1:15-2:30 PM PST (75 minutes)
Advancement and Social Media: What the Research Reveals
In 2010, CASE partnered with mStoner and Slover Linett Strategies to conduct the first-ever research on how independent schools, colleges and universities were using social media in institutional advancement. We just completed our second study. This session offers an in-depth look at how institutions shifted their strategies for managing social media, with insights on how they're staffing social media; how they're using it in fundraising, affinity-building and marketing; what are the most important (and effective) channels; and how they're measuring success. Since we're releasing the initial findings from our research at the conference, you'll be the first to know about what we've learned!

2:45-4:00 PM PST (75 minutes)
ADVANCED
Are You Listening? Brand Monitoring and Social Media Engagement
Social media is all about engagement, and engagement starts with listening. As the medium has matured and user numbers rise, advancement professionals working with social media platforms have been confronted with an increasing amount of choice about the tools they use to listen, measure and engage in conversations across the social web. This session explores the range of options from free, self-service tools to full-service, fee-based vendors.

Day 2, Thursday, April 14

9:00-10:15 AM PST (75 minutes)
BUILDING BLOCK
SM Analytics
He who has the most followers doesn't always win. There are a number of tools available to measure the success of a social media program. The challenge is determining which metrics are actually meaningful. This session will explore the ways to measure effectiveness on Facebook, Twitter and other social media platforms.

Day 3, Friday, April 15

9:00-10:15 AM PST (75 minutes)
ADVANCED
Connecting Your Alumni Site to the Social Web
The social web certainly gives us quick and easy ways to publish our content, but that's only part of the story. The social web has also opened up tremendous opportunities to integrate the alumni experience more deeply with social networks through open APIs (application programming interfaces-hooks into social network databases) and an emerging set of vendors who facilitate this connection. Imagine allowing alums to log in to your alumni site with their favorite social network login. Imagine allowing them to import data they have already painstakingly crafted in other social networks, like profile photos, contact information, professional information, and friend/contact connections that can be used to drive alumni site functionality. And imagine merging your data with social network data to deliver new features like a reunion "Look Who's Coming" list that can be sorted by an alum's LinkedIn contacts or Facebook friends. Hear how Stanford is embarking on an effort to securely allow alums to use their favorite social network login and data to ease and enrich their experience on Stanford alumni websites, in the hope of increasing site usage, site stickiness and alumni engagement.

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10:30-11:45 AM PST (75 minutes)
Making the Case for Investment in Social Media
In a 2010 survey, more than 900 social media managers in education described the greatest barriers to their social media success. The most cited obstacles were a lack of dedicated staff and inadequate budgets. This panel discussion explores different approaches to obtaining senior-level buy-in for increasing social media resources.

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Pricing

Register now to receive these introductory rates!
Click on the registration link at the top of this section.