Mobile Websites
Good Question Does CASE have any recommendations or best practices for developing a mobile website and samples from institutions that have already done so?

Social Media Policies
Sample Collection The CASE InfoCenter maintains this collection of policies related to the use of social media in educational institutions.

Where Younger Donors Go for Data
CURRENTS Article Young major donors research causes on the web, according to new research noting the importance of donor-friendly websites.

Weathering the Superstorm
CURRENTS Article This article looks at how some colleges and universities in New York and New Jersey communicated with its stakeholders during and after Hurricane Sandy in late 2012 and briefly discusses some of the advancement issues they had to address as communities dealt with the superstorm's aftereffects.

Using Digital Communications in Stewardship Activities
Podcast Hear what fundamentals UC-Davis' Angela Joens believes an institution should have in place before it uses the latest technology to steward donors and alumni. Also, hear why she believes donor relations offices should hire and mentor the next generation of advancement professionals.

Expert Shares Effective Practices in Online Newsrooms
Article If a journalist, student, alumnus or community member went to your institution’s news site today, would they find what they are looking for? If you’re not sure, it may be time to give your online newsroom a facelift.

Artistic Statement
CURRENTS Article Simon Fraser University brings its strategic vision statement to life with a graphic animation video that illustrates its priorities and brand attributes.

Keeping Pace
CURRENTS Article This article looks at how the continuous change in technology and communications tools—particularly social media—are changing the way advancement communications offices operate.

Copyright & Licensing for Images and Multimedia
Good Question Does CASE have information about copyright and licensing for multimedia? Where can we obtain inexpensive or free music and images to use on our website and in social media?

Infographics
Sample Collection The CASE InfoCenter maintains this collection of education institutions' infographics and data visualizations used to convey advancement-related data and stories.

Infographics
Good Question Does the InfoCenter have resources that discuss best practices for designing infographics? What about examples of infographics created for advancement purposes?

Proper Etiquette for Videoconferencing
Article Videoconferencing isn’t a combination of talking on the phone and meeting in person. It is its own thing, with its own set of rules, says a communications expert.

All Together Now
CURRENTS Article This article looks at how the public affairs department and admissions office at the College of the Holy Cross collaborated to overhaul and update the college's admissions recruitment materials, print and online, and how the process not only improved the products but also improved the working relationship between the departments and set an example for the campus. The authors discuss the lessons they learned from the process and the importance of some of the choices they made along the way.

Setting a Sensible Smartphone Policy
Article Smartphones have become a standard employee accessory in many professions, but one management expert says managers need to do a better job of explaining to their employees why they have been given one.

Annual Report Angst?
CURRENTS Article A chart shows different formats for foundations' annual reports and what percentage of foundations are using each format.

K-12 Parents Prefer Email, Website Communication to Social Networks
Article Parents of elementary- and secondary-school-age children prefer to be contacted by schools via email—but they give low priority to social media, according to a new survey.

Study: Mobile Social Networking, Tumblr on the Rise in 2011
Article Do you use your phone to get your Facebook fix? If so, you’re part of a growing number of social networkers, according to a new global study on the social media landscape.

Does Your Website Need Work? You Might be Off the List
Article A new survey reports that nearly 50 percent of students say a bad institutional website experience would have a negative effect on their perception of a school—and one in five students says a bad website would cause them to remove a school from consideration.

New Rules of Marketing & PR: How to Use Social Media, Online Video, Mobile Applications, Blogs, News Releases, and Viral Marketing to Reach Buyers Directly
Product This book discusses the latest techniques for marketing products, services and ideas using new and changing digital technology. Includes new information on mobile marketing and real-time public relations.

Study Finds Racial, Generational Differences in Online Cause Engagement
Article African-Americans and Hispanics are significantly more likely than Caucasians to believe that they can help support a cause or social issue through online social networks. And while younger Americans are also more likely to use social media to support causes, more than 40 percent still get information about causes through family, friends and television.

Global Greetings
CURRENTS Article This article discusses Mount Holyoke College's efforts to involve its international alumnae and other audiences to make the inauguration of its 18th president a global event. The communications team leveraged the Web and social media, in addition to traditional communications tactics and tools, to reach out to its constituents. The article also discusses how the team measured and followed up on its efforts, from thanking staff to increasing its use of video to communicate with alumnae and other audiences.

Building Something More
CURRENTS Article The College of Liberal Arts and Sciences at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign uses a website, social media, video, and photography to highlight the facelift of an institutional landmark while investing in the future with a scholarship program for its students.

Content Strategy: 20 Tips for Powerful, Story-Driven Branding and Communications
Product This webinar focuses on tips for organizing a story-based content strategy across an organization’s communication channels. Examples from Nazareth College are used to illustrate how institutions can create a content strategy and keep it working. This multimedia file is a recording of a webinar originally presented April 12, 2011.

