We’ve had the pleasure of partnering with American University on an Inbound Marketing Pilot Project for a little over a year now. Emily Schmidt is the Marketing and Communications Coordinator in the College of Arts and Sciences at American. She and I work together to plan, manage, publish and promote blog content for four graduate programs.

We asked Emily to answer some questions and share her thoughts on the highs and lows of starting a blog on campus. Check out her responses below:

Describe your role in starting a blog for the College of Arts and Sciences at American.

American University is collaborating with Converge Consulting for an inbound marketing pilot project, and starting a new blog was part of this process. The four College of Arts and Sciences graduate programs selected to launch the pilot each have their own blog that lives under the main AU blog site at au.blogs.american.edu:

• Audio Technology MA Blog
• Creative Writing MFA Blog
• Health Promotion Management MS Blog
• Public Anthropology MA Blog

As the CAS Marketing and Communications Manager, my role is to seek out new content, edit and post the blog content, and publicize the posts through social media, email communications, the website, and any other opportunity that arises.

What’s been your favorite part of starting a blog?

Having new options to promote degree programs always makes me happy, though my favorite part of the blog process so far has been reading the amazing content written by alumni, students, and faculty. It is really fulfilling to read first-hand accounts of the close-knit community of students at AU, the outstanding faculty mentorship offered, or the many opportunities that students take advantage of in the DC area.

Describe some of the challenges.

Time and resources are always a challenge. Even if you are paying writers to write the content, it still takes time to strategically think about what content you want to highlight and how to best promote the finished product.

How do you feel about WordPress as a CMS tool for blogs?

WordPress is very user friendly. The templates are extremely intuitive and it only takes a couple minutes to tell people how to post, including individuals that are not tech-savvy.

Are there any posts that are creating a buzz on campus? What sort of feedback are you getting about the content you’re posting?

We are getting great feedback on campus, though our ultimate goal for the blogs is to reach new prospective students and have content that could help admitted students decide to enroll into a degree program. Based on Analytics data, we know we are getting a good amount of organic traffic, and we can also see what posts are the most successful. It is also good to dig into Analytics data to see different types of successes. For instance, our list style posts (such as 6 Places to Write & Get Inspired in Washington, DC), typically have a higher click through rate, though posts that focus on research (AU Student Part of National Geographic Excavation) or program highlights (The Art and Science of Audio Technology) tend to have a longer time on page.

How are blog topics decided? 

We have a goal to publish two blog posts per month for each of the program blogs. Posts feature a mix of program highlights, alumni success, faculty research, and current student opportunities. The posts are planned very far in advance to coincide with the application timeline. More general posts were published early in the year, and more targeted posts that would be of interest to admitted students were published after admission decisions were sent out.

What’s your promotion strategy for blog posts?

Besides featuring on the website, we post content on numerous social media accounts, multiple email communications, and share the blog links with prospective students as much as possible. Tagging on social media has helped us reach a much wider audience, and including blog posts in email communications to prospective students has resulted in a higher click through rate.

Do you have any advice for others that are thinking to start a blog at their school?

• Set your strategy, goals, and a timeline before you start gathering content.
• Determine how will the content will be different than the news articles already used on the university website. Will the blog be more casual? Include more first-person accounts?
• Use project management software to keep things moving forward smoothly, especially if you have more than one blog or have multiple different departments that need to approve content.
• Be realistic – do you have staff that can actually maintain the blog? If not, you might want to stick with news articles that are currently being used on the university website.

Have fun! Whether the blog posts feature a student that premiered his first documentary film or a faculty member working with the Healthy Schools Act, it is always nice to have additional opportunities to publicize the programs.

Have you pioneered a blog strategy on your campus? We’d love to hear about your experience in the comments below.