feature blocks, link farms, and a new trend of super-scrolling webpages. Ironically, these methods are intended by web teams to help the user get what they want quickly and with minor interaction, but in reality they may lead to increased user dissatisfaction.

Common .edu Complications

• Overuse of news headlines and event listings on homepage
• Direct links to external and internal resources without staging or explanation (social media, portals, etc..)
• Huge scrolling pages with nested navigation
• Large left-right scrolling feature blocks
• Hover menus, fly-outs, and mega menus
• Student, faculty, staff profiles lack keywords or descriptions
• Missing high-value trigger words such as “apply, give, visit, contact”
• Vaguely branded resources and clever marketing-language naming instead of simple action-oriented labeling

Opinion Based on Research

During my career, I have been responsible for managing, guiding, and building websites and digital properties for major universities. I take these responsibilities very seriously. Most likely, anyone with whom I have worked will tell you that I am passionate about studying the effectiveness of a team’s work and the return on investment to an organization. I believe healthy strategies don’t come from gut feelings.

For example, during my most recent tenure as the executive director of digital communications marketing, our small (and brand new) department faced a tremendous amount of pressure. Our goals were to design a new homepage, establish a new reputation for the university’s digital presence, and define the measurement of success for digital marketing. To achieve these goals, we had to support our strategies and execution with real research and findings.

The resulting new website actually had significantly fewer links than its predecessor. It featured well-placed and brand new navigation and provided the user with fewer choices. Our primary goal was to inform users of their options in a minimum number of options, lead them down a clear path, and reward them with valuable content and links to sub-sites. We created landing pages for high-value content areas, such as admissions, academics, and about — sections of content that previously did not exist. Before our changes, there were direct links to dozens of sub-sites that were managed by other departments, and virtually no priming of the audience as to why they should proceed to them.

Complexity is an Old Habit

We gave every sub-site office (admissions, athletics, colleges and schools, etc…) the opportunity to preview the new website. Not surprisingly, each and every one demanded that their “quick link” from the homepage be preserved or replaced on the new site. But they made these requests without explanation or strategy. The reason for their requests was that this was simply how it always had been.

However, my research showed that administrators’ demand for direct links did not support the University’s overall communication strategy. For example, I learned that there was a significant tradition of athletic accomplishment and commitment to the student-athlete at the university. This was a story and message told to me by numerous administrators, staff, faculty, and students. However, at that time, the university’s homepage simply linked directly to the athletics website — a site that jumped right into sports scores and schedules.

I asked, if this commitment to athletics is true, and you all feel and believe it, then why aren’t we telling anyone? So, we created a new landing page, linked between the homepage and athletics sub-site, to tell a story about the university’s dedication to the student-athlete tradition and its significance to the organization. We preserved easy access to sports scores and other information by creating well-placed links.

We used the same landing page strategy for admissions, academics, and all other major content categories. We removed the bloat of direct sub-site links from the homepage and created brand new content and information architecture for the site. We removed layers, consolidated content, and put together a fast-loading, logical, informative, and engaging website. We built the foundations of click-throughs to be stronger and flexible enough to ensure future growth.

I cannot list the many ways our team streamlined and improved the site in terms of content and click-through paths. It would take too long. However, web analytics proved that users navigated our site using the click-throughs paths we suggested through strategic use of design elements.

How did we know our design worked? We used event tracking to test and evaluate every pixel on the homepage and landing pages and monitored traffic on all levels. Our daily monitoring of the site showed that users accessed landing pages, which before received little traffic, at higher numbers than ever before. However, despite the visible improvement, a few key content owners could not move beyond their gut feeling that it would be better for their areas to have a direct link to their sub-site in a massive hover-menu from the homepage. They thought we had screwed up the project and they also believed that web analytics for their specific sites proved them right.

Less Clutter, Better Informed and Motivated Audience

Indeed, some sub-sites did show fewer total visitors to their sites after the homepage redesign — a potentially damning consequence of our new strategy. But, after carefully studying this phenomenon over time, we learned that the new homepage was actually sending more highly-qualified, informed, and primed visitors to sub-sites. Before the new strategy, the homepage would dump “garbage” traffic on sub-sites (for example, sending prospective graduate students to the undergraduate admission site).

