Archive | September, 2010

Case Study: Social Media at UM-Flint’s Welcome Back Picnic

As fall semester began, bringing with it our largest-ever population of enrolled students, we decided it was time to test the social media waters at UM-Flint. The vehicle: the Welcome Back Picnic on September 16. We’ve been putting a lot of careful thought into our social media initiatives this year. Have our efforts been paying off? Would […]

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Book Review: “Inbound Marketing”

During a recent Search Engine Optimization (SEO) webinar hosted by HubSpot, a mention of “inbound marketing” piqued my interest. Inbound marketing: that idea of bringing your consumer to you, not shouting your message at your consumer. I already knew that UM-Flint’s search engine results would increase  with an elevated reach of our content. For example, […]

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The Distractions of Facebook: The Student Perspective

In a recent article titled The Latest Stay-in-School Tool for College Students: Facebook, the author discusses the relationship between Facebook and retention rate of collge students. The debate is raised about whether Facebook use increases a freshman’s social life (such as allowing them to find friends easier) or if it is simply a distraction. As […]

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UM-Flint Social Media Update | August 2010

What’s New After a summer of brainstorming and researching, University Relations is excited to do more with social media in terms of engaging audiences and measuring our success. Facebook is an initiative that we have long embraced, one which has seen great results. Over 4,000 people are now connected with UM-Flint on Facebook, and we […]

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Write Already: Five Tips to End Your Fear of Writing

At the age of four, my daughter has a mantra.  It is “Try Not Shy.” My husband and I decided early on that there were some things that were absolutely essential that had to be drilled into her small head, but we knew we couldn’t fit in everything that we think is important.  So we […]

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Milliseconds Not Seconds

Well this week has been rather interesting with the release of Google’s Instant Search and with next week Microsoft releasing their beta of the 9th version of Internet Explorer. We are in an age where performance matters more than ever.  We have seen this progression over time of things getting faster online, from minutes to seconds, […]

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Content before Design: The design process

Ever wonder what goes into designing a brochure, laying out a billboard, or creating a website? Believe it or not, there’s no “Easy Button” when it comes to effective and strategic design. The process is often long and always well thought-out. Here are the steps to producing a successful design project:

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Input Output

Any business, public or private, has an input/output paradigm. You give a clerk $2, you get a soda. You enter a number in a phone, you get some sort of response on the other end. You go to Google and enter a search term, you get search results. Even such vital things as hospitals work […]

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Reminder: Salespeople are Biased

In 2010, it’s easy to convince ourselves that our modern media and business savvy enables us to differentiate help from hype. Nobody wants to self-identify as a “dupe,” and salespeople know this. Which is why many of today’s salespeople often cloak their underlying goal (making sales) under a thick veneer they dub “expertise,” “coaching,” “consulting,” […]

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