Right now, university communicators are gathering in Milwaukee for three days of brainstorming and learning about communicating online at the HighEdWeb Association’s annual conference.
Our team is excited to learn from university pros and share why we think visual communication is vital for universities (if you’re at the conference, be sure to check out our University Solutions Manager Martin Vloet’s talk, Pics or It Didn’t Happen: Why Photos are Key to Building Your Brand and Generating Revenue).
Universities are using visual content to…
1. Welcome students to campus during move-in
(see: Best Photos & Videos of College Move-In)
2. Celebrate milestones
(see: A Different Perspective: Pope Francis’ Visit to Catholic University)
3. Connect with their communities on Instagram
(see: 5 Universities Winning at Instagram)
4. Highlight their campus culture
(see: 4 Ways Universities Use Video In Their Content Marketing)
5. Bring in revenue
(see: University Photographers and Communications Teams on Getting the Most from Visual Assets)
According to Time Magazine, prospective students are even using Instagram to help them choose their future college.
This shift toward visual communication means universities need a solution for storing, organizing, sharing and selling their visual assets. University communications teams need to be able to search for images quickly, share with departments across campus, and access their media libraries when they’re on the go. Most importantly, they need to harness the power of photos and videos to tell great visual stories, and even generate revenue.
We’re excited to share that more than 100 colleges and universities have chosen our cloud-based visual asset management solution, Libris by PhotoShelter. Universities have incredible visual stories to tell, and we’re happy we can make that process easier, faster and more fun!
Something that would help universities to tell their visual stories is to make sure they have plenty of budget for it! My friend was telling me that with his small business he saved a bunch of money through energy comparison websites like Usave. And adding to that this could demonstrate universities doing their due diligence to support eco-friendly ideologies.
But no need to ramble on about ourselves. We’ll let three of those 100+ universities tell you why they traded in their CDs and DVDs, stopped sending massive images via 10 separate emails, and opted instead for visual asset management with Libris.
Purdue University: Speeding Images to Social Media
“With the popularity of social media, we like to get images out while events are still going on,” said Paul Sadler, Creative Services Manager, Purdue University. “Libris makes that happen for us on the fly. We usually have photographers shooting five or more events each weekend with hundreds of images being uploaded at a time. During a football game, our photographers will upload a few select images every time out and then our social media operators and designers in the press box can grab them from the Libris gallery to post in-game graphics on our social outlets. Libris makes it easy for all of our sport communication directors to access and share their photos in one central location. We’re saving a ton of time — finding the images we need in a matter of seconds.”
Hear what Purdue center Robert Kugler had to say after today’s practice. #BoilerUp #BeatMSU http://t.co/zkIix7sD0P
— Purdue Football (@BoilerFootball) September 30, 2015
Jacksonville State University, Attracting Prospective Students with Visual Storytelling
“Showing how we’re the right choice for prospective students and their parents involves high quality, creative and compelling images. Without a way to get those images to our marketing team members and public relations specialists, well, that story is much harder to tell and makes competing with other higher education institutions much more difficult,” said Steve Latham, Director of Photographic Services, Jacksonville State University. “Libris enables us to quickly and efficiently distribute images to campus clients, media, printers, publications, etc. — helping us more effectively tell the JSU story.”
University of Central Florida Accessing, Searching and Sharing Images from 16 Intercollegiate Sports
“Visual asset accessibility and searchability were a huge challenge for us. We receive hundreds of images from virtually every one of our university events — and with 16 intercollegiate sports, that’s a lot of photos,” said Andy Seeley, Assistant Director of Athletics, University of Central Florida. “We now have the ability to quickly and easily access, search and share images with media members, colleagues and others who need them. Libris is affordable, simple and easy to use; sorting and identifying photos used to take us days or weeks — and now it can be done in a matter of hours.”
Cover photo by Kristin Twiford.
