It is conference season, a time of year when our consultants here at James Tower are out presenting and, more importantly, listening to the presentations given by numerous admission and marketing professionals.

Last year, our team gave several presentations on blogs. At nearly every session, the question on motivation and compensation was raised. And every possible idea from cash, to gift cards, to digital cameras was discussed. However, last week, at the Southern Association for College Admission Counseling Conference (SACAC), Leslie Jackson from Georgia Institute of Technology and Angelo Lee from Vanderbilt University shared the secret to motivating bloggers: comments.

While many administrators are hesitant to let bloggers create posts without review, they are even more concerned about responses to posts (comments) becoming live on the Web site without prior approval. Yet, Jackson argues that it is nearly impossible to keep up with reviewing everything and approving it. The advantage of blogs as a communications tool is their timeliness and authenticity. She recommends a careful and thorough selection process for choosing bloggers and then allowing anyone to respond to the posts with comments. There is nothing you can do to get bloggers to engage in their blog and post consistently than to allow comments, she said.

Of course, this doesn’t mean that you can just “check out” and not be involved in your blogging program. Jackson said she still reads all the posts and all the comments. And, while she has “suggested” some edits, she has yet to completely remove anything.

Please visit:

Georgia Institute of Technology Admissions Blogs

Vanderbilt University Admissions Blogs

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