SPEAKER_03
You definitely want to make sure that whatever you're using is tied in somehow or another to Google Search Console.

SPEAKER_00
You're listening to The Higher Ed Marketer, a podcast geared towards marketing professionals in higher education. This show will tackle all sorts of questions related to student recruitment, donor relations, marketing trends, new technologies, and so much more. If you're looking for conversations centered around where the industry is going, this podcast is for you.

Let's get into the show.

SPEAKER_01
Welcome to The Higher Ed Marketer podcast. I'm Troy Singer, and I'm here with my co-host and cross-country cheerleader, Bart Kaler. And today, we both talked to Cam Tracy, web development agent at Union University in Jackson, Tennessee.

And we're going to talk a little bit about the evolution of the websites in higher ed marketing.

SPEAKER_02
Yeah, I had a chance to meet Cam a few months ago through another person at Union University that I've known for a while, Rick Taphorn. And Rick shared with me that Cam has been the director of the web since its inception in 1995. And I was fascinated with that.

I've had an opportunity to be involved with my alma mater's website since the early days as well. And so, I just was really looking forward to talking to Cam today, just about his involvement on one higher ed website for going on 25, 27 years now. And so, it's a great conversation, even if you're not interested in kind of the reminiscing.

Cam has a lot of really good things to talk about with just how he engages with the communications department, how he keeps everybody up to speed, and even how he shares some of that knowledge with the adjunct teaching that he does at Union. And so, it's a good episode. I'm looking forward to sharing it.

SPEAKER_01
Here is our conversation with Cam Tracy. It's my pleasure to welcome Cam Tracy from Union University in Jackson, Tennessee to the Higher Ed Marketer podcast. Cam, thank you for joining us today.

Sure. Glad to be here. Cam, if you would, tell us a little bit about Union University and then your role there.

SPEAKER_03
Sure. Union is a small liberal arts private institution in Tennessee. We're about to come up on our bicentennial.

So, we'll be celebrating 200 years next year. I've been here for about 27 of those 200.

SPEAKER_01
Well, that is wonderful. And what have you done over that 27 years on a high level? I think we're going to get into some of it when we talk about the history of web development in higher education. But give us a little bit about your journey.

SPEAKER_03
Well, I started in the library, actually, in instructional technology. Of course, when I graduated from college, I didn't know what the internet was. And I took a job about a year and a half after I graduated back in my alma mater and kind of stumbled into doing the web when I was here.

We got the internet when I first, probably within a month or two of me coming back. And then I just sort of got interested in it and volunteered to do the website.

SPEAKER_02
That's great. So, I know that, you know, I was fascinating when I was talking to one of your peers, Rick Taphorn, there at Union. And he was telling me about you're, you know, being there for 22 years and having really been in charge of the web for all of those years.

And so it's interesting to me because I've had the opportunity to work with my alma mater as an external partner, but to help them with their website for nearly about the same time. And it's interesting, the idea of how much it's changed. I mean, I mean, just, I know different schools, like when I was helping Anderson, you know, it was in the IT department.

And I think I remember the very first time I saw it, it was like just, you know, picture of the IT guys, you know, kind of hamming it up, you know, welcome to the university. Tell me a little bit about how it kind of evolved at Union with your recollection.

SPEAKER_03
Well, I thought we needed something. Oliver Dossman had just gotten the internet instituted at Union. He had had to go to administration and convince them that the internet was going to be a, you know, good thing for us going forward.

And it seems kind of weird to think you have to convince somebody of that now.

SPEAKER_02
But at the time, you know, it's kind of like I need to have running water from my house. Yeah, exactly.

SPEAKER_03
But once that got put in, I started, you know, using the internet a lot more and started. So I was talking to our PR office and just said, you mind if I try to put something together? So I said, sure, we'd love for you to do something. And so I took the undergraduate catalog and that was my content at the time.

We didn't have, I mean, we had news releases and things like that. But what described the school was the catalog at the time. And so I started that, spent about two months at night, not during the day because I had man's structural and technology things going on and kind of put it together.

And we actually launched December 9th of 95th. So we've celebrated 26 years now, I guess, with that. Yeah, it's just been developing or evolving ever since.

