SOC4: Using YouTube for Recruitment

Mallory Wood: Hi, everybody. Thanks for coming to my session. I just want to let you know that my computer is not able to connect to the internet. That's not going to affect the presentation in any other way, but I can't use my remote so I will be going to my computer to play and pause the presentation. So just letting you know why I'm doing that.

But my name is Mallory Wood. I work at Saint Michael's College as an Assistant Director of Marketing. St. Mike's, we're a small private, Catholic liberal arts college of 2,000 students in Burlington, Vermont. And we have in our marketing office a whopping six people, and I am the only one who really focuses on social media and creating videos for YouTube.

So I wanted to give you that background. And in some ways, if you're just getting started or you're a couple of years into this and you feel like you're the only one at your institution doing this, what we're talking about today can be feasibly done by one person.

But it's important to me to know who's in the room. So if you work for Web or an IT department, please throw your hand up.

Anybody in Marketing or Communications? Yeah, I figured. Anybody here, though, in Admissions? Yes. Yeah, admission counselors in the room, that's awesome!

All right. Who here, though, thinks that what they do impacts recruitment? Exactly. Thank you for all raising your hand, because that's true: whatever we're putting online on the Web, especially video, it impacts recruitment because a prospective student or their family might, in fact, see what we are doing.

Video Mallory Wood: Yah! Look who it is! Hashtag-heweb10. Good to see you!

Now, you're probably wondering what I'm doing up here. This presentation is actually a video. Rightfully so--that is our topic, after all. But I will be presenting as myself in person down there or wherever I am. But I think we should go over a few housekeeping items before we get started.

'YouTube' is in the title, but really we're talking about online video in general and how you can use it to reach your prospective students. I'm going to start easy and work into more complex ideas as we go.

I know there is a range of knowledge and experience in the room, and I want to address both ends of the spectrum. There will be five topic segments to this presentation, and I will show videos in each segment, highlighting the key points and concepts that I want you to take away.

Some of those videos will be produced by St. Mike's and some will be produced by other institutions. I do encourage your questions along the way, but please wait until the end of the segment in order to ask them. And don't worry, links to the videos and the credits will be given at the end of the presentation.

Back to you, Mallory.

Mallory Wood: I'm so clever.

[Laughter]

Mallory Wood: All right. So Video Mallory just gave you some good housekeeping information. If you have questions about that, please ask now. OK. So we're going to get right into it.

Why bother with YouTube? I need to convince you that YouTube makes sense to use, right? So I need to give you some stats. Let's start with that.

Let's start with 59%. That's the percentage of institutions that responded to the CASE Social Media survey that just got released that said that they use YouTube. I wish it was 100%, but right now it's only 59%.

Does anybody know what 2 billion means? Shout it out if you do.

No. It's the number of views that YouTube gets every single day. Yeah, whoa, right? That's a whole lot of views. That is just unbelievable to me. And obviously our prospective students are in that mix. And what's even more important about 2 billion is that 70% of that is outside from the United States.

I can imagine that you are very similar to St. Mike's in the sense that we are trying to increase our reach. In New England, there are dropping high school graduation rites, and we need to start expanding. We need to expand to California. We also need to expand to Japan and France and England and Latin America. And with 70% of YouTube's traffic coming from outside the United States, that gives us a really interesting way to help with that marketing effort.

Eighty-four percent is the percentage of 18- to 29-year-olds who go to YouTube and watch video. That's the majority. This is coming from the Pew 'State of Online Video' survey, and in fact the younger the demographic, they found the more likely they are to watch online video.

They stopped at 18, but I would think, if we're thinking we've got 15- to 25-year-olds in our target age demographic, chances are that's a pretty similar number.

Fifteen: the number of minutes that the average YouTube viewer spends watching video when they go to YouTube. That's probably three to six videos, right? So that's pretty good. Fifteen minutes.

Anybody know what 24 is for? That's the number of hours of video uploaded to YouTube every single minute. So by the end of this presentation, we now have 45 days' worth of video online content. We can't possibly watch all that. Nobody can, right? So how do we create video that pierces through that noise? Because 24 hours every single minute--that is a whole lot of noise.

All right. Noel Levitz has been referred to already by every presentation that I've sat in on this morning. The E-Expectation survey was huge and so important. But the first piece of information--this is all the information they found out about online video. The first piece, I'm not very happy with: they think only 10% of our prospective students are going to YouTube to watch our videos.

