Don’t let a milestone anniversary slip by with a simple slice of cake or balloon emoji on Instagram. Take the time to plan out a comprehensive marketing and communication strategy that is intentional and multi-faceted to really leverage the momentum of the big occasion. Share your company’s origin story and lean into all the triumphs and achievements throughout the years. Tap into nostalgia. Nostalgia strengths people’s emotional connection with your company and deepens their loyalty and brand affinity. Your audience will be delighted with special edition product releases and/or retro branding. Infuse all these elements into social media, advertising, PR efforts, design, web content and more. Historical dates and photos can be throwback posts on social media. Create a special commemorative logo that can visually brand the anniversary. Highlight the founders of the past while also celebrating current employees in videos and blog content. Now is the best time to control the narrative, tell your brand’s story by highlighting the past and outlining the vibrant future yet to come.

Step into the future and discover how the latest AI-powered advancements can elevate the impact of all your communications, from marketing videos to social media and email campaigns. “Lights, Camera, AI” is packed with practical advice from Stanford senior creative producer Steve Fyffe and University of Oregon senior director of strategic engagement Michelle Joyce that will save you time, money and countless hours of experimentation. It’s designed for anyone who wants to take advantage of AI to work faster and smarter.

Steve will guide attendees through the process of creating captivating and inclusive videos with global reach through AI-powered brainstorming, voiceovers and translation. Michelle will show you how to train your own, customized GPT models, integrate plug-ins, conduct in-depth research and streamline your email management.

Don't miss this opportunity to harness the power of AI and take your university’s storytelling, marketing and communications to new heights.

Have you ever wanted to engage donors more fully in an authentic and meaningful way with faculty, staff, students, alumni and donors? The Utah Valley University (UVU) Strategic Engagement team’s initiative, the EverGREEN Ambassador Program, was conceived in line with the university’s inaugural comprehensive fundraising campaign. The EverGREEN Ambassador Program was launched to strategically engage with key donors after the formal public campaign launch. As part of the fundraising campaign, the EverGREEN Ambassadors Program invited UVU’s supporters to serve as extensions of the Institutional Advancement Strategic Engagement team. In this session we will explore ways to identify principal-level donors for an integrated influencer marketing campaign. Learn how you can establish and scale an influencer marketing program for your donors and alumni with meaningful and engaging content.

At CSUSB, we take great pride in our approach to social media, ensuring authenticity and fidelity to our institution's identity through the display of "Coyote Pride." Our commitment to authenticity is a defining factor that distinguishes us from other universities. Our social media voice is thoughtfully crafted to resonate not only with our esteemed faculty but also with our valued students and alumni, fostering a strong sense of connection and identification within our university community. This commitment to authenticity is more than a branding strategy, it is a promise to our audience….A promise built on trust among our followers. Our goal is to have prospective students and all stakeholder groups be drawn to CSUSB, not be slick marketing tactics seen elsewhere, but by genuine interactions through each and every post. In this digital age, CSUSB is setting out to prove that ‘authenticity’ is not a liability but in fact, a powerful magnet for attracting CSUSB stakeholders who seek real connections and meaningful experiences. By accomplishing this, the social media team hopes to paint a vibrant picture of the CSUSB spirit for all to see.

In the spring of 2023, the peaceful college town of Davis, California was shaken by a series of violent stabbing attacks. Two people died, including a University of California, Davis student, and one was severely injured. The suspect arrested for the attacks was a recently separated UC Davis student.
In this talk I will discuss how UC Davis’ communications team responded to these events. Over more than a week of frenetic activity, our communications involved many levels, from the immediate needs of a shocked and grieving community to dealing with attention from national and international media. The work is still ongoing as the campus recovers and the legal process moves forward.

Once upon a time, a few intrepid communicators at Brigham Young University embarked on a daring journey—one that would lead through thick forests of research, across deep oceans of campus conversations, and over soaring summits of strategic planning. On this journey of discovery, they found themselves listening for clues from consultants, campus partners, audiences, students, online data, and university leadership. In the end, what they learned helped BYU launch its first nationwide marketing campaign, grounded in good old fashioned storytelling and rooted in the institution’s mission and values. Now almost two years into the campaign, with hundreds of millions of ad campaign impressions, they have a quiver full of stories, a backpack stuffed with spreadsheets, and a fanny pack of ideas to share about how you can listen effectively to craft a successful marketing campaign.

More than 40% of Boise State graduates have graduated in the last ten years, making the near-majority of our alumni either Millennials or Gen Z. And yet, this demographic is most often the least engaged when it comes to philanthropy towards higher education. By flipping the script and taking a strategic cause-based approach to giving day, Boise State more effectively aligned itself, and higher education in general, with the societal causes that resonate most with these demographics. This approach resulted in a record-breaking giving day with $566,388 gifted, a 74% increase in digital impressions, and a 59% increase in alumni giving with the greatest giving amongst alumni, in both dollars and numbers, coming from our Broncos Of the Last Decade. Join Boise State professionals as they provide a step-by-step guide and take-away toolkit to instituting a cause-based giving day.

As a higher education professional, you know the importance of engaging alumni and creating meaningful connections goes well beyond graduation day. In this session, we'll explore how to leverage the existing activities at your university to gather alumni and make an impact on local communities. This session will showcase how to enhance your various events to foster alumni engagement, and create positive change; and will show how you can get the media to tell these stories along the way. Attendees will leave with specific ideas to strengthen their events and create meaningful connections that benefit both the university and the community.