I went for a graduate degree probably a few years later. And when I came back, I was able to just focus on the website full time at the time. That wasn't a, it wasn't a job, you know, to be the web developer of the university.

It was, you know, a sideline thing or something along those lines. But they let me focus on it completely starting about 99. And so.

SPEAKER_02
That's great. That's kind of when things started to take off was, you know, late 90s, 99. I remember, you know, we launched a website for the, for my all modern 99 and, you know, it got picked up by the Chronicle and things like that because there was really, really wasn't hardly anybody that was using the website.

And so I find it fascinating just to kind of see how much things have changed and your involvement in the past 26 years with it. It's a testimony to just kind of that ongoing learning. And I guess that's one thing I was just going to ask you about a little bit is that just how have you stayed up on all that? I mean, you know, you and I both, I mean, we probably remember the days of bracket, HTML bracket, you know, starting to write it that way.

Whereas, you know, today, I mean, a lot of people don't understand, especially younger generations don't understand, you know, what a content management system really, how that changed the game. Sure.

SPEAKER_03
I mean, it's like I said, when I went to Florida State for my, you know, I went to graduate degree, I kind of was able to formalize some of the things I was, I had learned, you know, learned on my own, you know, ever since then, just tried to keep up, you know, through I'm part of a number of organizations and just kind of, you know, I like to play that oftentimes Googling something now Googling something, but, you know, just trying to find somebody else has done something similar, look at their source code and kind of, you know, mimic it for yourself. And just, you know, a lot of, and also teach. So when I got my graduate degree, I came back and I've been teaching adjunct for 22 years now.

And so that kind of keeps him fresh as well. I mean, I get to see the student, get to see it through the students eyes. And then I have to, of course, present it to them in a way that is understandable for them now.

And, you know, of course, I get to teach all the new stuff and I still have to maintain some of the old stuff. But, you know, can't always be cutting edge on everything you're doing. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02
But I guess even beyond the idea of just the, you know, looking back and kind of, you know, walking down memory lane, things have really changed though. I mean, there's been a focus change if I, if I'm kind of hearing you correctly and I know this as well too. But back then you said, you know, content was the catalog.

And you know, tell me how that's kind of evolved over time that you've seen.

SPEAKER_03
Sure. I mean, we started with just, you know, buckets, essentially that, you know, I think we had about 10 pages that you could go to and then maybe drill down to a department site and things like that based upon what they put the catalog. But you know, as things progressed, you know, we've been through multiple iterations of our website now, you know, we sort of shifted to a news focus first, you know, that was like, you know, came up to a newspaper about union and maybe, and then those links were sort of off to the side.

But then, you know, as things progressed, probably into the 2000s, we started going with more of a, you know, marketing and missions type focus so that, you know, this is the first impression of prospective student, prospective parent will have. And so that's going to be, we're going to put that up front and you can still get to all the other stuff, but we started adding more layers and different, you know, more sophistication, I guess, to it, to make it more visually appealing and more functional to get to everything. Of course, you know, you probably know this running a higher education website, you know, once they're site on the linked off the front page with all their content linked off the front page.

And we've kind of gotten away from that now with the missions focus, but we do still have sort of, you know, some ways to get to everything from our, you know, master navigation list there as well.

SPEAKER_02
Yeah. And I think that it's changed. I mean, I don't know about you, but I mean, obviously the sites have gotten bigger.

Content is really kind of driving a lot more. I mean, we have to be a lot more conscious of keywords and Google and things like that. And I mean, and I guess I go back to, you know, just how are you keeping up on all that? I mean, I know that, you know, you're doing it day by day, you're teaching it.

But I mean, where do you go to kind of learn what's going on? Or do you just, are you just a student of paying attention to everybody else?

SPEAKER_03
I'm paying attention to quite a bit. But I mean, organizations, Hyde Web has been a great resource for me. I've been to a number of their fiscal conferences, been doing a lot of their online ones since the pandemic and picked up quite a bit from there.

I really like the list-apart group and their event-apart. Some of the things they do is very cutting edge. But for Hyde, I mean, just as far as staying current on things, it's, you know, seeing somebody else do something, then Google out how to do it and, you know, kind of see what trends will take you, I guess, is sort of how I keep in keep up to date.

