In zu’s webcast Tuesday, Another Brick in the Interactive Wall, we discussed best online practices using a wide array of Canadian examples. But the interactive options – ranging from enhancing online services to incorporating social media – can be overwhelming. So where to start?

Here are some zu recommended engagement exercises your team can explore to build an interactive strategy to attract and support your students.

Complete application process with students: Walk through the online process with high school and current students. Are there any hiccups? Any reoccurring problem areas causing the students to quit? Do you have an online application or do you ask your potential customers to download a PDF, fill it out, then fax it back?

Encourage feedback through social media: Whether it’s setting up a Facebook Page or using a Twitter feed, open the discussion doors to allow student feedback. Ask students what they want you to deliver in an online presence. Then, when you launch a new initiative, you’ll already have buy-in from the same audience who provided you with the ideas.

Ask students to rank online services: This will help you leverage online assets that currently work and prioritize areas where there is opportunity for improvement. Again, this will help create early buy-in from valuing your students’ input.

Create blog-based student employment / projects: Hire students part-time to administer your social media accounts, such as a Facebook Page. Your students are already deeply involved in social media – why not use their online experience to promote your school? Also, consider substituting student blogs for required course reports? How can you transform course requirements into engaging, online assets that can be used to attract other students to your school?

Provide cameras for student lifestyle stories: Have students depict their personal school experience through photos or video. Post the photos on Flickr, the videos on a YouTube channel, and tag each asset with your school name. Through engaging students, you’ll create trusted and credible assets for your school’s online presence.

Conduct a website or online presence audit: Consider where your school’s online experience currently is and where you want it to be. Look at competitor schools and best online practices. zu can help you with this engagement exercise as we can provide a complimentary website audit for your school.

The school industry is increasingly competitive, considering the program, location and overall experience options students can choose from. Your main audience is online – that’s where you need to both reach and serve them. What can your school start exploring today to attract and support your targeted students?

What made the webcast unique was the first-hand experience of both speakers in dealing with universities. Both Stephanie and David recalled their own university encounters as a student while also highlighting their experience in dealing with university bodies and colleges during their careers.

Throughout the webcast the message for educational institutions was clear: If your students are online, explore the various ways to easily engage them through a dynamic interactive strategy.

Is it good enough to have our content stored in PDF’s on our school website?

It’s important to have PDF’s but it isn’t enough to engage your students or potential students. Audiences want to experience as close to the real thing as possible. A PDF, which is a traditional print piece, will not foster that emotional connection that students look for in a school. With that being said, you shouldn’t disregard PDFs because you want to give your audience file format options: video, photos, interactive maps, and even PDFs.

How do you prioritize all of the projects and initiatives you would like to undertake? Where do you start? It seems very overwhelming.

Well, if you are feeling overwhelmed with all of these online initiatives it would be best to consult with a web agency to help you prioritize your needs. It is important to also look at other initiatives going on throughout the school and use that as your driving force behind the online outlet. We see a lot of online projects fail because schools jump into social media with no meaning behind it. It generates a small buzz, but then fades quickly. There always needs to be strategy for the initial and maintenance stages.

How important is it to have professional photography instead of stock photography?

It is vital. Potential students will want to be apart of something real. Viewing and experiencing what life will be like on campus will come across more authentically with professional photos than with templated photos. You can’t fool students as they are online and live the fast paced visual experience every day.

Everyone talks about social media, what if someone says something bad to us?

The truth is that people are going to say it anyways. Don’t be scared. It is better to be there and be involved.  Not all comments deserve an answer, but most students will want to provide valuable feedback and be heard. The worst scenario would be if no one was saying anything at all.

How do you get buy-in from Senior Admin to move forward with these online best strategies if they don’t understand how valuable they are?

David mentioned that he had been lucky to have Senior Admin who bought in immediately and worked to develop their online strategy. However, if your admin do not understand the value of a web strategy, it is important to educate them. There are so many statistics highlighting the web as a powerful medium for engaging any audience and it will take some time to showcase this to your staff. The important thing is to move slowly having them buy in a small amount at a time.

Join us for this live webcast

Date: Tuesday March 16, 2010

Time: 11:00pm PT, 12:00pm MT, 1:00pm CT, 2:00pm ET

Cost: Complimentary

Register

Join Stephanie and David live as they walk you through basic strategies for how you can enhance your school’s online presence. Learn from current university, college and institution examples, showcasing some of the best websites, online initiatives, and social media tool use. Stephanie and David will highlight how you can develop interactive experiences to fully engage your stakeholders.

• Explore opportunities to reach your main audiences, including students, alumni, and potential staff.
• Examine simple social media tools that schools can use to more widely distribute their message.
• Review steps to take your interactive strategy towards the ultimate goal of creating an engaged, sustainable community, both on and off line.

