Beyond BasicsIn this section

•How schools promote Merit•Parents and Merit•Create an achievement calendar

How schools promote Merit

St. Louis College of Pharmacy held a contest and Tweeted about it. The University of Louisiana-Lafayette created an informative video.

How schools promote Merit

The University Akron and the University of Daytona inform students about Merit through email with a link to a page dedicated to Merit on their institutional website.

How schools promote Merit

Just as you promote your school's Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and other important sites with small icons on your .edu home page, now you can do the same with your Merit page. Download the “M Badge” icon so that you can add it to your home page and drive people to your achievements.

Parents and Merit

“Merit allows some of our most rabid fans - parents of current students - to spread the good word about the great things happening at our College.”

– Eric Sieger, Carleton College

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Merit supports parent communication initiatives. Add a parent’s email once, and they’ll get an email for every subsequent achievement. It’s an extremely popular way to keep parents happy and in the loop – and aware that your institution is giving their child the attention they deserve.

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Create an achievement calendar

Don't wait. Be proactive. Get started on your Merit achievement calendar.

Start by identifying the recurring events and activities that take place on campus each semester, particularly events that have large student body participation. Examples include, dean's list, commencement, student government appointments, RA appointments, a charity walk, spirit day, and more.

Creating an achievement calendar accomplishes three things: 1.Saves you time2.Helps you support office and institutional goals3.Makes it easy to coordinate and repurpose content across multiple communication channels

Resources• Check list for getting started: http://bit.ly/MeritCheckList

• Build a content strategy: http://bit.ly/MeritStrategy

• Dig into the Merit Dashboard: http://bit.ly/MeritDash

• Create your Merit page and badges:

http://bit.ly/MeritBranding

• Manage student information: http://bit.ly/StudentData

• Promote Merit to students: http://bit.ly/InformStudents

• FAQs: http://bit.ly/MeritFAQs