I challenge that. Are you marketing your YouTube channel offline? Are you sending your admission counselors out on the road to high school visits and the college fairs with a little bit of information about your social media efforts? Are you handing them your YouTube channel's link?

Because if we're just sitting in our offices creating all this great video and saying, "Oh, yeah, Susie in Florida, she's going to go to YouTube and type in 'Saint Michael's College'"--she's not. She probably won't. But if she goes to the college fair and she sees me and I'm just so excited to tell her about this YouTube channel and I say, "Here, take this. You can go back home and you can go to YouTube and watch these great videos," the percentage that she will be likely to do that has just gone way up.

Are you calling out your YouTube channel from your homepage? From your key admission pages? Do you have a social media mashup page that's pulling in YouTube videos?

The nice thing is, we do know about half of the prospective student base is going to go and seek out online video. But I think that you can turn that 10% into a much higher number if you do a little leg work offline.

Now, what type of video is most interesting to students is important for us to keep in mind because if we're sitting in our offices again or we're editing video, creating video, but we're only creating video about faculty and program details, whoops! We've just lost out on a lot of students. They're going to see that and they're going to leave because, apparently, faculty and program details is not in high demand.

But student life videos are. If I'm 17 years old, I want to know what it's like to be at your college. I want to know if I'm going to fit in. And by watching videos about student life, I'm going to figure out if I'm like those students in that video.

Now the whole reason we go to college, hopefully, is for the academics. So that's really important. Are you showcasing the research that your institution is doing or the internship opportunities? Because I need to know that I'm getting a quality education for what I'm paying for.

What videos are valuable to them? Sorry that that's there. Videos made by the college, 7%. Videos made by the students, 26%. Videos made by both, 67%. They want videos made by us and by their peers, because videos made by us is official and videos made by their peers is unofficial.

And they're savvy and they know when we're putting marketing messages in there. And they can read through it because they've grown up with this. But when their peers are creating video, it's instantly more organic and more authentic. But they want both, and that's important. So it is worth our time to do this.

So we're going to get into it. Events. We're all like, "Duh, Mallory. Obviously we're going to get create videos about our events." Well, it's important that we start there because that is the easiest thing that we can do. So if you are just starting, if you've never created a video but you're here to learn so you can go back and create video, this is the easiest thing you can get video footage of.

Now, obviously we work a lot and we have a lot of things on our plates and we can't be on campus 24/7, so you need to empower your students to get video footage for you of these events. Because it's a little creepy if I'm wondering around orientation weekend with a video camera because I'm clearly not 18 years old.

But if I have one of my freshman or sophomore students who I've already trained doing this, then instantly the students are going to react differently to that video camera and they're going to get great content.

Yup?

Audience 2: I was wondering if [09:36 Unintelligible]?

Mallory Wood: That's a great question. I think I've trained the students well enough that they're getting the same footage that I would've hoped to get if I would've been there. I'm treating this as me creating it, not the student. That's how I'm treating this. And so when I'm training that student, I'm pretending I am actually there.

So that's a great point, because I'm not considering the student created, I'm considering this something we create. But we can train our students to get that footage for us.

Yup?

Audience 2: That goes for [10:13 Unintelligible] do they want professionally-made videos or do they want [10:25 Unintelligible]?

Mallory Wood: Right. Well, they want both.

Audience 2: Well, and that's what I'm wondering is if they can tell the difference  between the ones that our students are getting, that we train our students to get professionally...?

Mallory Wood: They probably can. They probably can. But I think it's worth your time to create really engaging and interesting videos. And if you can't be on campus at eight o'clock that night, then the best way for you to get that footage is to have your student do it because you're taking that video footage back and editing it yourself anyway. I think, really, you've just got to treat this as you being the person doing it.

So with doing events, though, the toughest piece is--OK, so it's obvious that you want to get that, but the toughest piece is you need to make it really engaging and you need to be timely with it. Because if you're creating an orientation video and you're not putting it out until December, you've just lost all that buzz.

If you are creating something about your holiday season or traditions and you're not putting that out until January 15th, that's past the holiday season. You've just lost all that excitement, all that buzz. So the best thing you can do is be timely.

And you're going to see an example now of a video that we created at St. Mike's where it was imperative that we put it online within hours of the event happening, and you'll see why.

Video Speaker 1: Oh, it's... Speech is right in here. We're all nervous.

Video Speaker 2: Yeah. Behind-the-scenes documentary.