After we created well-placed landing pages full of informative content, KPIs (or key performance indicators) on the sub-sites actually improved, some overwhelmingly. We had some evidence that by minimizing the choices on the homepage, keeping it simple, and educating the user along their path, that we were increasing the real and perceived value of the website.

Yet, despite this evidence, some sub-site owners still had a gut feeling that users were dissatisfied with the new, less chaotic, and less complicated approach. They even provided anecdotal evidence citing a few users’ personal opinions. So, we commissioned a detailed third-party research study with a reputable national firm to gauge users’ satisfaction of the new site. The results of the study clearly concluded that visitors to the .edu domain who first visited the homepage and resulting landing page were more satisfied with their overall experience compared to directly visiting a sub-site. We had evidence that users preferred simple, minimal choices supported by high-value content. They did not mind, at all, clicking to landing pages first, preferred not to scroll too much, and actually felt better about the organization after their visit.

Strike a Balance

Success means keeping the choices on a homepage few and strategic, educating and informing the user as they choose, and resisting the temptation to over-build a page. The creative opportunity is to follow these fundamentals while also presenting a beautiful, engaging, and realistic design that enhances the experience — not overpowers it with choice. Quick access to content is obviously important but worthless if the experience does not simultaneously satisfy the user’s expectations.

A university homepage is not a warehouse of content and options. The website is a stage. Enable your digital marketing team to set a stage by “carefully and strategically selecting, designing, adapting, or modifying” your content to establish the significance of your organization. Encourage exploration and retention by heightening the user experience while not overwhelming with choice.

April 27th, 2012: As of today, my blog post “Your .edu Website is Too Complicated” has been visited by more than 1,000 people at 250 different universities and colleges. As I tracked the post via Twitter, I witnessed how much the issues I raised resonated with the community of higher education marketers. Why is this topic so popular?

I have a short list of people already on my radar, but I’m interested to learn about your interests. If you see great work and wonder who did it, know someone and feel they deserve recognition, or have heard or follow an individual and want to learn more about him or her, nominate that person for an interview.

Don’t be shy. I will keep your suggestions private. I welcome your comments and feedback, so please contact me.

During the time since my rather harsh initiation, I have witnessed newly-hired senior leaders, many from “corporate America,” unwittingly and to poor effect employ marketing terminology that helped them succeed in their previous jobs. Members of the academy often perceive such language negatively. Its use can result in unproductive or distant working relationships between communicators, faculty, and leaders.

Why No Marketing Lingo in Higher Ed?

I believe such alienation occurs because experienced University faculty and administrators are (rightly) uncomfortable with references to “selling” or “marketing” their institution. Why? Because education is not a product in the same way that a car is. Despite some cynical efforts to view students as consumers, true educators believe that education is not about consumption, it is about intellectual transformation and knowledge production. Although much marketing jargon has similar meaning in higher education communications, deans, department chairs, and professors perceive “corporate speak” as highly unsophisticated and unequal to the task of telling an institution’s story.

Thus, when University communicators use outsider corporate speak to describe how they will “sell” a college or university, they telegraph the message that they are not familiar with the traditions and mission of higher education. Some areas of universities, such as business schools, are somewhat more tolerant of such language, but for the most part corporate speak is considered insensitive to the unique value and dignity of teaching and learning. Academics see corporate business references as a signal that the communicator in question will attempt to cheapen the identity of the institution.

For example, after watching a presentation by a senior communicator, I recall hearing a faculty member remark that “we are not a credit card company” and “this person is clearly from the outside and doesn’t get what we do or why we’re here.” (Related sidenote: the use of corporate speak during a vendor presentation is an indicator that the project may not go well.)

Suggested Translations

However, it is definitely possible to translate the language of marketing best practices to higher education communications. Here is a list of translated terms that I’ve found useful as I’ve served in higher education.

Final Thought

Of course, embracing a new culture requires that one must reflect on and internalize its traditions and ideals, not merely learn the language just to achieve objectives. Although the words and phrases I translated above have similar meanings, they are not exactly identical. Using the phrases appropriate to the culture of higher education signals that you do, indeed, respect and believe in its unique mission. You understand that “telling a story” is not the same as “advertising a product.”

Discussion

• What other translations do you use or hear?
• Why do you believe that these work?
• Please share your thoughts and comments on Google Plus.