College Search 101
At my institution, we’ve launched a new video series that contain tips and tricks to remember during the college search process. We’ve just launched 9 of these short videos on YouTube and an accompanying web site. Here’s an example of one of the videos:
The videos aren’t specific to institution and feature our VP for enrollment and marketing.
From the technical side, we shot them using our Sony HD camera outside our main administration building on our rustic bridge. The videos were edited in iMovie. I blogged last month about how great iMovie is. For now, we’re just putting these in YouTube though we will eventually upload them to Vimeo in HD.
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Beyond YouTube Webinar
On September 24 at 1 p.m. EST, I will be presenting a webinar with HigherEdExperts.com entitled Beyond YouTube: How to host and promote your online videos on the Web.
This webinar will provide an overview of the available video sites out there including the different types of YouTube channels, affordable and scalable cloud hosting, Facebook, Vimeo and more. He will also share tips and best practices to promote and track the success of your videos on the Web.
Whether your institution is just getting into online video or you’re experienced, I think you’ll find this webinar informative and educational. You can register online.
I’ve attended as well as spoken at several webinars put on by HigerEdExperts.com and they are always informative and get you thinking. Karine Joly, HigherEdExperts wrangler and EduWeb keynote speaker, always makes sure that things are running smoothly and the sessions are productive.
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Content and Community
There’s so much talk in higher ed circles about social networks, and whether or not to build your own, or use Facebook, or use a vendor and it’s not just the admissions side but the alumni side as well. Every platform and vendor solution has their bells and whistles, feature sets, RSS, friending, badges and all that.
Sometimes, I think it’s important to step back and remember that you can have the best built, most feature-rich social network but without the compelling, interesting content, the site is useless. People will stop coming and your project will be a failure. I’m guilty of this - focusing on the materials used to create content, like blogs, the cloud, HD cameras, and forgetting that without great content, it doesn’t matter how great it looks. If the content stinks, no one will care.
I’ve blogged here about Gary Vaynerchuk. He has nothing to do with higher ed at all - in fact, he has a video podcast about wine. But his thoughts on social networks and communities make total sense for us in higher ed.
Forward this along to your director of admissions or alumni. Not to say “you’re doing it wrong,” but to get them to remember that in the end, our jobs are about selling our institutions and our programs and all the ways our schools are special, and not about the fancy website feature.
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