Establishing a Content Culture at Your College or University

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Establishing A Content Culture At Your College Or

University

Establishing a Content Culture at Your College or University

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1. What is Content Culture?2. Why do we need a Content Culture? 3. How do we create a Content Culture?

i. Encourage everyone to participateii. Promote various types of content submissionsiii. Define a process

Overview

Source: Higher Education Marketing – Establishing a Content Culture at Your College or University

Establishing a Content Culture at Your College or University

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The content culture is: the overall position people at your college hold regarding the

content that is being produced for and published on the college website.

Establishing a strong content culture will be: the gateway to ensuring a constant flow of significant and

effective content.

1. What is Content Culture?

Source: Higher Education Marketing – Establishing a Content Culture at Your College or University

Establishing a Content Culture at Your College or University

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The driving force behind any initiative is collaboration.

You want to establish a content culture because: it will encourage all the different communities within your school to

work towards the same goal, even if by doing it separately. it runs parallel with the overall philosophy of providing an enriching

learning environment. The aim is to establish a culture that not only promotes content creation, but one that fuels college-wide collaboration.

will contribute greatly to the overall digital marketing strategy that a college or university has.  Having a constant flow of engaging and diverse content will enhance search engine optimization efforts and overall online visibility, which in turn, propels student recruitment.

2. Why do we need a Content Culture?

Source: Higher Education Marketing – Establishing a Content Culture at Your College or University

Establishing a Content Culture at Your College or University

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Like any plan of action, the most difficult part of the process is its execution.

Here are some strategies you can implement in order to jumpstart the development of your college’s content culture:

3. How do we create a Content Culture?

Source: Higher Education Marketing – Establishing a Content Culture at Your College or University

Establishing a Content Culture at Your College or University

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i. Encourage everyone to participate

A lot of people within your college’s community (students, staff, faculty, administration, partners, etc.) don’t even know that they are able to submit content, or even pitch ideas to whoever oversees web content.

The only way to ensure that the content is a true representation of your college as a whole is to showcase the voices of everyone who is in involved in the day-to-day.

Source: Higher Education Marketing – Establishing a Content Culture at Your College or University

Establishing a Content Culture at Your College or University

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i. Example: Thompson Rivers University’s TRU Blogroll

TRU’s Blogroll welcomes students, faculty, staff, alumni and anyone else in their community to contribute to an existing TRU blog or create one of their own.

What’s so great about the page is that: Thompson University has established an equalized place

where students and faculty ventures hold the same weight, and are considered valuable additions to the overall collection of ongoing blogs.

Source: Higher Education Marketing – Establishing a Content Culture at Your College or University

Establishing a Content Culture at Your College or University

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Establishing a Content Culture at Your College or University

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ii. Promote various types of content submissionsRemind everyone that content exists beyond text formats.

Encourage contributors to submit photos, videos, illustrations etc. For example:

Images: Science professors can host a photo scroll on images of students in the lab.

Video: Business professors can begin a video series of practicing business skills in the real world, like putting students through mock job interviews.

Text: Recruit a student to be the official Events blogger, and have this student write up a review of any event (on-campus conferences, talks, open houses, etc.) for the school blog.

Source: Higher Education Marketing – Establishing a Content Culture at Your College or University

Establishing a Content Culture at Your College or University

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ii. Example: The Kenyon College News Room

The Kenyon College News Room includes:

content from their various demographics and contains text, audio, video and visual content.

Source: Higher Education Marketing – Establishing a Content Culture at Your College or University

Establishing a Content Culture at Your College or University

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Establishing a Content Culture at Your College or University

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iii. Define a process

Having everyone on board is theoretically ideal for content generation, but it can definitely disrupt the publication flow.

Full participation will necessarily require a streamlined process where content contributors submit to a designated person or team (Communications or Marketing) who will subsequently edit, polish, and publish the content.

The key is to make it easy and clear for everyone to participate while also adhering to established style guides or preferences. You can offer access to a “Content Submission Form”.

Source: Higher Education Marketing – Establishing a Content Culture at Your College or University

Establishing a Content Culture at Your College or University

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iii. Example: The Kenyon College

Looking at Kenyon College again, their Public Affairs team gives:

clear guidelines to how people can submit anything, from an event posting, to videos and web content.

Source: Higher Education Marketing – Establishing a Content Culture at Your College or University

Establishing a Content Culture at Your College or University

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Establishing a Content Culture at Your College or University

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Establishing a concrete content culture will take time, so it is important that you set reasonable expectations for your team and all prospective content creators.

Keep the momentum going through campaigns, email blasts, and even seasonal incentives (theatre tickets, giveaways, etc.)

Over time, you will see participation levels increase, and have an entire college worth of people playing a part in solidifying your college’s overall brand and web presence.

Source: Higher Education Marketing – Establishing a Content Culture at Your College or University

Establishing a Content Culture at Your College or University

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How does your college or university encourage campus-wide participation in web content generation?

Source: Higher Education Marketing – Establishing a Content Culture at Your College or University

Establishing a Content Culture at Your College or University

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Questions?1.514.312.3968 info@higher-education-marketing.com

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