A Look Back at 2013 @mStonerinc: Thought Leadership, New Staff, Financial Growth

In my first post about what happened in 2013 at mStoner, I mentioned that we spent some time focusing on our corporate values.

If you know anything about us, you know that one of our core values is sharing knowledge with our colleagues in higher ed. We’ve done that since our founding because we believe that everyone benefits if we can work together to raise the level of knowledge, expertise, and awareness around what we do.

At mStoner, we contribute in a variety of ways: through our blog (now in its second decade!); writing; social media; webinars; through our support of EDUniverse and Higher Ed Live; and by presenting at major professional conferences around the world.

Our First Book, Social Works, and Lots More

The big news for 2013 was the publication of our book, Social Works: How #HigherEd Uses #SocialMedia to Raise Money, Build Awareness, Recruit Students, and Get Results. Social Works contains 25 detailed case studies illustrating how 28 institutions in the US, the UK, and South Africa used social media and other channels in successful campaigns to recruit students, raise money, muster public support for institutional projects, raise money, create brand awareness, and boost alumni affiliation. Not only did the book get great reviews, but we’ve almost sold out of our first printing!

Here are some other highlights from the year:

• It was a big year for mStoner’s blog: we celebrated its 10th anniversary and more than 74,000 visitors. mStoner team members also wrote about key communication topics for UCDA Designer Magazine and CASE Currents.
• Our monthly email newsletter, Intelligence, underwent a major redesign in September. We use Intelligence to highlight valuable and relevant content, events, and other .edu trends. You can  sign up here.
• Many mStoner team members shared their knowledge and expertise with our colleagues through our own webinars, many of them free.
• In 2013, we presented at many of the premier events on the #highered conference circuit, including CASE Asia-Pacific Conference; the CASE Summer Institute in Communications and Marketing; CASE Social Media and Community; HighEdWeb; swissnex’s Digital Campus Meeting in Luzern, Switzerland; UCDA’s Design Summit; SUNYCUAD; and The Symposium for the Marketing of Higher Education.
• We launched a presence for mStoner on Instagram, LinkedIn, and Google+.
• Our Higher Ed Live network was very active in 2013. A new channel, Advancement Live, launched in July and is already the network’s most-viewed channel.

This was the fourth year in which we teamed up with CASE and Huron Education on the Survey of Social Media in Advancement. One of the key findings from the 2013 survey was that social media is increasingly used in campaigns for brand strategy, fundraising, and other purposes. We shared this research through a number of conference presentations and a white paper.

Company Highlights

I mentioned that we spent some significant time revisiting our company values as a guide for ourselves, new hires, and as a way for prospective clients to gain some insights into how we think and behave.

We also added some really great, new colleagues to our team. I’m excited about each of them, for different reasons:

• In January, Patrick Powers joined us. Patrick brings a wealth of experience — most recently, as the strategist behind Webster University’s online presence. He’s well-known in #highered as someone who thinks broadly and deeply about the web, social media, and how they work.
• Paul Heintz has more than 15 years of experience designing and art directing clear, compelling interfaces for national brands. He’s an expert in the nuances of user experience and has added great depth to our design team.
• Cassi Greenlee thought she’d be working with our controller, Kate Smith, when she joined us in April. But in October, she started working with Mallory Wood on sales and marketing, and just this month, she transitioned into her new role!
• Jennifer Presley came to us from Elsevier. We’ve discovered that she’s a real project management ninja, with a PMP certification, the gold standard for project managers. She also knows her way around Home Depot, since she’s immersed in renovating her house.
• We looked awhile for the right person to develop and lead our brand strategy practice. Finally, we found her: in September, Deborah Maue joined us as a senior strategist. Deb’s experience fit our needs to a T: she worked at Unilever; guided DePaul’s brand strategy and messaging for seven years; and understands just how important online channels are to having a strong .edu brand. We’ve learned that Deb is a great colleague — she fits right into our team.

Finally, we grew our revenue 16 percent last year. Of course, this means that we’re able to compensate our staff for their dedication and hard work, but it’s not just important for maintaining our staff morale. It’s essential for current and future clients to know that we have a track record of managing our company well and are able to carry through on the promises we make about delivering excellent work on time and on budget.

[This is part 2 of mStoner’s annual report for 2013; see part 1, which focused on clients and client work.]