SPEAKER_01
And the way things are changing so rapidly, I imagine that it can be a challenge keeping up with the technology, but also since this is the higher ed marketer, also keeping your marketing colleagues. And so how are those conversations going and making sure that they are staying flexible and helping them to adapt? Because I'm sure there are lots of changes that you have to talk to them on a weekly basis.

SPEAKER_03
Sure. Well, I'm in the communications office, so I'm in constant contact with our marketing folks. They're, you know, right down the hall and they're on my team.

I think a lot of higher ed groups have their webmaster in their IT department or maybe some other location. And I just find it works best for us. It's not right or wrong, you know, of course.

But yeah, we're continually going back and forth with, you know, how do we get this program more eyeballs? How do we, you know, promote this event and just trying to strategize the best ways to do that? Of course, Google Tag Manager became a really good resource for our marketing folks to be able to, you know, do the things they need to do and not, I don't have to go and update the website every time they have a new, you know, ad that's going up and just add it to Tag Manager and it pushes it in there. You know, variety of things like that. But yeah, just seeing quite a bit with helping our marketers do their job and being the authoritative source for the information is what I feel like my job is.

And so, you know, just letting them be where the audience is and then, you know, helping them drive them back to our site for more detailed information and more and maybe the functionality of registering for an event or, you know, hitting the call for entries on, you know, applying and acquiring things like that.

SPEAKER_02
Yeah, that seems to me like even though some of those things, even the way that forms are evolving and management is evolving, you know, I'm not sure how much, you know, self-management some of the other team members have as far as content development, but, you know, that seems to be a trend sometimes too, as being able to have, you know, different people being able to log in to manage different areas of the website back in the day, you know, if we can say that back in the day, you know, you really had to know HTML code. You need you needed to know some basics of scripting to be able to edit those things. But, you know, with, with modern tools, you know, as long as somebody's a good content, you know, person and they understand the basics of a word type of interface, it changes things.

And I think that opens up a lot more tools for the higher ed marketers.

SPEAKER_03
Sure, sure. I mean, you know, CMS is definitely a great, great tool. I mean, I built, once I learned how to do database design with, you know, hooking a database up to a website, I've been able to build a lot of things that leverages some of the content that, you know, people update, like our news folks have been able to post since, you know, 99 from the content management system.

And so we sort of have a homegrown system for what we're doing. And some of the department sites, we, you know, I kind of built all tools to let them do it. But content for, you know, a lot of folks, content management systems, WordPress, a variety of those tools are a great resource to be able to allow people just to use templates that are existing and go from there.

SPEAKER_02
So, yeah. Yeah. A lot of times, I mean, I think that as you get more people involved in it and they start to get used to the tools and things, whenever I do a presentation, I always have a slide at the time that either has Yoda saying, you know, you must unlearn what you've learned or, you know, fancy or Alvin Toffler quote that says, you know, the, the illiterate of the 21st century are those, not going to be those who can't read and write, but those who can't, you know, learn, unlearn and relearn. But how do you help your colleagues understand that, you know, maybe what's going on today with a piece of technology or with, you know, a certain way that digital marketing is working, whether it's the web or whether it's social media, how do you help them understand that, you know, it's probably not going to be that way tomorrow or five years or even maybe even the administration where, hey, we just, you know, they say, didn't we just do this investment five years ago? Why do we need to do it again already? And I mean, things change.

How do you kind of navigate that?

SPEAKER_03
Well, it's building trust with your clients and just, you know, showing them sort of like what some of the new opportunities are for getting the word out about their programs or their events and teaching them how, you know, when they're writing content potentially for their area to, you know, fill it up with some of those keywords and, you know, what other types of things can we use to put on their page or what are the types of content streams can we get on their page that are going to help lodge it into Google's brain, I guess, so that when people are looking for it, they'll get to it. And, you know, I do a lot of things behind the scenes too, you know, like I'm working with structured content, structured data a lot now to what kind of communicates directly with Google, you know, someone will send me an event page, but I'll build that sort of behind the scenes so that Google can see that. So I kind of feel like my job is to put the best face on it for them, but then kind of make sure that the behind the scenes is doing all the job, doing the job it needs to, to get rankings and, you know, Google scheme in many ways for search.

