I was interviewed by Matt Klawitter in Nov. 2011 for his blog series on “hiring trends and possibilities in higher education and digital marketing”. I cannot say it better than Matt, “MSU is an example of social media success”. Check out Matt’s story and the interview to learn more about what makes MSU a social media success.

Today I’d like to share with you a project, that was started exactly one year, the Graduating Student T-Shirt or “My Name Is On Senior Walk” t-shirt program. In short it’s the number one way we have found to keep up with our graduating students and get their information before we lose touch with them.

Unlike what you typically find when someone is talking about social media integration/marketing campaign I’m not referring to the act of putting your message everywhere and simply shouting it to the world. This is quite a common tactic for marketing groups to say that they have done a social media campaign simply by pushing their message everywhere they possibly can. Yet, if you’ve spent a little time in the social media world you know that simply won’t suffice anymore. Instead, I took this opportunity to help the Association integrate the true value of social media, one-to-one connections, into the event and increase the understanding of why we’ve been taking this “everyone is a person” approach to our social media marketing efforts. I’m glad to say that all our efforts are continuing to pay off.

I frequently hear concerns around the idea that e-newsletters are outdated or even unnecessary due to social media marketing efforts. Nowadays with Facebook, Twitter and blogs we can communicate more often than once a month or every other month, so are e-newsletters really fulfilling the needs for our alumni & friends? Email is NOT dead!

If you haven’t heard yet then it is with great pride that I got to attend the 2010 Association of Fundraising Professionals Northwest Arkansas Chapter Summit this year on September 9, 2010 at the Jones Center for Families in Springdale. I was invited back again this year to talk about “Social Media” and how it can be useful for fundraising professionals.