Video Speaker 1: Yeah. This is 'commencement behind the scenes'?

Video Speaker 3: Yeah.

Video Speaker 1: With your exclusive VIP pass, the happenings at Commencement 2010.

Video Speaker 3: So, how are you going to feel tomorrow morning?

Video Speaker 1: I'm going to feel really relieved. Rachael and I are going down to Boston tomorrow to look for apartments and we'll go on our merry way.

Video Speaker 4: It's a little scary, but it's exciting.

Video 3: Yeah.

[Applause]

Video Speaker 1: The problem with a speech that ends here, my hands are... So I want to practice what I preach. Where's Rachael? You know which one. Rachael Ray. Where is she? Stand up, Rachael.

My love for you burns hotter than the two suns that orbit Darth Vader's homeworld of Tatooine. You are the most beautiful and interesting person I know. And together, we can do it. I love you, I love all of you, and I pledge all of my love to you. In front of everyone you've ever met, will you marry me?

Mallory Wood: Did you see her face? It went from "Haa!" to--she was shot.

And we were directly competing with our NBC affiliate because they were there videoing it and they got it up quickly. And if we didn't get it up quickly, then all that buzz that was created was going to be lost. If I'd waited for three weeks, we wouldn't have gotten over 15,000 views on this video.

So what's really important, and the toughest piece about that event creation is that you need to be timely with it. That's not the most beautiful video, and I hesitated even showing it because the camera's going back and forth, but it proves the point that you need to be timely. And that's really, really key to any video project that you're doing.

So keeping your video short and sweet is really important when we're dealing with high school students, because their attention spans are shrinking. And there's studies that show that any video longer than two, two-and-a-half minutes stops being watched at about the two, two-and-a-half-minute mark. So we need to keep that in mind when we're creating videos.

We need to be as engaging as possible, but we need to do it in a really short amount of time. And I think a common error with online video is trying to plug way too much information into a really short amount of time. Sometimes you've got to step back and say, "Hey, we're only going to try and send one message with this video. We're just going to keep it simple."

And so what you're going to see is the Boston College Minute Series. If any of you are familiar with it, it launched in April of 2009. And Ravi Jain, who is their lead Digital Media and Web Producer, had the concept for 'what are prospective students wanting?' Well, they want that 'fly on the wall' experience. They want to peer into what's going on at your institution. And it might only have to be for a minute.

But his point to this minute-long series is that he wants to tell you a story, a story that you might not know otherwise, unless you're watching this video. And to a prospective student, it's really giving you that 'This is what's happening right now. I'm a fly on the wall. I'm looking in and I'm going to check out what it's like to be at Boston College,' because that's what they want. They want to know what it's like to be at your institution.

Video Speaker 5: Make sure you guys get some free hot cocoa inside. They're over there. And of course stick around to see Father Leahy light the tree at six o'clock.

[Choir Singing]

Video Speaker 5: I am now very fortunate and honored to introduce the President of Boston College, Father William P. Leahy of the Society of Jesus.

Video Speaker 6: Joe? Can you hear me? Father Leahy is on the stage.

Video Speaker 7: We are reminded each time we see colored lights on a Christmas tree that those lights are called to each of us. So if you could join me in looking over toward our Christmas tree--

Video Speaker 6: Stand by, Joe.

Video Speaker 7: --and let's see if we can--

Video Speaker 6: Just a couple of seconds. Go ahead, Joe.

[Cheering]

Video Speaker 7: Thank you all. And Merry Christmas!

Mallory Wood: I love Joe. Joe has got to be the coolest employee ever. He gets to flick the switch on the Christmas tree.

You might have been to that event before, but you probably didn't know that happened. The president says, "And the lights come on," and they just magically come on. Well, now, we just found out this beautiful story. I'm sure it's warmed every single one of our hearts and now has made us feel really good about Boston College. They've got cool traditions, and we've just been invited to watch the behind-the-scenes look at one of those traditions.

A one-minute video is simple to watch. But it's sometimes complicated to produce. And that's something that you have to keep in mind, that Ravi couldn't have just walked into that event with his video camera, "Oh, hey, Joe, what are you doing today? Oh, you're going to flick the switch? Great! I'm going to video that."

He clearly got in touch with the right people far before that event even happened. So it was a matter of some careful planning, more than one video camera, a couple audio devices, and Ravi being savvy and choosing the best footage to bring in, layering audio and video together.

