Today marks the last day of the annual gathering of higher ed web professionals Higher Ed Web 2014. There were a number of presentations on recent hot topics like responsive design, content strategy, social media and others. But these are a few emerging trends to keep your eye on.
Academic program marketing
This is huge, this is a take away. Schools really need to focus a lot of their digital marketing efforts here. Remember programs are our products. There are many other great aspects of our prestigious institutions but without appropriate programs we don’t attract students.
Digital fundraising
Fundraising is crucial to our survival and never has there been more competition. Publics are now more in need, making even more schools seeking the ever shrinking dollars. With the increase in popularity of site like KickStarter and Indiegogo crowdsourcing is on the rise. Many people will give to areas that schools may not have previously thought out and they will give to their passions.
Social website personalization
There have been previous attempts at loose personalization. But what is proposed here is new, by pulling social data you can target at a much more precise level than the generic audience personalization of the past.
Authentic content sourcing
While content strategy related, it is worth noting because many view “raw” and “unfiltered” content as only viable for social channels. It suggests we embrace real content for all our communications channels.
