Most of this won't make sense having not heard me give the presentation and hearing what I said for each slide, but several in attendance requested them, so here they are!
1. Reflect, Repurpose,
Restructure, Re-energize
Or... Everything I know I learned from marching band and McDonald’s
Rachel Reuben, MBA
@rachelreuben rachelreuben.com
3. Quick Background
Auto Dealership Catch All Marketing Assistant x2
Web Editor Web Coordinator
Director of Web Communication & Strategic Projects
Associate Vice President for Marketing Communications
B.S. Organizational Communication & Marketing
MBA, Marketing and Management
7. On Being A Drum Major
• leadership
• playing off the same page
• playing to the same tune (message consistency, brand identity)
• team work
• passion
• dedication
• always something new to learn
10. Where We Came From
• ~mid 90s: webmaster (“web mistress”)
• early 2000s moved to coordinators & editors
• mid 2000s: web teams growing, shifts begin to include web
earlier in planning, emergence of Web 2.0
11. Where We Came From
• late 2000s
• social media
• IA focus to manage rapid growth & Google dumps
• Flip
cams (RIP), Kodak Zi6s, YouTube - made
“unprofessional” videos “cool” & accessible
12. Where We Came From
• late 2000s (cont.)
• need for quality, yet authentic videos re-emerges
• social media emergence (a home page callout? Gasp!)
• strategies, policies, guidelines
14. Repurpose
• Local journalists being regionalized or laid off
• access to talented writers, reporters, storytellers
• Librarians often overlooked
• categorization, information architecture
• Content Strategists
• “new” hotness -- marketing strategists with journalism and
copywriting skills
15. Repurpose
• Media relations staff, crisis communicators, student affairs
professionals need be social media savvy
• similar skills, new tools
• Web coordinators
• depending on specialization
16. Skills For Tomorrow’s Web &
Marketing Professionals In Higher Ed
in addition to web speciality(ies)
• Customer service
• Patience
• Diplomacy
• Political savviness
• Common sense
17. Skills For Tomorrow’s Web &
Marketing Professionals In Higher Ed
in addition to web speciality(ies)
• knowing when to pull in experts vs. DIY (& politics)
• set realistic, unemotional expectations
• persistence
• intergenerational workplace
• new Young Guns
18. Skills For Tomorrow’s Web &
Marketing Professionals In Higher Ed
in addition to web speciality(ies)
• Community managers/wranglers
• making strategic decisions based on goals & audience, not
the O.S.S.
• Data crunchers, trend analyzers
19. Skills For Tomorrow’s Web &
Marketing Professionals In Higher Ed
• know your speciality and branch out, find ways to stay current
• blog
• side work
• read
• professional development
• network
22. KILL THE ORG CHART
Long live cross-functional project teams
23. MANTRA:
I AM A CHANGE AGENT.
Change is my middle name.
Change is good.
Change is forward-thinking.
Change is building a solid foundation.
Change is adapting to current & future needs.
Change is needed.
Change is good.
25. Client Marketing Recruitment
Communication Creative Services
Services Marketing
✦ Media relations ✦ Cross-platform ✦ School-based MCMs
✦ Social media visual designers/ ✦ Sports information
✦ Web communication developers
✦ Alumni magazine ✦ Print production
✦ Writers/editors ✦ Copywriting
✦ Photography
✦ Video production
brand management
Now: 4 units, cross-functional teams,
36 positions
26. Pillars Of A Web Team
1. user research 6. tech implementation
2. site strategy 7. content production
3. tech strategy 8. concrete design
4. content strategy 9. project management
5. abstract design
2003: http://www.adaptivepath.com/ideas/nine-pillars-of-successful-web-teams
28. Challenges (sampling)
• Which tools? (What’s your strategy? Who is your audience?)
• CMS: Many vendors/options, no one-size fits all
• Digital repositories
• OSS
• Resources (budget + human)
32. Magazines
• To flip or not to flip (issuu.com, etc.)
• Hint: Stop flipping for primary online purpose/access!
• Think first: goals & audience
• Not mobile friendly (especially iOS devices)
• Not 508 compliant (accessible)
• Print experience doesn’t translate to web environment
• Not deeply searchable, not good for SEO
• “But I don’t have the resources to build a site...”
34. Magazines
• PDFs
• iPad app
• Web exclusive content referenced from print
• Web exclusive content between issues
• Community
35. Magazines
• What do you do?
• What would you recommend with your existing resources
that matches your publication’s goal(s)? Do you have a case for
more resources?
37. Who Should Manage
Social Media?
• What’s it like on your campus?
•1 person?
• Central office?
• Wild Wild West Show?
• Team?
38. Who Should Manage
Social Media?
