I’ve had several thoughts and a few discussions recently – for various reasons – about how certain schools and universities can elevate their reputations using digital technology and social networking tools.

One very obvious (almost “duh!”) strategy is a refined thought leadership program.  As “duh!” as this sounds to me, it’s not happening in enough places.  This strategy is becoming well-adopted in the business world, and can be easily transferred into the higher ed setting.

When I say thought leadership, I don’t mean that a university or college find one star, one personal brand, and ride their coattails (though that’s not a bad thing if you’ve got one of those, but it can NOT be your only plan).  This isn’t sustainable, nor is it comprehensive.

I mean systematically go through your departments, your centers, your research programs and identify the areas where you have strengths, identify a person or group that can speak to that strength, create a multi-tiered infrastructure, and then start talking.  As an added benefit of this process, the school’s particular ability to embrace digital media of various forms is also well-used and ideally visible and applaudable (since we all know that “matters”).

[NOTE: The following is the result of my Friday-morning thought process, and there is definitely room for refinement... be patient, it will come.  I also want to thank Sean for some great and insightful conversation on this topic, which will hopefully continue.]

COMPONENTS

• Identify areas within your university that you are strong at and/or want to have a reputation for. Look in all your departments, centers and schools.
• Within those areas, identify two sets of people/groups to set up a multi-tiered system:
  • High-profile individuals or teams if you have them, their personal brand will be helpful.  Goal is to have these individuals become visible experts (they’re experts already), on behalf of the school.
  • “Worker” individuals that can shoulder some/most of the content production and dissemination.  Goal is to have these individuals doing the bulk of “talking” on behalf of the high-profile individuals and the school.
• Develop the digital media framework to support a school-wide program (assuming this strategy is for a full university, you want to avoid fragmented efforts).
  • Consistent and streamlined tool usage
  • Consistent messaging
  • Guidelines/playbook (I try to avoid “rules” and “laws”)
  • Buy-in from leaders/legal/communication (reduce red-tape before rather than during the process)
  • Buy-in from thought leaders
  • etc etc etc
• Develop the content strategy, both department/center/group-wide and school-wide.
• Start talking!

The end-result looks a little like this, elevating your brand and reputation as a whole, with content flowing out of the departments/schools, on behalf of the university as a whole, with the brand image increasing for both departments/schools and the university as a whole:

[Yes, this does need refinement, but I've got to be getting back to work!]

MULTI-TIERED SYSTEM

Part of the reason for creating a system of high-profile individuals and worker individuals is a resource thing.  As always, high-profile individuals don’t usually have the time resources available to continually be creating and repurposing content.  Part of what we do at Other Side Group is manage those resources for high-profile individuals for exactly that reason, they don’t have the time, but they want the visibility.

Additionally, by creating a fully-contributing system, you’re decreasing your reliance on the big person-brands, and creating a long-term infrastructure that’s based upon the work your university does as opposed to just the people it has.

Lastly, if your school has an already well-developed and strong reputation, you’re able to harness some of that reputation that may lie in a strong alumni base, a strong board presence, etc (whatever it is that gives your school a great reputation) in a way that’s more realistic in the digital world….. chances are your star long-standing professor who’s been able to wield significant attention for four decades after winning a Noble Peace Prize, writing 10 books and being interviewed every week is not the right or willing person to be embracing digital technology as a way to further thought leadership.  In some cases, as an institution you need to do that for them.

[DISCLAIMER: This is really idealistic, I understand that.  There are internal hurdles, egos, politics, logistics etc that perhaps make this a hard reality to choke down for some people, but I think wholeheartedly that it can be done, and should be done.]