readabout.me: A Powerful New Product
Posted: February 16, 2012 Filed under: Announcements, readabout.me, Social Media | Tags: reputation management Leave a comment »
Last summer, readMedia supercharged your subscription with an exciting new product: readabout.me, an application that’s the foundation of a powerful new strategic marketing tool for your institution and your brand. readabout.me unites social media, earned media and reputation management to create meaningful results in brand awareness, engagement and key institutional outcomes.
readabout.me has been a smashing success so far. Hundreds of thousands of people read the stories you’re creating about enrollment, dean’s list and graduation, and literally millions are exposed to them in social media—all as part of your readMedia subscription. Many colleges and universities are incorporating readabout.me into senior-level strategic planning to highlight the key programs and student outcomes that they want to promote.
The numbers have been staggering. Let me share one of the most surprising ones with you: despite the much-heralded “death of e-mail,” and the scuttlebutt we hear about how hard it is to get students to read messages from schools, 98% of students who open the email notification click through to view their achievement. That’s on top of more than 65% open rates, which are even higher for those of you who are actively marketing the readabout.me experience to students.
Not only do the students read the stories, they actively engage with them in their social networks. We’ll be rolling out more and better metrics this year to help you measure that engagement, but you should know that for every 1,000 achievements you create (e.g., a single Dean’s List with 1,000 students on it), more than 87,000 friends and family see that story and mesage on Facebook. These are just like Facebook’s new Sponored Stories, but you’re getting them for free!
We here at readMedia want you to get the most from your subscription and have created resources to help you do that. We have conducted dozens of senior level briefings over the past six months and encourage you to schedule one soon. Include your brand marketing leaders, your social media expert and even those charged with student success. The most productive briefings include participants from all departments charged with connecting your brand with outcomes. You will all find it worthwhile as a way to get the most from your subscription and benchmark your readMedia usage against your peers.
Unlock the Power of readabout.me
Posted: February 15, 2012 Filed under: Announcements, Content Marketing, Hometown Newsmaker, readabout.me, Social Media | Tags: badges, readabout.me, reputation management Leave a comment »Every story you send out on the readMedia platform automatically creates a personalized achievement online for your students – this achievement is created from the single format template you create in your account. The personalized achievements live on readabout.me [see example]. At readabout.me students can share their achievements on Facebook and Twitter [see example]. Students can even claim their achievement and attach a photo [see example].
The students’ individual achievements are then rolled up into a professional, powerful online profile on readabout.me that shows the great things their involved in on campus. Each time you send out an achievement for a particular student, it will automatically attach to their readabout.me profile [See example].
All achievements on readabout.me are awarded a unique “badge of approval” by readMedia to show that they’ve been verified by your institution. The badges are a visual representation of the achievement.
Students can’t find their achievements online if you don’t notify them!
Student emails: the most important piece of the puzzle
To notify students that you’re acknowledging their achievement, you must include their email addresses in the spreadsheet you upload to the readMedia platform. Your students will automatically receive an email that directs them to their achievement on readabout.me.
The notification comes from your email address and it contains a list of the newspapers the achievement was sent to [see example]. You can even notify mom and dad by simply putting each email address in a separate column.
All you have to do is press send and readMedia takes care of the rest!
Why is readabout.me important for my college or university?
readabout.me is a powerful strategic marketing tool for your institution and your brand. It unites social media, earned media and reputation management to create meaningful results in brand awareness, engagement and key institutional outcomes.
See how colleges and universities are promoting readabout.me on campus.
Why is readabout.me important for students?
readabout.me creates a positive online identity for students. It helps people who make decisions about internships, grad school, and jobs find the “good stuff” about them.
Your readMedia subscription is not just a media relations tool. Contact us to learn how other colleges and universities are positioning readMedia and readabout.me in their overall communication plan and how your subscription supports marketing and branding objectives, enrollment, and student outcomes.
