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fear.change.edu

January 13th, 2012 | Posted in Analysis

As I enjoy this time of professional and personal transition, I have spent much time reflecting on my 15 years of experience with digital communications and marketing. I have grown up with the industry: from taking every HTML class offered at Indiana University during my senior year of college, to developing basic websites for agency clients, to leading top-notch teams and creating long-term digital strategies for world-recognized brands in higher ed. For the most part, my professional experience has been creative and fulfilling. Yet, it has for me, and perhaps for many of you, also been filled with a high degree of stress and frustration.

In this post, I want to talk about why. This is not a post about the specific institutions for which I have worked. Instead, this is an article about change.

First, a caveat.

I write this post with some trepidation, perhaps because telling the truth about the more challenging aspects of one’s professional experience entails some degree of risk, especially when those details have more to do with trust and interpersonal relationships than with the issues of, say, writing semantic code. This post is intended to open up conversation about some of the most damaging and least talked about conditions of developing digital communications in higher education.

That is, whether you are a knowledgeable designer, developer, content strategist, or manager, doing the work of digital communications comes easily. It’s GETTING to do the work that is hard. I have found that inexperience, fear, and distrust have at times caused colleagues to engage in behavior that prevents experts, and me, specifically, from doing work that will strengthen and enhance the brand. From an organizational perspective, such behavior weakens an institution because it often allows bad work to persist while preventing good work from getting done. From a personal standpoint, such behavior causes high levels of stress, frustration, and at times, burnout.

In the following, I provide a few examples of how colleagues, consciously and intentionally or not, have obstructed my work, outline the damage such obstruction can do, and talk about how I tried to cope with these situations.

Inexperience

One of the primary causes of obstructive behavior is inexperience. Despite the fact that “Web 2.0” has been around for a decade and social media platforms have gained increasing prominence, many leaders and even communications professionals in higher education still do not understand the basic tenets of solid Web strategy, technology, or design. Although leaders are now beginning to recognize the importance of digital communications to marketing, few truly “know” the culture, and worse, many do not know that they do not know it. Thus, they regard digital marketing as a list of tactics (e.g. make a Facebook fan page, design a prettier institutional site, sign up for a Twitter account) to check off a list, without recognizing the major cultural shifts that must occur to support digital marketing strategies. Only then will day-to-day tactics be meaningful.

For example, many leaders pass over in-house digital marketing experts in favor of high-cost vendors, whose work is often subpar and out of touch with the people who do the work at the heart of an institution’s mission: its faculty. Rather than investing in the staff who have the potential to dynamically interact with and respond to innovators in research and teaching, institutions buy a one-off website “project” or a social media PR strategy that is outdated at the moment of purchase.

I have seen (and still see) this type of inexperience lead to wasteful spending of hundreds of thousands of dollars–money that could have been better spent investing in in-house talent who will support digital marketing efforts for years, rather than for the duration of a solitary project. As someone who cared deeply for the universities who have employed me, such decisions have left me feeling disheartened and dejected.

These circumstances can be impossible to change, given that digital communications experts are often of lower status than the leaders and committees making the decision whether to stay in-house or go outside. The best way I have found to cope is to find those leaders who are aware of their inexperience and thus are willing to learn or delegate, and to invest my time and energy in them.

One of the best professional compliments I received was from one such dean who told me, “Your team’s greatest success has not been in the great websites you’ve built but in the way you’ve changed our culture and how we think about communications.”

Fear

Another cause of obstructive behavior is fear. Unfortunately, in my experience, IT departments are usually the site of this sentiment and resulting poor behavior. This makes intuitive sense, given that in general, one of the IT department’s responsibilities is to mitigate technological risk. They have the important job of protecting constituents’ privacy and identities and must advocate for technological solutions that do no harm. That is respectable.

However, problems arise when IT colleagues presuppose that changing technology or adopting new methods for marketing communications purposes will hurt the institution. In my experience, this assumption results in behaviors that stop, slow down, or marginalize digital communications experts so that their ideas have minimal impact. It is easier to do things the way they’ve always been done than to engage those who have new ideas and more experience in creating adaptable communications.

