Building Online Communities

Building Online Communities

How best to use the web for positioning your university

Tim O’Keeffe, director of web content, Colgate University

How best to use the web for positioning your university

Tim O’Keeffe, director of web content, Colgate University

Higher Ed ‘Long Tail’

• It’s not about reaching everybody, it’s about building, keeping relationships with somebody

• It’s not just about facebook or myspace.com

• It’s a consistent online presence with a consistent message through multiple outlets

• It’s building community

We Don’t Control the Message

• Actually, we never did, but it was a nice thought

• Being true to brand -- the Colgate experience -- in our communications is highly important

• Authoritative voice has been weakened

Change in “Voice”

authoritative community-based

A Colgate Presence

Because we know this is up there

Defining your Brand

• Positioning initiative to better define the brand and create a clear image/identity

• What is the promise you make with constituents?

• How does your website keep that promise?

The Colgate Story

• Website is a major piece of communications effort to answer the question: ‘What is Colgate?’

● Smart ● Fun ● Gutsy ● Driven

Irrepressible

Tools to Use

• News blog

• Flash videos

• flickr photos

• Podcasts

• Webcams

• Screensaver

News Blog

Opening Things Up

• Build community through comments

• Raise profile of stories

• Categorize stories to better utilize RSS

• Better promote photos, videos

• Signed up March 7, launched Oct. 16

• Hosted by outside vendor (LivingDot)

Interactivity

• 92 stories posted

• 131 comments

Blog Comments

JJ Hackett

• I was in London two years ago

• with Jason and I completely sympathize with Jeremy's pain: I ate pasta the whole time and I still came home with $64 to my name.

• He's right though, the experience is absolutely priceless.

More

• Thanks for the comments! There was, as you can imagine, a lot of discussion on campus, including in the Environmental Council, about the Environmental Sustainability Report Card. While I agree that the D+ grade was somewhat embarrassing, in my opinion their methodology was pretty bad. In particular, they gave what I think is too much weight to colleges' endowment policies and to the particulars of colleges' official statements about sustainability

Feeding the Beasts

• Homepage

• Alumni site

• my.Colgate.edu portal

• RSS module as part of CMS

• Interactive screensaver

• Personal pages like iGoogle, netvibes, MyYahoo

• Feedburner allows for automated e-mail widget that highlights stories

• FeedBlitz sends e-mail updates of news stories mail (103 subscribers)

Collecting Content

Photos on flickr

Flickr Pix and Sets

our lawyers say this is directory information, and we’re not violating ferpa.

students sign an opt out form that doc has

never been an issue

our lawyers say this is directory information, and we’re not violating ferpa.

students sign an opt out form that doc has

never been an issue

Pointing to flickr

slide.com

slideshow through flickr

slide.com

slideshow through flickr

Video Project

Extend the Long Tail

Extend it Some More

Making It Happen

• Content delivery network (OnStream)

• Team of student videographers, paid by IT

• Digital media director attends weekly news meetings

• Utilize assets in as many ways as possible

• Build traction among administratorsmore than 6,000 downloads in month of february. just on the cdn

more than 6,000 downloads in month of february. just on the cdn

Video In Demand

berkely getting thousands of views of lectures.

ball state oops section

berkely getting thousands of views of lectures.

ball state oops section

Colgate Conversations

On iTunes

• Alumni, faculty featured in 27 episodes

• Difficult analytics, but log files show anywhere from 30 to 600 downloads per day

• Steady growth

• New writers series

2828

2.02828

Webcams

Cam Comments• These web cams comprise a great asset for

alums and prospective students ... I like the one at the Coop looking at Ho as you get a lot of activity on nice days

• Great, I enjoy "experiencing" just a little of my daughter's college life.

• the web cam looking at Ho from Oak Drive needs its window cleaned, thanks

• working now - thanks, where is the snow?????

• As a "freshman mom" I love seeing what the weather is like up there. Of course a fun idea is to have a Happy Birthday cam so students can wave on the special day back home.

Interactive Screensaver

On your own?

• IT support or an outside vendor

• Movable Type, WordPress, Drupal, TypePad

• Axis 211 network webcam

• Create a flickr account in minutes

• Upload videos through YouTube, others

webcam cost $629

our movable type is $29

typepad is $15

wordpress free

drupal free

webcam cost $629

our movable type is $29

typepad is $15

wordpress free

drupal free

Disengaged

Aware

Responsive

Engaged

We need to

move people

Use online tools to move people

And make it work with your overall communications strategy

Building Online Communities

Building Online Communities

How best to use the web for positioning your university

Tim O’Keeffe, director of web content, Colgate University

How best to use the web for positioning your university

Tim O’Keeffe, director of web content, Colgate University