So that was a little more technical than maybe a beginner could create, but it's important that the takeaway is he kept it short and simple, and he told us a story.

So, so far we've just really been talking about videos that you and I can do, but going back to Noel Levitz, it is important that our students are creating videos. And if we just sit around and wait for them to do it--I hear from Georgy in her session this morning that the Tufts Quidditch team created their own promo video. And that's awesome, but that doesn't happen everywhere. Your students don't just automatically say, "Oh, we're going to create this video just because we feel good about it!"

If it does happen, that's great, and if you can find it and be a content curator, you can pull that into your YouTube channel. But if you really want videos on a certain subject, it's important to ask for them and to reward students for giving them to you.

Now, we can learn a lot from Stony Brook University who did a video contest about a year ago. 'Point, Shoot, and Win $1,000', because your savvy students who are creating video already have iPod Touches and they already have video cameras, so, honestly, you've got to offer them cash. At St. Mike's we only offer about $500, not $1,000. But cash motivates.

Now this said, we want you to tell us what your favorite place on campus is. They didn't just do that because it's great. I mean, it is great content to have, but they had a purpose. So you need to have a purpose if you're going to ask for this content.

They hired an outside vender to do a virtual tour for them, but they wanted to bring in more organic and authentic content. Because it was a very flashy virtual tour but they knew that that wouldn't speak to everybody and they wanted to have that pure created content in there. So they asked students for it, and they got 30 submissions roughly.

Now, what's important to learn from this experience is not all 30 submissions were usable because some of the students used copyrighted music. And there's this myth that anytime we use copyrighted music, like we're listening to Snoop Dogg or something and we can just pull it in to any of our videos because we're higher education--that's not true. YouTube is going to flag that video immediately if it's copyrighted and remove the audio from it.

And you can pay to put some copyrighted music by allowing them to--I mean, it's free, but you're paying in the sense that they are now advertising on your video. And because we're institutions, I just don't advice this. You have to be really careful. If you're going to do a contest, you need to be really upfront with students about what type of music is allowed and the people in those videos giving them their permission.

And the last point I want to make about this is they brought in an outside judging panel because when we're talking about $1,000, students get really hairy when it comes to, was it fair? "Oh, my professor is a judge, so maybe that gives me an edge."

So what they did is brought in media experts from the newspaper, from local TV stations, and that created their judging panel. I think they also used alumni, well, who didn't have connections to those students.

So what that allowed Stony Brook to do is say, "Hey, whatever they decide is what we're going with." Now, their Director of Marketing and I both agreed that the video that ended up winning honorable mention was the best video. But he was not on the judging panel because he was affiliated with the university. So to keep the integrity of that contest, they gave it Honorable Mention, so that's what it's going to be.

But that doesn't mean we can't see the honorable mention video. So this is as authentic as it gets, student-created Stony Brook's honorable mention video. Just a clip.

[Video Clip]

Mallory Wood: So I hope you could see what she was writing. She was in the library and saying that her Number 1 reason why she likes libraries is because it's quiet.

And there was no noise to that, and I think that also shows the power of just visual. Because a lot of times we include music or we have people talking in our videos, but that shows the power of just having that visual piece.

And that was, again, student-created. She's a lot closer in age to those prospective students than most of us in the room are, so she's able to create something that's automatically going to speak to her peers in a way that videos we create can. So I think that's a really good example and very authentic.

It's covered. Seth O'Dell's name is covered. He's a genius. If you guys have never heard of Seth O'Dell before, you need to Google him because he is on Sunday nights doing the Higher Ed Live Series now and he has a blog called asmediachanges.com.

And back in November 2009, he came out with the brilliant idea to use YouTube before the powers that it gives you. YouTube allows you to annotate your videos, right? That means you can link a video to a webpage or you can link a video to another video.

And, gee, wouldn't it be cool if we created a virtual tour by linking Video A to Video B, and Video B to C, and C to D, and so on, to create this really fun video tour online?

It varies between two-year and four-year institutions, public and private, but roughly only a quarter of our institutions have virtual tours.

For the admission counselors in the room, they know this. We're all going to know this. The campus visit is the most important thing. It just is. It's statistically proven: students visit your campus that get tours with your students, and that is what helps them make their decision about whether or not to attend your institution. That is the Number 1 factor for the vast majority of places.