Since IT departments often have a great deal of power over digital marketing communications efforts, their unwillingness or inability to be agile can hamstring communicators. I have seen IT departments prevent developers from being hired, refuse to consent to open-source projects, and even make it impossible to edit simple websites. Rather than using their time and energy to create novel strategies and deploy fine-tuned tactics, digital teams find themselves jumping through unnecessary hoops to justify their approaches. Projects that will enhance the institution’s brand get sidetracked or halted. And, technology for delivering high-quality web and digital experiences are often then served outside of the university’s infrastructure — at a cost to the organization’s mission — because of an unreasonable unwillingness to experiment or collaborate.

Like behavior grounded in inexperience, fearful behavior causes waste and inefficiency to departments, frustrates employees, and stifles the evolution of the brand. It is also difficult for digital teams to mitigate in day-to-day work. Even if one is a good sport, jumps through hoops, and meets requirements, I have found that some colleagues just do not want to change. In this case, departmental or divisional leadership must attempt to remove roadblocks, and this can be difficult given their lack of technological expertise.

So how have I coped with fear-filled obstruction? I made inroads where I could. And, I had to personally take care of my own stress management. It takes a toll, but it can be assuaged by strengthening your team with confidence and support, sharing your experiences with mentors outside of your industry, and sometimes simply taking a walk around campus to remind yourself why you are there. If that doesn’t work, try counting change or cleaning. Those work for me sometimes.

Distrust

Finally, distrust characterizes many interactions digital communicators have with their leadership, IT personnel, and print-oriented colleagues. I believe this distrust is rooted in the nature of digital communications–their novelty and dynamism–as well as in the demographics of digital communicators. Let’s be honest, for the most part, digital communications experts in higher ed are a younger demographic. We often started off low in the institutional hierarchy. Youthful expertise can often come off as arrogant or off-putting to those older and more powerful than us. It’s almost as if our colleagues look at us and think, “They’re young. What do they know?”

And so we are forced to prove ourselves constantly. This is not a bad thing–if the criteria others use to judge is based on the merits of our work (whether it is sound, attractive, and meaningful) and on its attainment of measurable analytic goals. However, ignorance and fear often mean that colleagues base judgments of a digital teams’ significance on the “value” or “worth” of an arbitrary metric.

The most insidious example of this type of obstruction is the chargeback system, in which digital communicators must account for their time and bill campus “customers” for their work. This system distracts digital employees and managers from their mission, which is to create and deploy high-quality communications strategies and tactics on behalf of the institution. Rather than trusting in-house digital communicators to be experts who must keep up with trends, focus on analytics, and adjust strategies and tactics accordingly, the chargeback system reduces in-house personnel to for-hire workers motivated solely by profit (of which they do not get a share!). It just doesn’t make sense.

I once fell prey to the mandate that if I instituted a system that would allow my team to track its “billable” hours that I would be able to demonstrate the value of my group to the institution. It was wrong. I learned that at a certain point in our growth, the act of accounting and charging for our team’s creativity diminished rather than enhanced our significance. Eventually, leadership required us to focus more on the mechanics of proving ourselves through the arbitrary metrics of time and campus “fun bucks” than on our actual communications products. Chargeback was a system that prevented us from getting to do our work.

If you currently work within a chargeback system, advocate for using other metrics–preferably ones that are analytic and audience-based to demonstrate the importance of your work. And, if you don’t have a chargeback system, be grateful, and be vigilant.

Closing Thoughts

Organizations, especially institutions of higher education, must realize at a leadership level that digital communications marketing teams must be agile and unobstructed. This means investing in staff and dedicated professionals who are committed to the mission of the university, seek to improve their methods on a regular basis, and are open to discussion and change. If organizations are unable to properly equip digital communications teams with dedicated staff, resources and technology, and executive decision-making authority, then its image and brand will suffer unnecessarily. Standards will weaken, great talent will leave, and the institution’s dependency on costly vendors will increase. I worry that some organizations would rather be good at writing checks than thinking and doing great work themselves.