• Managing social media is a team sport
http://tinyurl.com/smteamsport
• Mid/Late 1990s redux
• Questions/Factors
• size of institution & culture
• size of team
• strategic communication plan
40. Who Should Manage
Social Media?
• Ditch the organizational chart. Build a team.
41. Who Should Manage
Social Media?
• Ditch the organizational chart. Build a team.
• Listen, assess, evolve
42. Who Should Manage
Social Media?
• Ditch the organizational chart. Build a team.
• Listen, assess, evolve
• Not everything and everyone needs to use social media
• website is foundation, sm is about community & engagement
43. Who Should Manage
Social Media?
• Ditch the organizational chart. Build a team.
• Listen, assess, evolve
• Not everything and everyone needs to use social media
• website is foundation, sm is about community & engagement
• Students are good
• recent grads are better :)
45. Re-energize
• Find your niche
• Find opportunities (low hanging fruit)
• Be helpful
• Stay up-to-date
• Network within and outside our industry
46. Find Zen
• High demands on our time
• Things suggested to me:
• wine
• breathing
• positive mantra
• meditation
• mental health days (spas work too)
- this is my first keynote speech\n- this is my first conference presentation in 15 months (did 20 in year prior)\n- I spent 14 years in various capacities at SUNY New Paltz\n- I’ve been at IC for the past year with a far broader scope, far larger team, and far greater resources\n- I know we have mixes of people here today, and things I say, suggest or have implemented may not work for you and your shop. This is not a one-size fits all presentation.\n
- Auto: file, MV clerk, accounting clerk, cashier, asst. finance manager, built company’s first website in 1994 because I was the only one that knew how to turn on a PC\n- Marketing Asst. for manufacturing company - designed ads and trade show displays\n- Marketing Asst. for Campus Auxiliary Services - designed their first website\n- Web Editor: repurpose print publications for college’s first substantial website (inherited at 12 pages)\n- Web Coordinator: continue repurposing print pubs for web, but coordinate web efforts with departments college-wide\n- Dir. Web Comm & SP: led Creative Services team, instrumental in re-branding initiative, founded & managed Welcome Center, built & ran Distinguished Speaker Series, led social media efforts, etc.\n- AVP: Now lead 4 primary units & 35 staff in Client Marketing Services, Communication, Creative Services, & Recruitment Marketing\n
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- In high school I was a drum major my junior year and head drum major my senior year. It’s where I feel I learned my best leadership skills, learned how to conduct a band - getting everyone in sync together on the same page.\n
Analogy\n
Crew team leader: 2 key skills -- training and customer service\n\nSocial media, media relations, recruitment, marketing -- it’s all built on the foundation of excellent customer service.\n\nWelcome Center @NP built on McD’s customer service foundational training.\n
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Mid 90s: one person shop doing coding, server management, design, pulling content from pubs, IA, polling server logs for hits; worried about dial-up modem connection speeds\n\nEarly 2000s: writers started writing for the web (repurposing print), web still afterthought\nmore specialized positions emerge\n
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BlueFuego says: nearly complete saturation of HPCO’s compared to ~9% two years ago.\n
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visionaries - there’s a lot of copying going on in higher ed. Find balance between re-inventing the wheel and being a visionary. \n
Specialization: content strategy, info architecture, technical architect, visual designer/developer, web marketing (SEO), analytics (watch trends to inform decisions, make recommendations)\n
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Young Guns: today’s newest web professionals are the first to grow up with the web, especially the social web, perhaps have bolder intuitions and guts for tackling new challenges.\n
O.S.S. = Oooh shiny syndrome. Why use tumblr? Why use posterous? Should we engage in Foursquare? WIIFM (us+them)?\n\nData becomes even more critical as we deal with ramifications from the Federal government’s Net Price Calculator, commoditization of higher education, fewer college-bound aged students, larger discount rates\n
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units, project teams, standing committees/workgroups\nbetter partnerships and relationships with deans, helpful with branding initiative buy-in\n
team members can have multiple competencies\n
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DR: content leads, content, content uses, assets, project management\nOSS: so many new tools with such frequency, which are worth it, which will stick around, which will further our strategic goals\n\n
Time: need time for strategic planning - hard to find & shooting from the hip becomes too often accepted\n\nDecisions: Need to be able to make data-driven decisions from web analytics, cost, resources, market research\n
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Easy way out for you does not think about the user\n
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Redux: The current debate is reminiscent of the late 1990s, when higher education communications and marketing professionals were having conversations about who should be responsible for an institution’s website. Then, as now, people were calling for policies, guidelines, and rules. We’re in the same boat all over again. Facebook and other social networking sites were so easy to set up and launch that before we knew it, most colleges and universities already had a presence—official or not. While institutions’ use of social media has matured, we’re still working out how to best use our current social media platforms. And now we have to begin thinking about how to incorporate the various location-based social networks into the mix.\n\n