The power of online presence & marketing, how to adapt & employ the new opportunities

Ladies and gentlemen, I'm honoured to welcome you to the very first world higher education ranking summit that brings together the world's brightest minds in higher education, most prominent change-makers, government officials, and innovators, to adopt new technologies that will drive your institution forward. And today's topic is crucial for universities across the world, the power of online presence and marketing, and how to adopt and employ the new opportunities.

And I'm honoured today because we have a truly extraordinary human joining us today. Dennis Wakabayashi. Dennis is currently one of the leading voices around the world on the topics of customer experience, social media, and digital marketing. In 2021, Dennis was a keynote speaker at the World Marketing Summit, West African customer experience summit, and many, many other distinguished conferences around the world 2022.

Dennis was named as the customer experience influencer for Expo 2020 Dubai. Dennis is an instructor at Wisconsin Madison and a professor in digital marketing and the university at the same university. So, Dennis, I'm honoured to have you with us. And as you know, we have the audience of the world's most prominent academics watching us today. Faculty members staff, everyone who's interested in the power of online presence. So my question to you, as we start is why keeping a digital presence should be at the forefront of every university.

Why keeping a digital presence should be at the forefront of every university
Well, Angelica, thank you for having me today. I would say, keeping digital marketing social media content at the forefront of all things that both personal brands, universities, governmental institutions, and corporations, at the front of their mind-set is crucial these days, specifically, because everyone is a content creator. Now I think we see this in students, they're avid content, consumers, and creators.

We know that the algorithms Google, Bing, YouTube, Facebook, Instagram, Tik-Tok, and LinkedIn, all of these algorithms require content to fuel their initiatives. So, therefore, we see that the entire communication ecosystem demands a high amount of content. And for that reason, every one of us, whether it's personal or professional, should be thinking about content and marketing as we go forward.

That is true. And many universities across the globe do not harness the power of online marketing.
How universities can use the power of their online presence to communicate with a broader audience
Well, first of all, I would probably say, not only can all universities use the power of social media, algorithms, and marketing, they are all subject to the algorithms and this context of having to participate in the algorithms. Not exactly even by choice makes it so that we have to create content, we have to have a strategy that integrates content and tells our stories to the audiences of the internet. So that's a lot of buzzwords, let me give you some examples there, we'd see that students, particularly during COVID have shifted a lot online. This has increased the competency of students around digital communication combined with the student's desire to consume and create content creating a situation where all of us are in a position to leverage content and move it forward in the algorithms. So, universities need to adopt a strategy. And I like to think of a strategy all digital strategies in terms of three distinct focuses, reputation, reach, and relationships.

So, when we think about the context of reputation, what do students think about a university? How do universities position themselves with other instructors, other colleges, and other professionals in the industry, reputation is essential to be built. From there a strong reputation tends to reach more people. So, you see a university that has a strong reputation, tends to draw more students’ better instructors.

And what we also see there is in that third step of relationships, you see alumni, you see, professional associations, relationships all play a huge factor in the continued reputation of any brand, frankly, on the internet. So, for those reasons, I think the university should adopt a strategy of building a strong reputation, increasing their reach their relevant reach, and strong relationships. I would go on to say, while we all probably know that intrinsically in some way, in our minds, how do we apply what we know about content to those three buckets? And I would say there are only three kinds of content that are used for success on the internet. I'm going to pause there because we see a lot of different kinds of content on the internet.

And although we see a lot of content, the vast majority of content is user-generated content by the people, for the people, it doesn't necessarily mean that it's driving a particular behaviour or an outcome. So, when you think of yourself as a university, what you want to know is, does my content achieve an outcome that's positive for ourselves for our students? And to do that, you have to have three key components, three key kinds of content. The first one is educational content. What we know as instructors is information that is presented also needs an application. So, content that's created that has both new information and an applied and a way to apply that information. That's educational content, we have secondarily, and we have emotional content, which evokes some sort of emotion, whether it's a feeling of happiness, inspiration, or aspiration.