I wrote this post because I believe that we who are currently working as digital communicators in higher education have an obligation to overcome behaviors and cultural practices that are rooted in fear, inexperience, and distrust. We must support each other and the next generation of leaders. While digital communications in general is exciting, and employing digital communications in service of the mission of higher education is fulfilling, I suspect that many of us who work in this industry have experienced stress and frustration caused by the sorts of situations I describe here.

We constantly seek validation and ways to cope with what I call obstructive behavior. We are innovators attempting to be agile, creative, and mobile in a culture that is traditional, stratified, and siloed. We also often feel very alone. This post is to tell you that if you feel alone, you’re not.

What are your experiences? Do you agree or disagree? Email me your thoughts, and I will share them anonymously in a follow-up, or feel free to post comments to Google+

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Thank You, #highered

December 22nd, 2011 | Posted in Analysis

2011 has been a year of major transition for me and my family.

As I said goodbye to friends and colleagues at Washington University in St. Louis, I looked forward to taking a new perspective in higher education web and digital communications. My family set out for a new adventure.

I thank my contacts at WUSTL for their continued confidence in my services and support to the university. It was difficult for me to say goodbye and leave during such an amazing time in your growth, but I have no doubt that you will continue on the path we started together with great dedication, talent, and commitment to WUSTL. I look forward to working together in 2012.

Also, I thank the community of higher education web and marketing communications. I am inspired by your desire to convey your institutional missions to others. I hope that you have found my writing valuable to you and your organizations. It has been a pleasure partnering with several of you. Thank you to the 75+ universities that have frequented my site, and please know that your clicks and comments motivate me to continue sharing.

With great happiness, I have renewed relationships with former colleagues from the University of Notre Dame. I am so proud to see how well many of my former staff are doing in their professions. It means so much to me to see them succeed and advance.

Finally, thank you to Northwestern University for challenging my wife, Erin, in new and profound ways as she begins her doctoral program in Media, Technology, and Society. Her intellectual experiences at NU have already enriched her life and have contributed to fascinating conversations at home. We’re pleased to be raising our daughter Zoe in such a welcoming city and community.

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Now What? About Social Media at Michigan State University

November 21st, 2011 | Posted in Analysis

This is in a series of posts in which I comment upon hiring trends and possibilities in higher education and digital marketing. Having worked extensively with public affairs and digital marketing in higher education, I believe that institutional priorities are revealed by the creation of new positions and the evolution of previous ones. I hope that my experience can shed some light on the strengths and challenges inherent in a job as it is described below.

I believe that success is a behavior, not a moment in time.

When applied to social media infrastructure in higher education, success-as-behavior means a culture where ideas and strategy for social media come from many sources, are finely tuned by professionals, guided by vested administrators and leaders, and executed properly.

As I learned via recent (non-client) interactions, Michigan State is one university that is taking social media strategy seriously. The leadership at MSU has provided the resources and staff necessary to improve the university’s reputation through social media efforts.

To learn more about how MSU plans to succeed, I asked Paul Prewitt (@paulprewitt on Twitter), Director of Online Engagement and the leader of a new unit within Advancement Marketing and Communications at Michigan State, to comment on the content strategies and organizational structure that MSU employs to support its social media efforts. I discuss Paul’s responses in the following section and list the full Q&A at the end of this post.

Measurable Outcomes

Social media outcomes must be measurable for a university. There is simply no way around that fact. If a university is going to direct funding and resources to staffing for social media, especially if that institution is publicly-supported, there must be a visible return on investment. This does not mean exclusively how many “likes” or “followers” or “check-ins” that efforts accumulate, but more importantly, how social media facilitates donation of real dollars, helps gather valuable demographic data, improves message delivery, and sustains conversations with real people that otherwise might not have occurred. The “otherwise might not have occurred” element is the most critical piece.