And I mean, we use some of the Bing stuff and all that too, but just making sure that you've got good web standards and, you know, that you're able to be seen a variety of ways that, you know, that's the goal, you know,

SPEAKER_01
final question as we close the episode, is there a final thought or maybe a takeaway you could offer either folks that are in the web agency or the marketers that work with them closely?

SPEAKER_03
Well, you know, I've mentioned a few Google tools. I mean, you definitely want to make sure that, you know, whatever you're using is tied in somehow or another to Google search console, Google's, you know, you have Google analytics, but more specifically Google analytics for now so that you'll have some of that data in the future and that you're just utilizing some of those tools as for intelligence on what it is you're trying to do to improve your site. And it just kind of shows you a lot of things.

Oh, there's other tools for that too, you know, the dubbots and the those type of things, but generally, yeah, those tools are what I rely upon daily.

SPEAKER_01
Wonderful. We really appreciate your time with us today, Cam. If someone would like to reach out and start a conversation with you directly, what would be the best way for them to do that?

SPEAKER_03
Well, C-Tracy, C-T-R-A-C-Y-U-E-D-U, generally the best way. Email is my favorite. That's generally about it.

So I mean, I'm on some of the socials, but I'm overly responsive.

SPEAKER_01
Well, we certainly appreciate you being responsive to us and being a guest on the show, and we appreciate you taking us down the journey that it's been fun listening to you and Bart reminisce from the first time that you created websites for your alma mater to how everything has changed today. Bart, do you have any final thoughts?

SPEAKER_02
Yeah, I really appreciate a lot of what Cam's talked about today with just the idea of, you know, being able to evolve and kind of learn. I mean, I think that that's such a skill for higher ed marketers, regardless if you're in the web department or whether you're a content writer or whether you are working in branding, designer, whatever it is, being able to recognize that the more that you can adapt and be flexible, the more valuable you're going to be to your institution. And I think that some veterans like Cam and myself and others who have been around for a while, I think I've seen that over and over again of just being able to adapt and pivot and change.

I mean, you know, I think Cam, I really appreciate a lot of what he said there at the end with different ways of using the Google tools, whether it's the Search Console or Analytics 4 and some of what he's been talking about today is, you know, I end up doing more of the business relationships than the actual, you know, development these days. And so, you know, I don't understand everything that Cam maybe talked about in some of these things, but I think that the fact that I've got people on the team that can understand that, that I can trust them and that I need to adapt and be flexible to realize that, you know what, I don't need to know it all, but I need to have people surrounding me that do know it. And I think that's something that we all can learn as higher ed marketers is that we can't be an island.

Even if you're a department of one or two, which I know a lot of small schools are, it still is important for you to be able to at least find other places. You know, Cam talked about some different resources of places that he goes to get inspiration, whether they're, you know, listservs or whether they're online, you know, websites or events or things like that. There's always other people out there that are willing to help.

I know there's organizations like NACAP and other places where a lot of schools kind of gather around to do professional development. And those are important things to do as you kind of learn to flex and adapt and change in this evolving digital marketplace. I mean, we just, we did a blog post this past week on, you know, the metaverse and how that's going to change things, you know, coming forward.

And that's, you know, we haven't even talked about that on the higher ed market or, you know, podcast yet. But the idea that there's a, there's a seismic shift coming in the way that we consume the data on the internet. And that's through, you know, this, this virtual artificial AR VR type stuff.

And, you know, not to get into that today, but it's going to require us to adapt and be flexible again. And so that's, that's kind of the takeaway that I'm taking away from a lot of this today.

SPEAKER_01
Thank you very much, Bart. And again, thank you, Cam, for being our guest today. That closes our episode.

The higher ed market or podcast is sponsored by Kailer solutions, a marketing strategy and branding agency specializing in higher ed marketing. And by think patented, a marketing execution company specializing in combining print, mail and digital marketing for cohesive dynamic outreach campaigns. On behalf of my co-host Bart Kailer, I'm Troy Singer.

Again, as always, thank you for joining us.

SPEAKER_00
You've been listening to the higher ed marketer to ensure that you never miss an episode, subscribe to the show in your favorite podcast player. If you're listening with Apple podcasts, we'd love for you to leave a quick rating of the show. Simply tap the number of stars you think the podcast deserves.

Until next time.