Stephanie Hughes is an Account Executive at zu and has worked with a variety of educational institutions, including SIAST and SIIT (Saskatchewan Indian Institute of Technology). Serving individual departments, entire school divisions, and specialized training centres has granted her well-rounded insight into the realm of schools. When combined with her knowledge of web trends, the newest interactive tools, and her own BBA and MBA experience, Stephanie will share a unique expertise with viewers.

David Francis is the Academic Director for SIAST’s Virtual Campus and has 15 years of experience in leading online learning initiatives. SIAST’s Virtual Campus is the institution’s centre of excellence for online course development and delivery, as well as website oversight, faculty training and print-distance materials. David will share his experiences in managing stakeholder expectations while delivering high quality initiatives for SIAST’s web properties and online training materials.

Register for the webcast replay

Read our Q&A transcript summary from this live webcast event to learn how to get more from your IR budget and transform your online annual report into an effective communication piece.

1. Is there a role for web 2.0 or social media in online annual reports and are there some examples you can share?

Dominic: I don’t have any examples that spring to mind but there are a handful of companies that are trying to engage their shareholders in discussion with a feedback form. There’s a lot of opportunity for social media in OAR. Think about using a video that might accompany a CEO Letter. You can use social bookmarking  for your OAR publicly and you can widgetize your reports and make them shareable. The reality is, there is going to be discussion about your annual report, whether you like it or not. It will happen on your site or off your site.

2. How long do you see annual reports and sustainability reports existing separately?

Tim: This is a good question and one we consider all the time. Every company has a different view, but from our perspective they are different reports, different users, and different time frames. Sustainability information is not available at the same time our annual report is released. Although we produce a summary manual we separate them. The user experience is different, too. If we did it all in print it would be trashed—no one wants to read a 200-page book anymore.

3. What is the use of videos in OAR and is there an opportunity for an OAR to be exclusively in video only?

Kate: Absolutely not. You want to provide your reporting information in as many different ways—that’s the point of the web—you need to give users options. The user might want to watch a video or download a pdf—let them do that. Barclays Annual Report provides a very good example of custom video just for their OAR; there is a section that includes six to seven speakers.

4. Regarding concepts of engagement in a sustainability report. Do you think companies always need to produce a complete printed report?

Tim: We look at who our primary users are. We have about 90% institutional shareholders. Our European base is far more concerned about sustainability than our North American shareholder base. As a trend, sustainability reports are becoming increasingly important for investors. Our perception studies show that investors think we are doing a good job in sustainability; we do focus on our user but we cannot plan our IR program around a very small portion of potential users. We still print a summary report but there is cost benefit for us to publish online.

5. What is your opinion on putting videos on YouTube? Are there any issues of disclosure?

Dominic: I don’t see any issues. As long as you enable people to share and interact. YouTube is also cheap.

6. As far as someone getting started with producing on OAR, what are the basics for functionality?

Dominic: As per my presentation, these are the minimum requirements:  HTML, searchable and print-friendly.

7. How big is the IR team at PotashCorp and how do you manage the process of producing so many online reports?

Tim: We have a small team and draw on additional support. One of the best things about PotashCorp is that everyone gets involved in disclosure. We have great support from the legal and financial side. We only produce one OAR a year so it isn’t that many to manage. As far as our overall focus is concerned we rely heavily on our investor relations team. It takes a lot of responsibility and we rely heavily on Creative Fire, zu and one or two other key players.

8. How about doing OAR for your mobile devices?

Kate: I think this is a forward-thinking question given the majority of people aren’t quite on the web properly. I think it’s important to get online first in the appropriate way we’ve discussed today. I would look at having an IR mobile site which has your stock price and news feeds for easy access. A mobile device has it’s own rules and limitations and it needs to read from a special browser script to display properly. Get your corporate site on your mobile device first then worry about your AR for mobile. I would challenge everybody to check out their own website on a mobile device.

Read our Q&A transcript summary from the Social Media for Sports Webcast to learn how the strategic use of social media tools in professional sports can boost your brand, expand your marketing reach, engage your fan base and create new sources of online revenue.

Q: Are teams scaling back on social media or are they adding social media to their existing programs and how does social media cost compared to traditional media?

A: Kathleen
The cost of using social media is miniscule and applying user-generated content to marketing programs is growing rapidly. But applying social media to programs should not be a standalone initiative. It needs to be an integrated effort.

A: Mike
I agree. Social media and traditional marketing needs to be put together—it is a joint effort. However, there is a time investment in applying social media to your programs; it takes time to upload your pics into Flickr and videos into YouTube but if you are already engaged you’ll find there is little cost if any. Social media should drive traffic to your existing programs and vice versa.