And why don't we do everything in our power to create that experience? What if I'm in Vermont and Susie is in California? Susie can't get to Vermont and she's not going to make that trip if she doesn't know St. Mike's is at the top of her list. So what is she going to do? She's going to go to our website, right? She might find a virtual tour. She might say, "Wow, this is an awesome campus."

So your virtual tour should not just be a great way to show off your campus but it should be engaging and make those students watching it want to learn more about you so that they actually come and visit. But the best thing you might be able to do is replicate that online.

And so when you do your virtual tour--I'm thinking 26%, 25%, the number is so low because we all just assume we have to hire this outside vender who's going to charge us six digits to create this snazzy virtual tour, and it's going to be interactive and have photos and videos.

There are really great ones out there and I've loved most of the ones that I've seen. But if you have a budget of zip like I did, you can actually do this. And it can be fun and interactive, and we can use YouTube annotations in order to achieve that goal.

So we did. We did this. We launched it about a month ago. And this is a screen you get at the end of every video. "Choose your next stop." It's like "Goosebumps" or "Choose Your Own Adventure" books. Basically, whether you are five videos in, 17 videos in, or even up until the very last video, you're going to be given a screen like this with three options. And there will never be a screen that has three options that you have already seen.

So you're always going to be driven to new videos, and it's going to be interactive because you get to choose. So if you don't care about the dining hall, you don't have to click on it. You never do. Maybe Athletics isn't your thing--that's fine. Don't click on it either. But we want it to be interactive, we want it to be fun for the students, and it is. And it was a really great experience.

Now let's pretend we clicked on 'Dining Hall' and see what happens.

Video Tour Guide: The dining hall at Saint Michael's College is located in the Alliot Student Center.

One of the great things about being a student at St. Mike's is that your meal plan is unlimited. So from 7 am to 8 pm, you can eat as much as you want in the dining hall.

We have a ton of different options: vegetarian, grill, home-style, salad bar. And one of the best things is that our staff here listens to student input when they plan the menu for the coming week. So if you have a specific recipe that you want to see, you can fill out a comment card.

The dining hall, because it's in the student center, becomes more than just a place to have a meal. It's really the hub of campus activity. You can hang out with friends, you can study, or you can sit down for a meal with one of your professors.

The Knight Stand is the late-night dining option for students on campus. It's open until midnight every night, and it's a great place to grab a smoothie, wings, a wrap, or even just a cup of coffee when you're up late studying.

Mallory Wood: The video ends, you get to choose your next stop. It's great. It's cheap to do, it's interactive, and we made it so that it really mimics that real campus tour. If I'm standing in the dining hall and Carolina is my tour guide, I'm looking at her, and then I'm going to look around. Then I'm going to look back at her, if she's still talking, and then I'm going to look around again.

So that's how we set that up really on purpose to mimic what a real campus tour is going to look like. You can set it up however you want. But, clearly, you can produce something that's of very high quality, on your own, with some engaging students, on the cheap.

Now, still using those annotations, and again, Seth O'Dell, genius, came out with this a month after his virtual tour idea: just do some trivia. He says it fires up your fan base. I can't agree more.

It's fun, especially if you do it in the holiday season because that's in the middle of your recruitment--some students have applied early action or maybe early decision, some students may be waiting until January 1 or February 1, whatever your deadline might be. So it's in the middle, students have already probably visited your school, done some research.

Give them five to 10 easy trivia questions. Let them feel good about getting it right. If they get it wrong, "Oops, wrong answer!" Bring them back, but let them keep going. And then at the end, encourage them to leave their email address on your blog or "Visit this webpage," to give you their information, and then pick some winners. That will encourage them to do it.

So, now we're at the mecca of online video because, really, most of us here are in Web and marketing and we know the importance of branding. 

First and foremost, brand your YouTube channel. The St. Mike's YouTube channel needs to be purple, not green. That's just obvious. And I'm not going to spend a lot of time on that because I think it's obvious; it's just worth saying.

But what you also need to think about is branding your videos. And using--if you're trying to reach your target audience of prospective students, use those same fonts and images and tones that your admission counselor materials are already in.

We've been working with Mindpower from Atlanta for the last year, but this summer we launched our new admission materials and the phrase is, "I like St. Mike's." St. Mike's is the informal way of saying Saint Michael's. We're using this Tire Shop font in all of our new materials. So in our new videos, we wanted to mimic that.

And I'm sure most of you at your schools have that five- to 10-minute-long intro video that all the students sit through before they go on tour. That's a pretty common thing at a lot of four-year universities, anyway.

