The Digital Recruitment Ecosystem: Moving prospects from interest to enrollment online.

This talk will detail how colleges should integrate traditional recruitment activities such as search mailings, open houses, college fairs, telephone recruitment with the capabilities now offered by the Internet. We'll look at how the world has changed for prospects today and how they respond to various forms of communication. We'll also discuss how colleges should use tools such as email, social networking, online chats, and cost-per-lead online advertising, in conjunction with the traditional tools schools are already using. You don't have to throw the proverbial baby out with the bathwater to recruit students today...you just need to know how to make the new tools do what they do best!

Convert or Die! How to get phantom applicants to move from acceptance to enrollment.

College admissions offices have had to deal with a recurring trend of the "phantom applicant": the applicant who you've never heard of until they apply to your school (often online). Online applications have made it easier than ever for students to apply and as a result, they're now applying to more schools than ever. But how do you get them to actually enroll once they've been accepted? This talk explores new ways for colleges to interact with accepted students, and to encourage Admissions to use tools, such as social networking with special "accepted students" sites, personalized emails, IM, and other technologies.

Global Web, Local Prospects: Online Graduate Recruitment for Professional Masters' Programs

More and more schools are going online to recruit undergraduates, but how do you reach the prospects for your professional Masters programs...the most profitable programs on campus? While most of us understand how to cast a wide net using online advertising, few understand how to use online media to reach local audiences. You'll learn about concepts such as geotargeting, keyword marketing, and how to identify local influencers through blogs, discussion boards, and social networking in order to reach the local audiences that feed your professional graduate programs.

Buzz, Brands, and Babes: Finding Out How Your School's Really Being Portrayed Online...and what to do about it.

If you think that you're controlling your brand online through your Web site, think again: user-created media sites such as CollegeHumor.com, Ratemyprofessor.com, and even Facebook can have a huge impact on how your brand's perceived online. If you don't believe it, give it a try: go to one of these sites and search for your school. But be warned...what you find may not be safe for work!

So how can you influence your brand online when so much of what's said on the web is out of your control? This talk will examine how "buzz" is built online, how viral media can explode without warning, and how a little understanding about how social media works can help you have a huge impact with your brand.

Web 360: A Process for Really Understanding What's Going On With Your Site...And What You Need To Do About It

When you work with your web site every day, it's tough to be able to look at what you're doing objectively. As a result, decisions about design, information architecture, and branding are often overly influenced by myopic "insider" viewpoints. They can often be completely off the mark when it comes to appealing to prospects and others outside your institution. This talk will look at how to use tools such as media audits, web analytics, technology analyses, transactional analysis, audience interviews, and even ethnographic research to get a new perspective on your site in order to build a blueprint for success.