eduWeb 2010 Conference Wrap Up

August 5th, 2010

Last week I attended the eduWeb 2010 Conference in Chicago (opens new window) and I wanted to give a brief overview of the talks I attended and some things I wanted to share. A breakdown of all the sessions can be found at the Inigral Social Media Hub (opens new window).

Below are my notes from each session. They are not meant to be actionable items but instead the interesting things I made sure to note. Please take them with a grain of salt.

# Building Your Education Brand Online: Google Tools for the Education Marketer

51 percent of prospectives use search to find info on a school; 21 percent use the brochure they receive.
Google Adwords allows you to tailor the message in your sponsored ad.
Branded keywords are more effective at the end of the day.
Google Insights for Search: A Barometer for Trends. "Think of it as the world's largest focus group." http://www.google.com/insights/search/ (opens new window)
- Great for geo targeting ad campaigns based on US searches.
https://www.google.com/adplanner/ (opens new window) Great way to get insights into your site for free.
- Media Plan tab can give you insights into where you can place advertisements.
- You can break down by interests and by sites visited.
- Search for your site and the interested keyword, you should see the other sites that people visit.

# Brand ArchiTECTure: Building Your Brand on the Web & Managing to Make it Thrive

Simple mission statements
Distinct and uncomfortable
Marketing in a digital age
Consistency and integration are important
Using the Ford Fiesta as an example
- 100 agents had the cars for 6 months
- Created a forum or two to respond to complaints about the delay in 2011 delivery
Southwest Airlines is the second example
- Using a social media aggregator
- Example of Kevin Smith being asked to leave the plane but then recovered after he tweeted
What you are doing is passing the red face test
- Respond in a way that is accountable and consistent with your brand
Who is responsible for delivering this brand on the Web?
- Marketing and PR units
- Digital natives who know and anticipate changes
- Owners of the brand
Talking about American University
- Activism
- Learning from leaders
Website
- Use case and what paths they would follow
- Brand consistency
- Have a Wikipedia-like clone
- 50 content publishers
Team of two
Integration and fast response

# CSS for Mobile Devices & Using CSS to Present Content to iPhone

Include a reset to make a base view of your site on a mobile device
Detecting desktop browser might be an easier than detecting all the mobile browsers
Scalable viewport needs to be using very carefully

The landscape is huge and the manpower behind it is far less than it used to be
Yahoo Pipes is a gold mine for combining feeds
Feedburner is a good way to make valid feeds from Yahoo pipes
dlvr.it can deliver feed content to where you need to it go, Twitter, FB, etc.
Co Tweet and Econfon are great social media tools

# Markers, Markers, Everywhere: How to Incorporate QR Codes into the Marketing Mix

TexasTech decided to use MSTag
Signs in front of construction that go to construction updates
Video compression is critical, might help to host the file locally
Blackberry has issues reading tags
Scan Life has a pro feature that allows for more tracking

The Web is not some place separate, it is an extension of our daily life
bluefuego.com/research (opens new window)

# MashED Up: Mashups and Higher Education

Tons of examples
http://www.mstonerblog.com/index.php/blog/comments/755/mashed_up_mashups_and_higher_education/

# Learning 2 Speak Native: How Education is Being Transformed in 140 Characters or Less

Digital Natives - Not impressed by technology like previous generations
We make a big deal out of it but for people using it on a regular basis it’s just another in a large list
College Confidential
Weblogg-ed
Scvngr - Create geo hunts