News flash: Your site is important. It needs its own staffing.
Contributed by: Terry Hamrick
Director of Interactive Services, Stein Communications
Let me state what you and I already know: The web has become the first choice for researching a wide range of topics, from the best microwave to the best college or university. Word of mouth on the Internet and web users seeking reassurance about their choices and decisions — in social media such as blogs and online communities, among others — are powerful new trends that are reshaping marketing, public relations, and the way institutions, both private and public, interact with their audiences and constituents.
From the growing pile of studies showing the importance of the web in the college search process, let’s take a quick review of results from a recent study released by The Princeton Review.
First choice for researching colleges
The 2006 National Survey of Website Usage in Undergraduate and Graduate School Search (.doc) (6,885 undergraduate surveys; 2,184 graduate) shows that undergraduate school-bound students spend 80.5 percent of their total school search and research time using the web. Graduate school-bound students spend 81.7 percent of their total search and research time on the web.
Furthermore, according to the study, school-bound students rate as their five most valuable search aids/tools (in terms of percentage reporting valuable and very valuable):
Undergraduate school-bound
- Institutional web sites, 82 percent
- Print materials, 77 percent
- The school visit, 66 percent
- Higher education research websites, 65 percent
- Guide books, 60 percent
Graduate school-bound
- Institutional web sites, 76 percent
- Graduate school admissions staff, 57 percent
- Higher education research web sites, 55 percent
- Print materials, 52 percent
- Graduate school rankings, 51 percent
With these kinds of numbers and trends in mind, the issue is no longer if the web should be considered a critical facet of institutional communications and marketing, but when, and by how much, it should be funded and staffed as an essential communications and outreach function of the college or university.
We are beyond the question of traditional channels (viewbooks, ads, PR, news releases, etc.) versus the Internet channel (and all its facets). Today, it has to be both.
Your brand face to the world
Your web site is your brand face to the world. Its visibility can be tens to hundreds of thousands of views a month, available 24/7, and its reach is potentially every computer user on the globe.
Now, you’re not going to be visited by every computer user on the globe, but the actual and potential visibility of your institution’s web site underscores the need for it to be top-of-mind in any strategy planning involving the institution’s branding, messaging, communications, and — not to be overlooked — improved customer service initiatives. Nothing has the potential to telegraph an institution’s organizational discord, inefficient processes, and lack of mission focus more quickly than its web site.
And while the web makes it easy to publish lots of content — and academic institutions certainly have no lack of content — the uncoordinated publishing of that content can be highly counterproductive. It’s important to move beyond the “because we can, we should” publish-it-on-the-web thinking of the last century. We all know how busy and information-overloaded everybody is in this century. Your site visitors are no exception. They are looking to use their time efficiently on your site. After all, they also have to check their MySpace page, answer waiting IMs, and text the gang.
You need to provide key site visitors with content and web services better focused on their specific needs and the tasks they want to accomplish online. This may entail difficult, but necessary, decisions on site audiences, approach, and focus. And it will require dedicated and continuing attention to the details.
Dedicated staff and funding
With that in mind, oversight of this critical communications channel should have dedicated staff and funding. This seems obvious, but I still encounter a surprising number of institutions where site management is unfocused and scattered, with those trying to do the job working in a vacuum of limited support from the top.
As a beginning, an institution should look at adding, or identifying from current staff, at least one full-time staff member whose duties are solely based on the communications, messaging, and content aspects of the web site. I’ll call this person the Web Content Manager — but it could be Web Editor, Web Communications Director, pick your title — with the intention that this position is oriented towards content, user experience, and site management; and is not a webmaster, developer, or other technical position. (You need the techies too.)
I see the Web Content Manager (WCM) as a bridge person who works with both the campus community and the IT side to ensure that an institution’s web experience is of the highest possible quality and on target. For example, the WCM:
- Makes sure marketing, branding, and style standards are applied site-wide.
- Ensures consistency of content and message and cheerleads content contributors across campus.
- Champions the user experience of site visitors and works with IT and administration to ensure that technical decisions and site features are always pro-site visitor.
- Works as an evangelist for web communications and technologies in institutional funding and policy decisions.
Needless to say, depending on the size of your institution and site, the WCM may be just the starting point for a more expansive and dedicated web management staff, perhaps with a mix of additional full-time, part-time/student intern, and external contract/as-needed staffing.
What happens after launch?
When an institution undergoes a web redesign project, an important (and unfortunately often inadequately addressed) question for the college or university becomes: What happens after launch?
It should be remembered that your new, attractively designed and appropriately branded pages are meant first and foremost to be found and read. The launch of a new site without an ongoing maintenance plan or staffing and budgeting in place to manage the content, navigation continuity, and design of the new site going forward will only result, in fairly short order, in a new site with the same old familiar problems.
Lack of post-launch attention is not the way to ensure the best return on your institution’s considerable investment of the time and money involved in a site redesign. Furthermore, for those thinking along the lines of a content management system “magic bullet,” the installation of a CMS will not solve issues of content relevance and maintenance. While the CMS can provide a consistently structured and accessible presentation of your site; there is, as far as I know, no CMS to date that can write, edit copy, recruit content contributors, or take attractive photos.
Plan for your web site to succeed. Dedicate the resources — both staffing and funding — to allow your web site to flourish and serve as a beneficial resource to your key constituents, particularly prospective students. They’ll appreciate your effort, and you’re sure to see positive results.