It’s tough to remember to look up when your to-do list is a mile long and you’re trying to fill three full-time roles in a single work day. Sound oddly specific? I’m speaking from experience. For the last few weeks I’ve deleted industry newsletters as soon as they hit my inbox, spent less time on Twitter, and skipped multiple opportunities to make in-person connections. These are really tough trade offs for a visionary leader, but likely choices you’ve had to make at one time or another.
The consequence of choosing to focus deeply on the tasks at hand is missing what’s going on around you … and signals of what will happen in the future. Leaders who can analyze industry patterns and spot opportunities to enroll students, drive revenue, leverage brand awareness, or head off a potential staffing disaster are more effective and valuable to their institutions. But you can only operate at this level when you’re consistently devoting time—yours or someone else's—to environmental scans and forward thinking.
I’m spoiled in this area; the entire Campus Sonar team is regularly scanning client and industry online conversations and other indicators to make meaningful recommendations and confident predictions. We knew the higher ed staffing crisis was coming, prospects were increasingly looking to Reddit to inform college choice, where there’s an untapped opportunity with prospects pre-yield, and how to measure brand health. I can take time to focus on urgent high priority tasks because the Campus Sonar team keeps watch for relevant industry trends.
Lots of leaders love to operate in the futuristic/strategic realm, but often our roles demand we focus our attention elsewhere. A partner like Campus Sonar who never stops listening and seeks to see around corners is vital to the longevity and success of visionary leaders. I hope you’ve got someone keeping their head up when yours needs to duck down into the weeds for a season. I’d love to hear more about how you find this balance.
Liz Gross
CEO + Founder of Campus Sonar
Insights to Guide Your Strategy
Through analyzing online conversation about and from colleges and universities for five years, we’ve learned a lot about what’s working on campus and what isn’t. Earlier this year we shared multi-year trends from higher ed conversation and we’re continuing to bring insights forward to impact change in higher ed. Here are a few insights we’ve learned along the way to guide your campus.
Brand Perception and Messaging
Popular conversation topics drive your brand perception. Athletics produces far more of your online conversation than you realize. Harness it to ensure athletics messaging aligns with institutional messaging and goals or take advantage of athletics content in strategic ways that align with your overall institutional goals.
Accounts drive your brand messaging. There are far more accounts associated with a campus than you believe or know; and over half of them probably haven't posted in six months or more. A social media audit can help you uncover all of your campus-affiliated accounts and focus your messaging.
You’re missing brand stories. Campus accounts with low visibility post stories that would be valuable to your entire audience. Engaging with your campus community helps expand and build brand advocacy and celebrating departments across campus helps break down silos. Find these stories and share them.
Manage your brand through crisis. Listen and pay attention to what’s happening on campus—you can often catch a potential crisis before it starts. For example, student reporting is a potential barometer for stories that may catch the eye of local or national reporting. If an issue develops into a crisis (especially one that may impact students), work with student facing/development areas (such as student affairs) to understand potential events that may create more conversation and potentially elevate a crisis. Ensure the appropriate communicators have a seat at the table when crises or other challenging situations arise—don’t leave them in the dark.
Strategy
Build an organizational structure that supports your brand across all channels. It’s critical to take a step back and look holistically at your efforts and at the intersections and overlap of roles across marketing and communications, e.g., social and media relations. Don’t let tactics drive individuals’ roles and responsibilities.
Align your social media strategy with your brand. Integrate social media into your campus strategy. Your social media efforts will be most successful when they align with your campus goals and priorities.
Get insights like these on the regular and join a community of colleagues with a membership to STREAM.
We’re a community of learners—we thrive on learning and helping others learn to enact change. SXSW EDU shares this ethos, and we want to be a part of the 2023 event. You can help make that happen by supporting our session proposals.
If you’re unfamiliar with SXSW EDU, it’s an annual event that fosters innovation and learning within the education industry. And the selection process is based on public voting. That’s you!
Here’s a little more on the two sessions we want to bring to the event.
The looming demographic cliff flummoxing college leaders will significantly impact campuses that prioritize a “traditional” college-going population: middle/upper-income, white high school graduates. Centering strategies on minority students (majority U.S. population by 2045) and adult learners—rather than just accommodating them—is a viable strategy for institutional success and financial health. The session explores what this means for culture, org structure, instruction, and recruitment/retention.
Presenters:
Liz Gross, CEO of Campus Sonar
Kevin Tyler, Director of Community Engagement at SimpsonScarborough
Noël Harmon, President of APIA Scholars
Teresa Valerio Parrot, Principal of TVP Communications
This study analyzed online conversation data about science undergraduate students’ college-going experiences to gain a deeper understanding of their journeys to higher ed—their motivations, obstacles, and opportunities. This research highlights first-person perspectives from more than 5,000 science students over three years to help campuses meet them where they are and provide focused support to guide them on pathways to success—all while informing strategies to develop the STEM pipeline.
Presenters:
Gregory Heiberger, Associate Dean of Academics & Student Success, College of Natural Sciences, South Dakota State University
Susan Roh, Graduate Research Assistant, South Dakota State University
Katlin Swisher, Senior Strategist, Campus Sonar
If you have a couple of minutes, we’d love your votes! Give our proposals a thumbs up or (even better) a comment. Voting closes August 21!
Join Liz Gross and Dayana Kibilds, Strategy Director at Ologie, as they discuss "How Colleges Can Best Support Prospective Students and their Parents." Sign up now and you'll be registered for the entire series starting 8/16.
If you’re in Little Rock this October, make sure you stop by our booth to chat with Sonarians and learn more about the insights you can get with a year-long membership to STREAM.
AMA Symposium for the Marketing of Higher Ed | November 6–8, 2022
This year’s conference kicks off with an interactive workshop from Senior Strategist Katlin Swisher. Join her to learn how marketing and communications professionals on campus can better collaborate to achieve institutional goals.
Did someone forward the Brain Waves Newsletter to you? Don't miss out. Get monthly higher ed insights and ideas sent directly to your inbox.
Tell Us What You Think
Brain Waves Newsletter is for you—help us shape it. Send us an email to share what you think, suggestions, or what would help you do your job better.
.png?upscale=true&width=320&upscale=true&name=My%20project-1%20(5).png)
