Presenter: Matt Hames, @mhames
Session Information
Early into his presentation, Matt Hames, Communications Strategist at Colgate University, explained that he had a bell in his office, which he gets to ring every time he convinces a colleague to not open a separate Facebook page. This was not the focus of his lively and informative talk titled “Using data to inform content” in the Marketing, Content, and Social Strategy track, but it was one of the points that rang with the attendees and on Twitter.
Walking the through his ten points of what he thought he knew about web and social media data, Hames illustrated how the patterns found in his data helped reinforce his strategy. He hit on everything from correcting content, to simplifying resources, to partnerships with companies like Evertrue to deliver additional data on alumni.
With so much data appearing every day, he explained, making a habit of collecting it will allow patterns to emerge, which will help make decisions on everything in your overall campus strategy from how many channels to use (only the ones with analytics, well useful analytics) to making strategic decisions for ads, targeting, and in-person follow up from admissions through alumni engagement opportunities. His presentation was full of data, jokey asides, and examples of his spreadsheets on Google Docs, and pictures of the gorgeous Colgate campus, all of which certainly resonated in the crowd.
Slides for Hames’ presentation can be found on Slideshare and he can be reached on Twitter at @mhames.