It’s morning here in Vegas, and my talk on blogs, podcasts, and RSS at NAGAP happens at 8:45. I’m glad we have a chance to do this talk, because there’s not much information about these media circulating at this conference. Simply put, blogs are a great way for graduate admissions departments to go.

Main message #1: Don’t be afraid of blogging; be afraid of not blogging. Your prospective students are blogging. Not only should you know what they’re saying about you, you should also have an organized way of interacting with those students online, responding to student concerns rapidly, and being proactive in communicating your message and position the blogosphere.

Main message #2: You can do more with less. There are some excellent open source blogging packages available for free, and they can be adapted to look like your existing website.

Main message #3: Expect to communicate with prospective students online more often. You may not have a new, official marketing message to offer every week, but then again if you’re only considering launching a blog as a way to publish your marketing message, you’re going to miss out on most of the benefits of a blog.

Main message #4: Your most important marketing tool isn’t your website, it’s Google. If your website isn’t built from the ground up with search engine optimization in mind, you may as well not build it. By their very nature, blogs are search engine friendly.

Main message #5: You don’t have a choice. You need to make sure your information reaches people where they are. This means getting into Google, iTunes, and blog searches, and it means offering an RSS feed for those who have switched from browsing web sites to scanning for information using their RSS reader.