At Michigan State, one of the ways University Advancement measures the success of social media behavior is through managing the accuracy of its alumni database. Using social media, MSU reaches out to and gathers valuable contact information from its alums, which it can then use to solicit gifts–another measurable outcome.

Support from Senior Leadership

As I’ve discussed before, content strategy that integrates social media is futile unless it has serious (and real) support from senior-level university/college leadership. This is particularly evident when departments within a university must coordinate messages and calls-to-action. Even if the organization espouses a culture of openness that makes it easy to share ideas, universities are historically hierarchical. This means that senior leadership must be able to understand social media tools and enable their departments to engage with others outside of their supervisor’s purview.

At MSU, careful thought went into establishing reporting lines and classic “dotted-lines” to ensure that communication channels are kept clear and persistent. Without such reporting structures, social media would likely become a victim of competing tasks and agenda items. By empowering a leader to champion social media content strategy through multiple reporting channels, the likelihood of achieving measurable results is much higher. Such a strategy does not guarantee outcomes, but it does ensure consistent scrutiny and analysis of how well the organization is engaging audiences via social media.

Trust in the Team

An organization that is best organized for social media success is one that allows (and even requires) team members from various department to share ideas, discuss areas of concern, and get direct feedback from senior officials. If the “social media director” or equivalent does not meet regularly with the administration, then there is a huge risk that the outcomes of social media will not align with the organizational mission.

At MSU, this means an “open door” policy where not only are senior leaders available for discussion, but they have direct reports, such as Paul, who are responsible for fostering these interactions.

Make Social Media Social

It appears that at MSU, the biggest opportunity for further improvement is through internal networking of peers and colleagues. MSU’s culture of openness is coupled with the expectation that each team member will contribute to meeting the desired goals of its social media marketing program. Paul and his team are beginning to lay the foundation for coming together as communications colleagues in a social media work group to document and share best practices, policies, and generally-accepted standards for measuring success.

One of the challenges of such a group is determining when to 1) coordinate, 2) integrate, or 3) separate efforts. This means determining the real value of certain communications to the institution as a whole and/or to its various constituents. These determinations are made when the people behind the efforts come together in real life and discuss how social media efforts can amplify institutional messages.

As I have witnessed in my experience at Washington University in St. Louis, a “Social Media Working Group” can be the foundation of a University’s effort to define and document social media policy and strategy guidelines. These are two unique items. First, a social media policy is an effort to provide structure and guidance to departments on campus as they decide to share content on Facebook, Twitter, etc. It is an important policy document especially during emergencies or moments of heightened awareness. Second, strategy guidelines are internal documents that enable departments and university officials to define how specific tools, such as Facebook, are to be used; discusses how to define audiences; suggests the proper voice and content for the tool; outlines rules for commenting and removal or correction of audience comments; and also describes how to capture metrics and performance data.

Typically, a social media policy is public while a social media strategy guideline document is written for each tool (Facebook, Twitter, Google+, etc..) and is kept as an internal document. For Michigan State, this list of social media accounts would be a great start for bringing together people into a social media work group: http://www.msu.edu/social/

Final Thoughts

Clearly, Michigan State University’s Advancement Marketing & Communications office is making a strategic effort to integrate the use of social media into the communicative culture of its organization. This means forming a dedicated and accountable staff, providing access to senior leadership, creating a culture of trust, and most importantly, understanding that the outcomes of social media efforts must be measurable.

Notably, MSU has an opportunity to widen its effort beyond University Advancement by reaching out and collaborating with other university entities. As you’ll see in Paul’s responses in the Q&A below, that is their plan. I believe that fulfilling this intention will keep MSU on the forefront of social media strategy.

MSU is an example of social media success.

Note: I am in no way affiliated with Michigan State University. These are my independent thoughts and observations.

Q&A with MSU Advancement Marketing Office

Feedback provided by Paul Prewitt (@paulprewitt on Twitter), Director of Online Engagement, the lead in a new unit within Advancement Marketing and Communications at Michigan State.

