Video worth a Million Words: Academica Group’s iPSE™ Interactive Video solution

Jul 22, 2008

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:
Atlantic City, NJ | July 21, 2008

At the EduWeb conference in Atlantic City today, Toronto-based Academica Group Inc. unveiled its newest social media tool for college and university recruiters: iPSE™, an interactive video jukebox module for recruitment microsites.

The youth demographic that is the key market for higher education is increasingly accustomed to immediate access to information, and in a conversational format. Their media habits are driving up the use of broadband Internet access, and daily traffic at social networking sites like MySpace, YouTube and Facebook. Social media has become mainstream, and is a marketing essential for campus recruiters.

iPSE can help your institution not only join in the conversation, but also fuel it. iPSE is an interactive web recruitment solution leveraging conversational marketing and social media. iPSE interacts with prospective students using reality interviews with students, alumni, faculty and employers to communicate the content, dynamics and results of your program. Authenticity on the Web is especially important to prospective students, who want to be talked to rather than at, and the video-recorded interviews and testimonials – produced entirely by Academica Group’s Social Media Team – encourage engagement with your target audience.

Academica’s iPSE interactive video console allows users to choose their own programming or medium from which to retrieve information. Most PSE prospects seek interaction with at least three main groups: peers and trusted friends; mentors and alumni; and individuals with credible knowledge about the discipline, such as professors or employers. iPSE brings these important groups together into a focused, powerful online video experience, leaving potential applicants the choice of where to access information.

“The iPSE surrounds the web viewer with a visual decision matrix and improves their online decision-making capabilities,” says Philip Bliss, Academica Group’s Chief Operating Officer.

iPSE is much more than video: it incorporates other online conversational and user-generated formats such as blogs, forums, surveys and webinars, giving prospective students multiple options in researching higher education programs. iPSE works to break the portal’s media content into external networks such as Facebook and MySpace, areas where the conversation is taking place.

Following the implementation of the iPSE, the Academica Social Media Team implements optional social media campaigns to ensure the success of your recruitment portal. The launch campaign includes an online audit to reveal where and what your target audience is doing online. Based on such data, a “word of mouth” campaign will infiltrate blogs, social networks, online ads – all the Web hotspots frequented by prospective applicants.

iPSE is one of several solutions comprising the Academica Group suite of Social Media Services to help academic institutions appreciate the power and potential of emerging communication technologies, resulting in increased online visibility, more direct engagement with Web communities, and quick delivery of market intelligence.

For media information, please contact:
Philip Bliss, Chief Operating Officer
tel. 416.504.7228 ext. 200
phil@academicagroup.com

About iPSE:

Academica’s PSE applicant studies show that prospective students respond positively to a very specific approach: Conversational Marketing. The iPSE Interactive Video Console employs this approach. It interacts with the prospective higher education candidates rather than speaking at them. Whether students are coming straight from high school, university, the workforce or other areas, iPSE lets you talk with them using video and the internet – the medium of their choice.

Academica Group’s Social Media Team has helped more than 100 Colleges & Universities approach the fast emerging social media landscape, and can present you with solutions and best practices to maximize your investment in this area. Our iPSE solutions bring your message to life with student and alumni video interviews, and uses community tools to build relationships and distribute your content to pre-existing communities such as YouTube and Facebook.

The Interactive iPSE Recruitment Solutions comprises
* Flash-based interactive platform
* Surveys
* Analytics (Google)
* Blogs
* Webinars
* Drupal Media and Content Management
* Forums
* Social Media Optimization
* Outsourced Video Hosting

About Academica Group:

Academica Group Inc. has long been the North American leader in education-sector quantitative consumer research. Originally founded in 1995 as Acumen Research Group, the company pioneered the application of consumer research to higher education policy, branding, alumni and student recruitment challenges. Academica’s annual University College Applicant Study (UCAS™) surveys almost 100,000 post-secondary applicants every spring, and the company has provided research and strategic consulting to more than one hundred college, university, and education clients. Academica Group is involved in a number of innovative national educational policy research projects, such as the development of an instrument to measure Perceived Return on Investment in Post-Secondary Education (PRoI-PSE).

In the past three years, Academica Group has grown tenfold, and expanded to become the only provider of full-cycle research, marketing and web technology focused exclusively on the higher education sector. Academica Group’s recent acquisition of Toronto-based x2idea Corporation, a leading web development and creative services company, greatly enhances the company’s product and service offerings, now including a website Content Management System called x2clicks™ and an application for the Facebook platform, SkoolPool™.