Internet Use Encourages Offline Participation
Article Internet users may once have been stereotyped as antisocial basement-dwellers, but a recent study has shown that the opposite is now true: Pew's Internet and American Life project found that three-quarters of all U.S. adults are active in some kind of voluntary group or organization, and Internet users are more likely than others to be active.

Homing in on Hits
CURRENTS Article A flash mob at The Ohio State University's student union that went viral got a campus communicator thinking about what makes some videos popular, which has led to some experimenting and strategizing to develop ideas that elicit what may be the key: authentic, happy reactions.

Office Space: Asset Management
CURRENTS Article Today's students are naturals when it comes to creating content for the Web and social media. This article discusses how to involve them in telling the story of your institution and things to consider when working with these content creators.

Hacer contacto
CURRENTS Article Este artículo habla sobre cómo las instituciones están utilizando, mensajes de texto, video, correos electrónicos, blogs, foros de discusión en línea, redes sociales y aplicaciones para el teléfono celular como medios de mercadotecnia para alcanzar a futuros y actuales estudiantes que consideran que el correo electrónico es un medio lento y pasado de moda.

Office Space: Strategic View
CURRENTS Article This article discusses who at an institution, depending on the campus, may be involved in devising social media strategy but makes it clear that partnerships across departments are essential. It also provides examples based on the experience of a few institutions and offers a sample social media brief that helped guide the author in discussions with colleagues who requested a separate social media presence for their group, office, or department.

Making Contact
CURRENTS Article This article discusses how institutions are using texting, video e-mail, marketing techniques, student blogs, private social networks, mobile applications, and more to try to reach prospective and currents students at a time when e-mail is viewed as old-fashioned and slow.

Medios combinados
CURRENTS Article Manejar el fragmentado entorno mediático actual y aprovechar las redes sociales son acciones críticas para el éxito de la prensa.

Digital PR Expert: Start Thinking Digitally About Communications
Article Like it or not, digital communications tools are becoming more and more ingrained in marketers' jobs. But with the right steps, even old-school marketers can successfully integrate digital communications into their overall strategies. That's according to one prominent social media expert who blogs on the intersection of communications, public relations and media.

Opinionated Tweets
CURRENTS Article Researchers at Carnegie Mellon University have found that Twitter messages are capable of capturing "important large-scale trends" in much the same way as public opinion polls do.

The Future Is Here
CURRENTS Article Research universities have banded together to create Futurity.org, a website that aggregates their research in the form of accessible, engaging news stories.

Mixed Media
CURRENTS Article Successful media relations in today’s world require institutions to communicate their message online and across several social media platforms as well as to traditional media. The article discusses institutions’ use of YouTube, Facebook, Twitter, blogs, and distinct distribution channels to disseminate stories to their various audiences and constituents.

Odds and Ends: Where the President Knows Your Name
CURRENTS Article In this interview, Walter Kimbrough, president of Philander Smith College, talks to CURRENTS about his use of social media, as well as the impact philanthropy can have on historically black colleges and universities.

News That Woos
CURRENTS Article Bowdoin College offers alumni, students, and friends an online news website, the Bowdoin Daily Sun, that keeps them up-to-date about campus happenings as well as aggregates news clips from other, national publications about what's going on in the world.

Advance Work: Tweet and Greet
CURRENTS Article The University of Leeds uses Twitter to communicate about its annual fund drive. Student phonathon callers tweet about the nightly results and other information of note.

Advance Work: Not the Same Song and Dance
CURRENTS Article While poking fun at themselves, the University of Delaware admissions department might have shown potential students the lighter side of the institution.

Security Locks
CURRENTS Article Institutions should create a communications policy that reaches anyone with access to data.

In Full Bloom
CURRENTS Article The digital age is upon us, with technology reshaping the way institutions interact with students, faculty, alumni, and donors. Find out how this new age is changing the world of communications and marketing, alumni relations, and development.

Recetas para Alcanzar el Éxito
CURRENTS Article Las redes sociales están cambiando la forma como interactúan las instituciones con los estudiantes, los profesores, los ex alumnos y los donadores. Debido a su tamaño, las escuelas independientes se encuentran, a menudo, a la vanguardia de la tecnología. Descubra cómo se comunican de forma más eficiente las escuelas a través de las redes sociales.

Recipes for Success
CURRENTS Article Social media is changing the way institutions interact with students, faculty, alumni, and donors. Because of their size, many times independent schools are on the bleeding edge of technology. Find out how schools are communicating more efficiently through social media.

Effective Use of Social Media can Positively Impact Student Recruitment
Article Navigating social networking can be tricky, but presenters at a recent CASE Online Speaker Series say institutions that follow certain ground rules and aren’t afraid to make mistakes can positively impact student recruitment and retention rates.

