Tag Archives: Education

Blogs without RSS = Shouting in a rural area

Posted on by jesskry
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I just tried to do a search for college access blogs through Google and found a few – much to my happy surprise! But, I was quickly denied any further gratification by realizing that none of them had (working) RSS feeds! A few had feeds, but those didn’t work, but the majority had none at all. If college access practitioners want to spread the word about the work that they are doing – very helpful to those trying to recreate this work from scratch – then adding RSS is a must. Without it, you rely on your audience to be engaged enough to run back and check for updates.

Do them a favor and offer working RSS feeds! They’ll love you for it.


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Are We Really All On Board With Social Bookmarking?

Posted on by jesskry
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I recently attended a national summit for College Planning Centers to discuss ways in which they could incorporate new media into their strategies. As questions rose regarding using social bookmarking sites (Delicious, Digg, Technorati, etc.) I began to get uneasy. How will the college access arena rally around this new technology if they cannot agree on terms to tag?

While I may be doing a great job tagging articles ‘education’ and ‘college access’ and ‘financial aid’, others may be doing something different. It was brought up that much more education is needed regarding new and social media in this industry to enable us to really harness the power that social bookmarking offers. Add to this, that much content of interest to college access practitioners does not allow users to socially bookmark it.

I will be working on definitions of prevalent new media and its uses for college access organizations as well as pitching groups of key words for their use. Also, if people aren’t sharing their bookmarks or funnelling them into one shared site, then much of our collective efforts could be wasted. If you would like more information, to be involved or have ideas, please email me at jessicakrywosa@gmail.com.

More to come…


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On the Ground and In the Air

Posted on by jesskry
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I’m finding that there’s a disconnect among people regarding marketing being equally as involved in on the ground and in the air type work. Most seem to think marketing ends where ground campaigns begin, but I beg to differ.

This idea stems from the concern that traditional marketing has been notorious for being a push medium. The ‘new’ marketing is all about pull – being an active participant in the trenches with your consumer/client. Social marketing has always been about this: understanding your target market and finding a creative way to change their behavior (or solve their problem). Funny how traditional marketing is just now beginning to play the game this way. To them I say, welcome to the team.

For those non profits who think marketing is not for them think about how you do your outreach. You have a problem to solve whether its getting parents to show up for a parent night or finding out how to reach your rural populations. These are problems that social marketers can help you solve – and better yet, show you how to find out the solution so that you may do so on your own in the future.


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