Well, it's fun. Let's make it webisodes, let's make it interactive, let's give it that same enthusiasm that the print materials have. So here is an example.

[Video Music]

Video Speaker 8: I like St. Mike's!

Video Speaker 9: You get down there...

Video Speaker 10: I think I like St. Mike's enough to do the backflip.

Video Speaker 11: I like St. Mike's because--

Video Speaker 12: You work closely with your professors.

Video Speaker 13: Between the classroom and then what's going on here in Vermont, I feel it's an active place.

Video Speaker 14: With the community you feel that you have every single day.

Video Speaker 15: I don't like St. Mike's. I love Saint Michael's.

Video Speaker 16: Because there's no other place I'd rather be right now.

Mallory Wood: So now you can see one of our pieces of print materials. 'This place has major potential!' It looks the same, it feels the same, it's informal. We have the little flying St. Michael angel that appears in some of the videos after that one as well as in our print materials. So it's all connected. And it's all speaking the same language.

And so when a prospective student sees those videos and they've already met you at the college fair or vice-versa, it's the same school to them. It's branded. It makes sense. It all speaks in the same tone.

On the side, you can't see it, but it says 'ilike.smcvt.edu'. And just as important it is to promote that YouTube channel offline, you need to drive them to those videos. We obviously spent money on these using a local Vermont company. And so they live on YouTube, they live on our website. They're also, I believe, on FaceBook.

But we drive students in the offline world to those videos when we give them those materials at college fairs. And so that's important. You want them to be curious about that material that they get at their high school and then have them go and see that same experience online so it's cohesive.

That first video you saw is one of seven that can be strung together, and they are shown in our admission lobby before every single student goes out on tour.

The other big thing about that campus visit for a lot of students is the group information session that for the admission people in the room is probably like, "Oh, I can't stand doing the group information session," because it's usually half-an-hour or an hour-long, and it's just you up there talking about the school.

And, honestly, when you get to those student life pieces, when you get to talk about internships and research, you're not the expert anymore. The students are the expert because they're living it. And unless you're an alumni, you might not be able to talk about what it's actually like to be a part of the wilderness program other than the details you've been given.

So what we do--you're looking at the Prezi that we used for our summer group info session because PowerPoint is old school, so we're now into the Prezi. It's fun. It's light-hearted. It's like our new materials.

And as you go throughout, you're going to see videos, real quick videos that were produced in-house when it gets to that Wilderness Program or that Study Abroad experience. And it gives that same vibe. So you can connect your videos online, but you also can connect it to that campus visit.

All right. This is my favorite video that I'm showing you today. Webisodes is--if you're going to spend money on something, spend it on the webisodes because they can be quick, they can be really high-quality, and you can just get some really great content from someone else coming to your campus and kind of evaluating how great it is, and then helping you produce those videos.

I'm going to show you a clip from the University of Indianapolis. And they came out with four quick videos this past fall. They live on FaceBook, on YouTube, on their website, and they also were shown on TV. And so they are really cross-promoting those videos in any way that they can.

And the one you'll see kind of brings together everything I've talked about from being short and sweet to being engaging, keeping it light-hearted, all of those key components. It's humorous, it's fun, but it's also increasing their credibility because they're branding it and they're showing you, they're not just telling you, their brand. They're showing it to you.

Video Speaker 17: Hey, Austin! Class in 20 minutes. Hey. Cafe mocha. No whip, right?

Video Speaker 18: Thanks.

Video Speaker 17: Awesome. Hey, listen. Big day today. Don't forget, we're looking at Milton Bennett's Developmental Model of Intercultural Sensitivity. See you in 20 minutes.

Video Speaker 19: Disclaimer: Our professors may not start your day with coffee, but they will help you start your career.

Personal attention unleashed. University of Indianapolis.

Video Speaker 18: Huh?

Mallory Wood: I love it. It's so good. And you could see, at the end they called out their website because they know you might have just seen this on TV or you might have just seen it in my presentation, and now you can go to your website. They have given you a call to action. If this was on YouTube, they've hopefully made it an annotation so that when you click on it, it goes to their website.

When Joseph and I were--I think he's in here, actually. When Joseph and I were talking on the phone beforehand, he said that this became such a popular campaign because it's funny and it's great, and it really shows their 'Personal Attention Unleashed? Well, there you go, faculty handing you some coffee to start the morning'--nice, fun, light-hearted parody on that statement--that they're actually thinking about producing more videos. And I really hope that they do because I think this is showcasing everything that's important when we're talking about recruiting and using online video.