Operation Reputation
CURRENTS Article In today's world of social media, users can post their own thoughts, comments, and content, and readers can take it as fact. So how do institutions navigate the networks and find fact rather than fiction? Take a look at how you can police the posts and still maintain credibility.

Older Adults Take to Social Networking Sites
Article New research from U.K. media regulator Ofcom indicates that teenagers and young adults are spending less time on social networking sites even as their parents, teachers and other older adults are increasingly using the sites.

Office Space: Found in Translation
CURRENTS Article Knowing how to navigate the wild frontier of Web 2.0

Streaming Media
CURRENTS Article In today's changing digital landscape, marketing and communications professionals need to develop a strategy for how to integrate the new media with the old.

Social Media Continues to Grow in College Admissions
Article In a related article, two new studies report that admissions offices in colleges and universities are increasingly using blogs, Facebook, Twitter and other social media to communicate with students.

Yes, You Can
CURRENTS Article This article takes a close look at the presidential campaign of Barack Obama, which merged old-fashioned grass-roots politics with new technology, shattered fundraising records, and energized millions of people, and explores the ways in which its lessons can be used by advancement professionals.

Advance Work: Map Attack
CURRENTS Article Dickinson College is using Google Maps to put a new spin on the alumni directory.

Hiding in Plain Sight
CURRENTS Article This article, a complement to "User Generation," examines how, with the advent of Web 2.0 technologies, crises can blow out of proportions in a matter of minutes. The author outlines strategies for preparing, managing, and surviving a crisis in a hyper-connected, always-on news world.

User Generation
CURRENTS Article Web 2.0 might sound like tech jargon or just another buzzword, but it's more than that--it's a paradigm shift in communications that is greatly affecting education. This article defines the term and offers some background, describes how it relates to technology, outlines how and why Web 2.0 affects education, and offers a detailed description of the new mix of marketing and communications channels campuses should consider as part of a strategic communications plan. A sidebar, "Steps to You 2.0," outlines practical recommendations to get advancement/marketing professionals up to speed with Web 2.0. A complementary article, "Hiding in Plain Sight," explores effective crisis communications in a Web 2.0 world.

Changing Lanes
CURRENTS Article Aided by advances in Internet and cell phone technology, "citizen" journalists are shaping the news like never before. But this new brand of journalism isn't dependent on tragic events or breaking news--blogs, podcasts, and more affect the gathering, transmission, and shaping of the news. This article examines these and other trends in journalism, including information on demand and audience fragmentation, and how they might affect education. This article does not include case studies or tips for navigating this new media landscape, but rather offers campus communications professionals serious food for thought.

Talking Points: Paying Complements
CURRENTS Article Microsites, also known as landing pages, are powerful tools that allow audiences to respond to an appeal without having to navigate a main Web site. Institutions can use microsites to communicate personalized, focused marketing messages to specific target audiences. This article outlines some of the ways in which campuses and other organizations are using microsites, including handling such tasks as registrations and online ordering, and the benefits of using them, such as that they create more interest, more interaction, and greater measurement opportunities.

Nonprofit Internet Strategies: Best Practices for Marketing, Communications, and Fundraising
Product This book discusses ways that charitable organizations can analyze their options and select the appropriate strategy to integrate traditional marketing, communications and fundraising practices with their online efforts.

Talking Points: Net Assets
CURRENTS Article More than 200 academic institutions, 60 corporations, and 40 research and education organizations are part of Internet2, a member-based, nonprofit corporation working to develop a faster, more reliable, private, and more secure Internet. Building on the partnership that developed the original Internet, Internet2 seeks to contribute to the next wave of advanced networking.

A More Perfect Union
CURRENTS Article Although communications and IT departments on many campuses may still be battling about who should own and maintain the Web site, it's important for the two offices to develop and maintain a good working relationship. In this article, the author--who previously worked in PR but now works in IT--offers an inside look at the University of Maryland-Baltimore County's successful PR/IT partnership and how to better manage the relationship for results that benefit the campus, such as a better Web site or better communication about technology issues.

Making the Right Connections
CURRENTS Article Six senior advancement practitioners, including consultant Michael Stoner and ProfNet founder Dan Forbush, discuss how technologies such as databases, the Internet (both Web sites and e-mail), and cell phones have affected campuses' relationships with their constituents and the work of advancement. Part of the issue focus on five forces shaping advancement.

Closing Remarks: Spider or Fly?
CURRENTS Article CEOs must be attentive to an institution’s Web presence, since it is becoming the most important means of advancement. Prospective students will compare campus sites to commercial sites, so consistency, ease of use, and carefully designed e-commerce capabilities are important. Web sites are an ongoing financial commitment and should be part of an overall marketing and communications strategy. The Internet will also lead to new constituent demands for involvement