But our entertainment content needs to be simple. So, we want, for instance, a picture of puppies always works to evoke a happy emotion. The problem is, and this is what the nuance here if you mix educational and emotional content in the incorrect ways, you get cancelled culture. So, I think what is, in the mind of a lot of universities is, most importantly, how I avoid cancelled culture.

And so, a strong understanding of educational content versus emotional content and not mixing the two often is a strong approach to building a strong reputation, extending your reach, and creating long-term relationships. The third type of content is engagement content. So now we have educational content, we have entertainment content, and now we have engagement content.

Engagement content is the dialogue that we have with our students, whether it's in the chat windows, whether it's in the social media channels, and that ironically, or most importantly the content that drives the algorithm best. So, what I mean by that is, every time there's a back and forth between an audience member and a brand or university, let's say, every time there's an exchange, the algorithms recognize that is highly valuable in terms of how the algorithm looks at all of us. So, what I would say there is educational content that teaches elevates the minds, and instructs the world is a huge genre that universities clean into entertainment content, separately at our websites, in our social media channels that celebrate the success of universities and students is important.

And then finally, how we manage the engagement in the social media channels, on our websites in the chat windows is crucial to the algorithms. And that's the full prescription of how universities can leverage this new digital landscape in a perspective that's useful to them. Wow, that was a long answer.
Thank you so much, Dennis. I believe this is super insightful. For everyone watching this, I guess that our audience is taking notes as you speak. And it's so phenomenal how AI determines what we see and what we consume. I, to be honest, I'm very new to this topic.

And having an expert in that field as yourself and it helps us to understand how our online behaviour is already predicted. And to use it for a good use for the success of the institution. This is a very big thing, and it's very difficult.

And with the number of students enrolled in higher education expected to reach more than 262 million by 2025.

This is the time when higher education facilities are starting to realize that they need to stand out amongst the crowd, they need to be different, they need to act differently, and how they can.

You occasionally come across fantastic universities, such as those with amazing offline facilities. They are unsure of how to convey this information to prospective graduates who will attend that particular university, whether they be their graduates or those of schools they are interested in. And what guidance would you provide them? What makes them unique?

I think you said something very important there about AI, we also use the term algorithm. We also can interchangeably use the word search, how do universities stand out in this ecosystem?

You also said something very, I thought, important to that conversation, which is doing or positively interacting with algorithms. People oftentimes think of algorithms, they get sort of painted as maybe nefarious or evil or complex or apathetic. But I think you're right, we can use or approach the algorithms in a way that builds trust, that is benevolent, that creates transparency.

And I'll give you an example. One of the reasons why I wanted to participate in the WHERS initiatives is because AI can create a level of transparency amongst all universities and all students in terms of ranking, you can see that if you allow an algorithm that looks for facts or patterns to be applied to a ranking system, or any sort of dialogue, it can be tuned to be altruistic and benevolent to all people. So to break that down, what I would say is, that when a university wants to stand out on the internet.

They have to keep in mind as mentioned that a lot of content is being produced.
The pandemic brought about a doubling of the content. So where we used to have to create some content, we have to create more now post-pandemic, the algorithms or the AI guys look for that content. So if a university wants to stand out, they have to adopt a clear strategy of educational content, which is in the wheelhouse of all universities, entertainment content that is separated from educational content, I think, where universities tend to get caught up in the crowd as they mixed the education and the entertainment content. So I think a university should be free to have entire teams or focus on just the celebration of learning.

And then finally, where the technology investments for universities need to take place is in the engagement content. How do we adopt behaviours for our universities that work well in chat windows worthwhile and direct messages on social media channels, tap into the conversations that are behaving directly online and things like Twitter, so universities that can adopt a player focus on content, and understand the differences between a chat window, a social media channel, a website, these things are important.

So I think ultimately, to stand out, creating more content with a focus has a huge impact and will probably be where brands or universities separate themselves over the next few years.

This is just brilliant, and I loved what you just started celebrating knowledge. This is shouldn't be, you know, like a trademark celebrating knowledge. But I wanted to say that since the pandemic started, it has been a major shift in how universities how students consume information and knowledge.

What facets of the student experience have changed fundamentally as a result of the switch to online learning? What do you think after having worked with students and seen it first-hand?