Now, we're going to play a game. It's like "Name That Tune", expect it's 'Name That Video'. And so you're going to see a screen clip of a video, and the second you know what it is--and some might, some might not, so it's OK if you don't, but if you know what it is, I want you to throw your hand up there and someone can call it out.

The only stipulation is if the only reason you've seen this video is because I've showed it to you in the past, which I don't think will apply to very many of us in this room. But if that's the only reason you've seen this video, you can't raise your hand because that's cheating.

But let's just see if you recognize this next video. Anyone? What was it?

Audience 3: The Yale video.

Mallory Wood: It's the Yale video! How many people have seen the Yale video? Exactly. The majority of people in this room. Lots of people have seen the Yale video. As of, like, an hour ago, 690-plus-thousand people have seen the Yale video.

Who considers this a viral video? Raise your hand. Right. So, OK. We haven't talked about viral videos, we don't really have a set definition of how many views it has to be, but everybody and their brother covered this--this is why I chose Yale when it got released last January--the Chronicle, you name it, Post, New York Times, everybody. This got huge media attention, clearly produced in-house from their Admissions, and targeting students and, yes, and it went viral, and there you go, tons of views.

We're going to play again another 'Name That Video'. Again, stipulation applies if you've only seen it because I've showed it to you, you can't raise your hand. But we'll see what happens.

Yeah, Drew has seen it. Obviously, because he worked in Vermont.

[Laughter]

No one's seen this video? Really? That's a little disappointing. Well, this is the Midd Kid video, produced by some students at Middlebury College.

Well, no worries. We'll see a clip. We're not going to watch the Yale video. It's 16 minutes long. But this is a little ScreenJot from the Midd Kid video. But obviously none of us have seen it, and only me and Drew, the two people who are probably from Vermont in the audience. If we're talking Middlebury College, that makes sense.

OK, so this video can't be very important. But it has more views than the Yale video. And it wasn't covered by The Chronicle or the whatever-you-call-it Post or the New York Times. It had a minute spot on our NBC affiliate, and that was about it.

So why haven't we seen this video, because it has more views than Yale? And I can tell you that this is very popular among students. And I know that because if we look at the audiences for the two videos, I have a feeling that people in this room self-identify with the Yale audiences much more than they may self-identify with the Midd Kid audiences.

So what is a viral video? Does it need to have 600,000 views? 700,000? Do we need to be like Antoine Dodson? Is that viral? Or is Yale? What is viral?

And is it viral if it doesn't achieve its purpose? Because the Yale video is produced to recruit, and I don't think they're recruiting 45-year-olds. So what's going on here? And I think that's an important question to ask because when we are producing video, we have to hit our target audiences, or else it's a big waste of our time.

So without further ado, get ready. You're going to see the first verse and chorus of the Midd Kid video. You are going to be delighted. This is what students want. This is what they're watching. The number 1 quote on the Midd Kid video is "I know what college I'm looking into in a couple of years."

If you walk around the St. Mike's campus on a Friday night, you're not hearing the "This is why I chose Yale" soundtrack. You're hearing the Midd Kid song.

I was sitting with some alumni, who just graduated, at dinner. And they were playing their iTunes, and the Midd Kid song came on their iTunes. I was like, "You downloaded that? You paid money for that?" and they were like, "Of course. I rock out to that every Friday night."

So get ready.

Video Rapper 1: So ladies and gentlemen, to the eighth wonder of the world, the flow of the century...oh, it's timeless.

[Video Music]

Video Rapper 2: Yo, I roll up to the mill with my flannel on, and from the lawn I can see that the party’s on. I see chips and dips.

Video Speaker 20: They got cheeses, right?

Video Rapper 2: Hell yeah, Vermont Chedder, Purple Jesus night. I see my boys in the back, DJ spinning the track. He with some bitches talkin' smack. The tavern was whack. It’s the mill, yo, and that’s what I told ya, ’cause here we all G’s throwin free granola. I’m checkin' out the honeys, I spy me a winner. She got Carhart overalls, stained with dinner. I weave through the crowd. I wish I were drunker but Pub Safe rolls in, so I hit up the bunker.