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

Three years ago, MSU merged the Development and Alumni operations into a new University Advancement division. With this change, the communications and marketing for both organizations were also merged into one team. Both teams had separately developed web teams and were using separate email marketing tools. The combined web team took over all responsibilities for managing the MSUAA and the fundraising websites; however the content development and editing for these sites remained a communications function. Two years ago, as part of a new campaign staffing plan, it was decided that a new Online Engagement team was necessary to help develop strategy and manage content for all email and online content for University Advancement. Last spring, we began the process of creating this team.

This new team reports directly to the Assistant Vice President for Advancement Marketing and Communications and works very closely with members of the Marketing & Communications team as well as the web team. The Online Engagement team ‘owns’ online strategy, content development and email communications. The web team is responsible for site development and infrastructure and web hardware.

How often do 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.

Let me start by saying that my position and I are both relatively new to the MSU Advancement Marketing & Communications team; I started on Sept. 6, 2011. However, I can still give some insight to how the staff and management discuss digital communication strategies.

To start off with my boss Bob Thomas, AVP of Advancement Marketing & Communications, will openly say that the number one part of my job is to “be in strategic directional meetings” to enhance and improve our efforts with online engagement (not just social media). For example, I was included in a half-day long strategic meeting with the VP of Advancement, AVP of Advancement Information Systems & Donor Strategy, AVP of Advancement Marketing & Communications, AVP of Alumni Relations, and key high-level alumni volunteers to discuss the value of “engagement” and how to measure it here at MSU.

Secondly, and more importantly, the MSU Advancement work methodology is that of an “open door” environment. This allows staff (myself included) easy access to any of the senior management staff to discuss our efforts, ideas and thoughts.

As for the content strategy meetings, all I’ll say is that they are coming soon. I’ve been charged with helping to create an atmosphere where “print does NOT equal web.” My starting goal will be to make sure that online communications are at the forefront of projects to help us continue to make sure our online efforts are not developed as an afterthought.

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?

The Advancement Marketing & Communications team is a part of the Campus Communicators Group here at MSU. The group is designed as an open meeting to allow everyone the opportunity to share and learn from each other.

I’m also working with the Interim VP of University Relations and her team to develop a “new media” marketing group for Michigan State University. The purpose of the group will be to create a collaborative learning and sharing environment for new media efforts across the campus.

Also we are working on creating social networks for our colleagues across the campus to help them while also getting them comfortable with being in a social networking environment.

For example, the MSU Advancement HR Office has created a LinkedIn group for MSU Advancement Professionals. This group allows them to network with each other professionally and share (or request) resources to make their jobs easier; all while getting them acquainted with LinkedIn. Michigan State University is the first university to join LinkedIn’s College Pilot Program.

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

The success of our strategies will be based around our ability to answer a simple question, “So what?”

Although it is common for Higher Education to get stuck on the “window shopper” metrics such as total page views, fans, members or followers I prefer to have much more valuable measurements. Don’t get me wrong, having window shoppers is definitely a must for any store but that is not how you measure success. My way of thinking on this comes from being in the advancement profession, along with having an undergraduate degree in business, where we always have a “bottom line” goal that we are working towards. Thus, just like the store, we appreciate the window shoppers but will measure our success by their impact on our bottom line.

So what are some of our bottom line measurables? The first and most obvious would be donations, but that would be a macro goal and we all know there are many micro goals that can be tracked along the way. The most important micro goal for us would be “constituent profile data” as we cannot ask our constituents for a donation without having their address, phone or email. Along with these measurable options I get to help define “What is engagement?” and how we’ll measure it here at Michigan State University Advancement.

Therefore, by using this model of “So what?” or as Bob Groves, the VP of Advancement would say, “Now what?” we will be able to have any senior leadership member at MSU help assess and contribute to our overall “new media” strategies.

What level of autonomy does advancement marketing have to respond quickly to social media and emerging content needs?

