Next week I am presenting “Beyond Blogging: Create an integrated online student ambassador program” at HighEdWeb in Austin, TX. I presented “Beyond Blogging” at two other conferences, therefore it should be a cakewalk, right?
Wrong.
This presentation was built from the perspective of someone who worked in a marketing office at a college specializing in social media. In the past “Beyond Blogging” was essentially a case study of my former employer and the expansion of a blogging program into an online ambassador program.
I no longer work for a college, or in a marketing office, and I enjoy social media but my job doesn’t revolve around it.
Plus, HighEdWeb is a killer conference and you have to bring your “A” game.
Enter the need to rethink, revise, and expand the scope of “Beyond Blogging.”
Luckily, the knowledge I can draw on from managing the ambassador program is still very relevant and useful. Insert examples and experiences from other institutions, and voila! A new presentation is created. A better presentation is created.
And in the process the entire point of the presentation changed. It’s no longer just about showing why ambassador programs are important. It’s about showing ambassador programs can be created and will work anywhere.
To prepare for the presentation I spoke with higher education professionals at Rochester Institute of Technology, SUNY Oswego, College of William & Mary, and the Glendon campus of York University. Combine these interviews with my knowledge from Saint Michael’s College and you have mixture of public and private; small, medium, and large; liberal arts, technical, and research institutions; and even an international campus. These five schools are a great cross-section of the higher education industry. (I only wish I could have added a community college to the mix!) And guess what? Online ambassador programs work for all of them.
The key is identifying what your goals are and finding the right mix of tools to support those goals. This is what my presentation will focus on.
“Beyond Blogging” is in the social media track, Monday morning at 9:30am CDT. This presentation is relevant for anyone who engages in admission-focused marketing. If you are attending #heweb11 I hope to see you there. If not, I hope to hear you in the backchannel and I promise to post my slides Monday morning so you can follow along.
Here’s a teaser:
I was also inspired to recreate this presentation from a couple posts on Seth Godin’s blog. Maybe they’ll inspire you too.
Really bad Powerpoint
The atomic method of creating a Powerpoint presentation