I would say that the pandemic brought around a lot of digital sophistication that wasn't necessarily acceptable or adopted before the pandemic. We saw a lot of classes go online. I think we also saw this asynchronous training where students could learn on their own versus instructor-led courses. I teach almost every night of the week in an instructor-led environment meant.

And what I've learned from students is one, asynchronous learning isn't the optimum use of digital technologies, that the human element of teaching is more important than ever. And students because of their need for instructors to teach, we need a hybrid kind of learning and the importance of and the and the new evolution of sophisticated in students in terms of online grading, file transfers, conversations, on multiple channels, Slack, Bulletin boards, at universities, that sort of thing. All of these things have come together to create an environment where students going forward need a hybrid approach of digital and human touch. And universities have to adopt a wider student experience strategy that accounts for the different kinds of engagements across each of the touch points that a student has. Why would we do this is back to our original conversation, which is a good student experience strategy across multiple student touch points, or university touch points.

That knows that each touch point whether there should be educational content, entertainment content, or engagement, content at each those touch points, is the new landscape that has been shaped by COVID.

I agree with that. And I see that many universities, really succeeded in bringing together the human touch, and the digital aspect of giving the students this ability to navigate through this really difficult time in doing the pandemic, however, many still are very hesitant. And this is the problem that at the worst conference, we're addressing that universities that are listening to us right now, this is incredible information to adopt this new technology, the online marketing strategies to help your university to get to the next level, because many of them are incredible offline, however, they do not have that strong online profile.

I'm also aware that a lot of colleges don't even have a LinkedIn page. What are your thoughts about that? Do you believe that colleges ought to be on LinkedIn? Or do you think they ought to use different tools, such as other social media?

Well, let's talk about the use of LinkedIn. LinkedIn is essential, for lack of a better way to find another way to rank or participate in the online world. Businesses know that they have to be on LinkedIn. It's a primary channel for all business communication, since the pandemic, and universities fall into that category. A university without a LinkedIn profile may not even exist in the minds of a lot of audiences.

So a student who is considering a university but can't find a LinkedIn page will lose trust. So when we talk about the trust, the transparency, the communication that we have to have with audiences, the demands that students and parents alike, Have put on digital to make their decisions. LinkedIn and other social media channels are imperatives for universities, you have to think about donors even When we think about LinkedIn, a parent who cannot find a university will have trouble investing in college tuition or making a donation to a university, a student who cannot find enough content on a social media channel at a university will not make the choice.
And I think what we see here is, you see a small number of universities who have looked have taken a good look at social you look for instance, in the United States, the Ivy League schools have spent a lot of time and energy in their social platforms, in their LinkedIn pages in their outreach, their use of digital marketing.

And the result that is they become the aspirational places that most students want to go to. So when I look at universities across the United States, you have an abundance of universities, but students still look at the same 25 schools and compete to get into those that are driven predominantly by social media and digital marketing.

This is phenomenal because it's very important for universities that still stick to all school approaches to understand that if they want to be out there that they have to harness the power of social media. After all, otherwise, there will be no trust. And this is the trust is measured by social media these days, would you agree?
Because, as you can see from the numerous comments and evaluations, the university is legitimate and provides the highest possible standard of education. People make choices in this way. That is how parents and students jointly determine which university to attend.

Yes, the fact of the matter is, not only does social media, conversation, drive, trust, or reputation as discussed, the algorithms with advancing data, governance, and policies are vetting the social media content more highly. So not only does the word of mouth play a large role in the trust or reputation of a university, our brand, and the algorithms are getting better and better at making sure that what's being presented on social media is accurate.

So we see this with Facebook as an example. A lot of posts are posted to Facebook, and Facebook's algorithm says this may or may not be true. When you have that filter of the algorithm, trying to increase the trust level at any given student experience, then I would say that you're living in a new world of trust and algorithms and reputation.

This is extremely insightful for everyone. And my next question would be because, before this interview, I was doing some research regarding the marketing strategies of marketing specialists. And many of them say that one of the major challenges posed by higher education institutions, while developing a human social media campaign is that each faculty has a different way and different ability to manage their social media account that kind of doesn't create one brand in as an overall brand for the institution.