This is probably one of the best parts to working in MSU Advancement Marketing & Communications and the largest factor to my wanting to come here from Arkansas (yes, it’s noticeably colder). The entire team is given a high level of autonomy to help make sure that we get the best work done in a timely and professional manner. However, with autonomy comes accountability! Although we strongly believe in the “team” environment where “we succeed or fail together” each team member is held accountable for doing their best to help us succeed as a team.

With regards to our marketing efforts there will always be a level of acceptable failure. For “If one does not fail at times, then one has not challenged himself,” said Ferdinand Porsche. The challenge is rather to make sure that our failures are educational and we continue to improve based on our efforts. This will allow us to turn failures into successes as we grow.

Do you have enough staff to accomplish your goals? Why or why not? And, how does your social media staff interact with web (design, tech) teams? Please provide examples.

Some might find it surprising but when asked “What would you do with an additional $100,000 budget to improve social media efforts?” I will always recommend that the first choice be to hire the right person. Although I know of a few great tools that can quickly help to improve social media efforts at any university (that is not currently using them) I strongly believe that without the right people the tools are doomed to fail. Tools must be put in the right hands to see success.

However, with all that said, I would say that the MSU Advancement Marketing & Communication staffing model (PDF) has definitely put a good amount of human capital into achieve our online marketing goals. Also, another good part about our model is that we have pulled “new media” out from the “web services” team and have clearly defined the roles of both units.

I would honestly say that the “team” environment is what makes this model truly work. Anyone regardless of their position within MSU Advancement can share ideas or thoughts, knowing that we will all respect and value their ideas or thoughts. I know that sounds too good to be true but that really is the environment here.

However, for the Higher Education Administrators reading this, we have basically established an invisible dashed reporting line between the Director of Online Engagement and the Director of Web Services (they must be on the same page with all major projects). This puts the forward facing end user interactions (e-marketing efforts) in the Online Engagement unit and the web design and production within the Web Services unit.

For example, the AVP of Alumni Relations and I decided that we could do more with the MSU Alumni Association’s Facebook presence to increase “likes” and hopefully increase the number of subscribers to our e-newsletter. After finding some ideas on ways to accomplish this we meet with the director of Web Services to see what we could do (technically). Thus, the Web Services unit became responsible for producing any FBML and other web materials (used with the iFrame feature). Last, after the enhancements are implemented, the Online Engagement unit will be responsible for marketing the new feature and driving the success of the overall project.

Thus, as with any great marketing and communications group, the thing that makes us successful is our ability to operate as a TEAM. Together Everyone Achieves More!

Note: Thank you to Paul Prewitt (@paulprewitt on Twitter), Director of Online Engagement and the Advancement Marketing and Communications team at Michigan State University.

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HighEdWeb 2011 #heweb11 Recommendations

October 21st, 2011 | Posted in Analysis

For those of you attending the HighEdWeb 2011 conference, here is my list of most noteworthy sessions to attend. These are based on my experiences and observations of the industry. Overall, I recommend these sessions because they best reflect the current key area for success with digital communications in higher education — content strategy. I believe the industry is in a shift towards content being most critical, so these sessions appear most noteworthy in that regard.

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Web Industry Paradigm Shift at the University of Michigan

October 13th, 2011 | Posted in Analysis, Predictions, Strategy

This is the first in a series of posts in which I will comment upon hiring trends and possibilities in higher education and digital marketing. Having worked extensively with public affairs and digital marketing in higher education, I believe that institutional priorities are revealed by the creation of new positions and the evolution of previous ones. I hope that my experience can shed some light on the strengths and challenges inherent in a job as it is described publicly.

Recently, I followed a tweet posted by Liz Gross (Twitter @lizgross144) that linked to this article: “University of Michigan to hire social media director.” It jumped out at me as signaling a major shift for digital communications marketing in higher education.

Because Michigan is one of the more aggressive and successful universities to use social media, it is heartening to see it provide real structure and thought leadership for social media content strategies.

Here are what I see as signs of progress for higher education in general, and as signs of strength for the person who takes the job itself.

