As the calendar turns from 2021 to 2022, the world is emerging from a pandemic unseen in more than a century. For communications professionals at colleges and universities throughout the United States, the past 18 months have provided both enormous challenges and generational opportunities.
During my career in communications and marketing, I’ve seen profound changes in message delivery methods and audience segmentation. Long gone are the days of traditional printed press releases and Kiplinger-style newsletters. In their place has been a wave of online, multimedia targeting that removes the need for traditional information gatekeepers and allows for direct, two-way conversations with audiences both large and small.
As rapid as these changes seemed during the past decade, they paled in comparison to the pandemic-spurred sea change currently underway in our industry. As the economy shows strong signs of rebounding and vaccines are made available nationwide at every age level, BWF spoke with university communications leaders from around the nation about the state of play in the industry and what 2022 might have in store. Here’s what they told us.