'Cause I’m a Midd Kid. I hang my nalgene low, go green on the skies with an H20. And I’m a Midd Kid, I roll my jeans up high, with my Teva strap tight and my flannel so fly. I'm a Midd Kid. I hang my nalgene low, go green on the skies with an H20. And I'm a Midd Kid, I roll my jeans up high, with my Teva strap tight and my flannel so fly. I'm a Midd Kid.

Mallory Wood: Yeah. It's like MTV, right?

Now, to their credit, that's clearly highly-produced. They have a friend in California's who's at film school. He came out to Middlebury and worked this with them. But this was a song that's existed at Middlebury for a number of years, and they made a music video to it.

And this is purely student-created. Middlebury College hasn't even made an official comment on it.

So, this is what they want, right? This is what the target audience wants. I mean, I'm not advertising that we all go and create this video, but I'm just saying it's important to know what they're watching versus what we're watching, because we are watching the Yale video but they're watching the Midd Kid. It's well worth your time to watch it.

Video Mallory Wood: Well, there you have it. I hope you learned something new to take back to your institution. And I look forward to seeing your online video.

Now go eat lunch.

[Laughter]

Mallory Wood: And you can get links to all the videos I showed as well as the surveys at that website, which is clearly my blog. And if you have questions, I'm happy--I think we have like 30 seconds left, but I'm happy to talk with you one-on-one afterwards.

Facilitator: We have one question real quick over there. You still want to ask or not? Yup, real quick.

Audience 4: Actually, our agenda on videos are... and we have some odd demographics... and my question to that, I was told that younger YouTube viewers don't register. And so you can't take YouTube demographics for what they say. What would be your response to that?

Mallory Wood: That's a great point. Because you're right, if I'm not registered and I'm just wandering off around YouTube, I don't have my demographic recorded. That being said, I don't think the demographics are lying, either.

I think that...well, for that Yale one, the 13- to 17-year-old female only has shown up within the last few months. And perhaps more 13- to 17-year-old females are watching it, but if I'm looking statistically, I can only go by what the YouTube analytics are giving me.

And the same goes for our channels, too, because that's a great point. If we're trying to target our YouTube channels to a certain demographic, we can go into the YouTube insights and see those demographics

And I'm thrilled that at the St. Mike's channel, it does show me that plenty of 13- to 17-year-olds are there and are viewing it. But you're exactly right, there are plenty of 13- to 17-year-olds who do not register, who just view those videos and therefore they're not being counted in that demographic.

But I don't think that they are too far off, either. I don't think it's the situation where you've got tens of thousands of 13- to 17-year-olds watching that video that aren't getting accounted for. But that's a very, very good point.

Audience 5: Do you have any suggestions or guidelines for a public channel or do you have one channel?

Mallory Wood: Yeah. I think it depends between institutions. A school like St. Mike's--small private Catholic liberal arts school, 2,000 students, residential--we've got one.

And one is all we need and one is really all we can promote, because if we start promoting 20 different channels, we're now pulling away from each other and we're competing with ourself. That's where playlist come in handy.

I've seen like Dartmouth only has one channel, but they use the playlist function. And the playlists are so important because now you can categorize your videos into 'future students at St. Mike's' or 'professor/faculty interviews at St. Mike's'.

And now you're also targeting students so if they're coming there for a reason, they can get that information because it's easy to see, but those playlists can be searched as well. So, it doesn't look pretty, but I put @saintmikes at the end of every single one of our playlists because if somebody's going into YouTube and typing "future students" or "prospective students at St. Mike's", I want that playlist to show up.

So in most cases, I think one, or else you're going to start competing with yourself. And utilize that playlist function. However, there are certainly cases with much larger universities, with the School of Business versus the School of this and that, where there might be enough content to support more than one.

But if you're only producing a video or two in a week, I really think one is the way to go so you don't compete with yourself.

Facilitator: Right. And just a kind of--I'm actually at the opposite end of the spectrum where we are 30,000 students, large pop research university, 14 separate schools, probably have 20 separate YouTube channels that we tie together with playlists. Because at the end of the day, that law school, that's what they want to watch, which is much different than undergraduate admission.

Mallory Wood: Exactly.

Facilitator: Anyways, we have run out of time. Mallory, thank you very much. Thank you, everyone. Lunch is served upstairs.

[Applause]

Mallory Wood: Hi. Oh, great!

Speaker: Nice job.

Mallory Wood: Nice to meet you in person!

Speaker: And me, you. That was a great job.

Mallory Wood: Oh, well, thank you very much. You have a great video there.

Speaker: Yeah, we just met Friday.