A: Trevor
If you apply social media to your programs you can extract trackable data from your campaigns, just like traditional media programs. You can monitor traffic to and from your site just like zu has done with StampsConnect. A lot of people ask me about ROI using social media; it is difficult to measure ROI but you can measure ROE [return on engagement].

Q: Aside from the social media tools discussed today, what other technology should teams and executives be aware of?

A: Trevor
Mobile technology, most definitely. Today, smart phones are outselling computers these days. The applications for iPhone and Blackberry phones are becoming more interactive. All the social media tools we have implemented into StampsConnect can be done on iPhones—it’s something we’re currently discussing with the Calgary Stampeders. Mobile technology allows for additional advertising revenue, too.

A: Kathleen
I’d like to add that our Buzz Manager application is another technology that teams and corporate executives can use to monitor your reputation and social media activity online. Widgets are another tool that showcase twitter feeds and customizable data. Our new website will be widgetized in the near future.

Q: I’ve created an animated character called ‘Mike’ and it will appear on jumbotrons in stadiums. Is it ok to ghost twitter as this fictional character ‘Mike’?

A: Kathleen
I will go on record as saying I am against ghost tweeting. At 140 characters anyone can do it. However, if ‘Mike’ is a mascot or sports character it does make a lot of sense for ‘Mike’ to tweet.

Q: What are the revenue opportunities for StampsConnect website and are there any challenges to get sponsorship because your website is powered by user-generated content?

A: Mike
There are lots of opportunities for revenue in StampsConnect. You could sponsor the entire site and gain even more exposure with our other traditional media [including our GameDay marketing]. You can also sell individual elements of the site; source out a camera brand name to sponsor our Flickr feed, for example. There are a lot of possibilities, and user-generated content has never been an objection I’ve had to deal with from sponsors. I would suggest integrating sponsorship opportunities into your online and offline marketing.

Q: Do you have any advice for young sports professionals that want to integrate social media into an organization?

A: Trevor
First of all, a person needs to set up Twitter and LinkedIn accounts and start joining groups and joining the conversation. This is how I initially connected with Sports Media Challenge; I was tweeting with Ryan Stephens, an employee at SMC a few months ago. One word of advice: instead of asking for things of value on Twitter, start giving and you’ll see how easy it is to become recognized and generate value from social media.

A: Kathleen
We are always looking for interns at Sports Media Challenge. Feel free to contact us if you would like more information. One word of advice is that you need to showcase what you know; just because you are on Twitter or Facebook it doesn’t mean you are an expert.

Q: If a sports organization had to choose between Facebook and Twitter, is there one you would recommend over the other?

A: Kathleen
In order to answer that, let me say this: remember who it is you are trying to engage—are you trying to deepen your relationship with fans you already have or are you trying to generate new fans? Facebook = people you already know, although this is a different age group than Twitter [34 years and younger]. Twitter = people you don’t know. At some point, your older fans will eventually drop off so you need to continuously generate new fans and keep getting younger people engaged.

A: Mike
I would add that there is value in teams using Facebook and for players to use Twitter. I find that Twitter is a more intimate exchange of information between players and fans. For example, a player can be on the bus arriving at a game and will tweet spontaneously. With Facebook, by the time you log in to your computer and start sharing your thoughts, that emotion or idea could have already changed. Twitter is immediate and spontaneous and the message can be shared with hundreds or thousands of followers.

A: Kathleen
Remember that using Facebook you have to invite people—this is a one-to-one relationship; with Twitter it could be a one-to-a-million relationship.

Q: What is more important: the number of fans following you or the quality of engagement?

A: Kathleen
In my opinion, quality of engagement is by far most important. This is what zu has built into StampsConnect. When fans share their passion online, their participation is more important than being a team that claims to have tens of thousands of fans that don’t participate in the conversation.

But on the writing of our webcast presentation: “Design for the Bottom Line: 5 Ways to Reuse Existing Materials for your IR Website”, I experienced that worthwhile feeling of having great clarity of thought after being compelled to make a clear case for the suggestions we supplied. When completing a formal audit of a client site we compare their website to their other IR materials, I also come to these a-ha moments where good ideas seem so clear. I guess that’s why folks like to blog, to fully understand their own thoughts and experiences.

Joining me on the panel were Patrick Heick from VSA Partners in Chicago and Thomas Rosenmayr from GeBer in Vienna, Austria. These companies, along with zu.com, were named as Great Online Annual Report Designers.

The session, “Annual Reports: How to Create Them for an Online World”, was moderated by Dominic Jones of IR WebReport. Dominic is a knowledgeable and respected person in the online Investor Relations field. He posted a great synopsis of what was presented at the session on his IR Web Report blog. Instead of writing my take on the session, I invite you read Dominic’s.