And what strategies can you use to get past that obstacle? What would you suggest be done? Because there are instances when, for instance, the faculty of humanities differs greatly from the faculty of physics, making them seem like two distinct universities with disparate ideologies. How can universities overcome this?

That's a great question. And it's not just a question by universities, by the way, Angelica, major brands around the world are facing this. And as I watched the industry from a global perspective, I'm paying attention to a couple of things COVID changed the dynamic of the entire global workforce. So now that many people can work from anywhere in the world, the employee experience has been transforming rapidly over the last few years.

Brands that recognize that their employees are their greatest asset for influence are excelling. They are making tremendous advancements in their transformation of business and industry. And I think what universities will come to understand is that every student, every faculty member, and everyone associated with the university is an influencer.

And if their ability, the right relationships, and their intentions are good, and consistent in the support of their community, you'll find that you can trust students and you can trust faculty, to be ambassadors and spread the good word about a university, it comes down in large part to a cause trust issue or a governance issue. And times are changing.

People who understand that everyone has a voice, can contribute to a conversation, and can help harness that for a university will advance the reputation, the reach, and the relationships of those universities over those who continue to try to exercise a sense of editorial around the content that can be shared. The fact is, people will share the content, whether there's a governance policy in place or not. And by joining that conversation, you enhance everything about the brand or position of a university and by trying to control it, it's sort of like a never-ending effort.

I completely concur. And the university needs to participate in that conversation, whether they like it or not because there is no way to ignore it at this point. You cannot ignore this.

And I don't know to say, Yes, that's true. I think I want to just underscore we've said there's no way to escape it. What we've talked about is endless, but just to put, put it in the best context. Here's the thing.

People on the internet, especially those associated with universities, have great energy, and great intent and the kids call it the vibe. The lead is having people across wider groups of people share in the conversation, that brand is a safer play, then, most people think it's, it's, it is the way things are going. And it's a good direction for all of us.

I love that. So you say that we are universities, and faculty members and everyone should not be afraid of an online presence. And the Dalek because actually, the vibe is great. And the situation is that if you trust enough, the process is going to be great. And the interaction between institutions, the dialogue, the fans, and the brand ambassadors themselves may be incredibly motivating and much beyond what any university could have anticipated.

Yes. And can I just mention, if you engage in this new world, the thing that I think a lot of you will miss is yes, there, there is cancelleds culture. And there are trolls and there are detractors. However, when you share in the conversation across the community of students, faculty, advisors, and all of the constituents, many of the people who may, let's say posts, something negative about a university, will be addressed by other students or by other people who support the university. So it creates a community conversation.

So we're not necessarily in the age-old era of public relations and civil media channels. Now, by opening the door to digital marketing for universities, and digital communication. You create so many more advocates than you do detractors. It's worth it to take on this brave new frontier.

I love this. And I love how we just this time, just fast, like maybe 10 minutes, because it's really insightful and really, extraordinarily insights from Dennis. And I believe that the audience that is listening to us right now and watching us, they have lots of questions. So you can submit your question in the chat box, and Dennis would happily answer.

So I think this is a really important and powerful message that you've spread to the wider audience here. And I just wanted to ask you and tell you a little bit more about a UniRanks platform. UniRanks platform is built in a way to make it possible for everyone to contribute, and to be an integral part of this project through the open rank Committee, and the ranking committee to ensure that there is a strong methodology on the ranking system and fairness. So the structure will allow all education stakeholders to join from all over the world.

And Dennis, what are your thoughts on the open rank panel and the idea of an open rank?
I think that if there is transparency and rankings, it does the best service to young learners, or even advancing learners who are trying to find their way in a world of knowledge. And for that reason, I support a transparent ranking system that is inclusive of not just a small set of universities, but inclusive of all universities around the world, because particularly since the pandemic, it's global, it's a global marketplace. And I think the brightest minds don't always hail from one particular place. I think that global ranking, transparency, and advocacy for students to learn on their own, who has the best curriculum for them is necessary for us to create a better world.

I love that. And I love that you join us in this mission to create better worlds for you by actually expressing these views openly and