The Social Media Director reports to VP

The reporting structure of this position seems to embrace the need for agility and sharing among all levels of the organization. Far too often web and digital staff are several layers removed from senior leadership such as VPs, presidents, chancellors, etc. This means that opportunities to improve or take action are challenged by logistics and hierarchy. Obviously, social media moves fast — lightning fast — and responding quickly is critical, especially when it comes to emergency communications.

It is likely that this director of social media will have weekly (or more) meetings with the VP of global communications and will be able to provide ongoing insight and accountability for Michigan’s social media marketing. Now, senior leadership will have the possibility of interacting with and influencing the curator of social media, rather than standing on the sidelines “lurking.”

The Social Media Director will hold a newly-created position

This position will likely be considered by others to be new and experimental — perhaps even risky or irresponsible. Such perceptions can trigger interesting and sometimes odd behavior by peers and colleagues. Some will be fascinated and intrigued, and they will likely reach out to the new person to learn, support, and share.

Others may be threatened and/or uncertain about why a position dedicated to social media is necessary and why the university is allocating resources and attention to it. After all, writers, journalists, and marketers have existed at universities for decades. Why, they may wonder, is social media any different? They may disagree with the concept and, as a result, obstruct the social media director’s efforts to obtain valuable resources or infrastructure.

Therefore, it is most critical that the successful candidate be confident, outgoing, and competent. She or he may have to make professional confrontations and ask painful questions. Not everyone will agree with the need for a director of social media, and being a new position, there is no history or established record of what defines success. As a result, many will have opinions and expectations that may or may not be fair or realistic. The new social media director must define success for the university and report frequently on measureable results.

Everyone will be watching.

Content (strategy) is king

I have been saying for about five years that technology and design are no longer barriers for universities to communicate and market themselves well online. Even though many organizations still struggle, having a beautiful design and well-structured code is now considered a responsibility that digital teams work hard to fulfill.

Key audiences expect that that institutions of higher education will create eye-catching designs and flexible code (whether or not they recognize it as such). Now, the most important and decisive component of digital marketing is content. The fact that the University of Michigan seeks to appoint a director of social media is a positive sign that the industry is maturing. It recognizes that audience members want to consume content and interact with a powerful brand. Content, and its marketing through social media, is the major growth area for digital. This new position is a harbinger.

Too often content creators (writers, videographers, photographers, etc..) have been positioned as second or subordinate in the order of importance on projects and initiatives. Thus, they obtain lower base salaries and management responsibilities. Decisions about strategy have been based placed narrowly on technology, what looks good in a browser, and the latest innovative method of constructing a web page.

Now, as Facebook and Twitter prove, social media websites are content management systems for the masses. Content can be posted and managed in new ways. Yes, social media initiatives must be integrated with an institution’s websites and marketing efforts, but content now often can stand alone when it comes down to audience interaction. Most Facebook pages and Twitter accounts look the same, but what differentiates them is content. This new position is an indicator that content creators are on the verge of increasing their value to the University and growing their management responsibilities.

The job description is well-defined

The Social Media Director position description is very well-written and should attract a high caliber of candidate. The canny candidate will see that while the position is highly influential in web and digital, its primary objective is to cultivate audiences. The ability to create and manage relationships is the core of social media — not technology. Technology only enables such cultivation to occur with less restrictions posed by time and space. So, I am encouraged to see that technical abilities are not the focus of the position description.

The power to create and share content, to manage audience expectations and meet them, and to increase awareness of the university’s brand and mission is stated goal of the social media director. I would make one change, however. I would move the “enthusiastic” qualification to the top. Maintaining enthusiasm and optimism may prove to be the most challenging part of the job.

Hope of others to follow

Kudos to the University of Michigan for committing to social media initiatives. I hope that the new director is successful so that other universities follow Michigan’s example. And, to those of you who may be interested in this position, let me be clear in stating that the position appears to be one full of amazing challenge and opportunity.

How often in higher education marketing do you get a chance to define greatness? Here is your chance.

Note: I am in no way affiliated with the University of Michigan. These are my independent thoughts and observations.

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