How to Train Your Dragon
Concept: Three headed dragon which represents the symbiotic relationship between:
1) Proper Web Design (mobile first and then desktop)
2) Social Media Marketing Efforts
3) Content Quality and Availability (Constituency Satisfaction)
Introduction: (3 minutes)
We begin this session with telling a story, a tale, a common tale, a dragon tale…
Picture this you live in a small village in the middle of a beautiful valley and at the top of the hill you
have a castle. (Show pictures of village and castle)
At the middle of this village is the Town Square (show picture), this is a place you know well. Why?
Because you spend every day there, you work there, you conduct business there, and you communicate
and share things, trade things there.
Now you hear a horn blast….(make sound of trumpet) and you know what that means. The King has
sent his messenger to bring his latest announcement. The King knows when to make this
announcement because he knows his people very well. He is a loving and kind king who cares for his
people. You get excited when you hear the blasts of the trumpet…..and you hear the footfalls of this
mighty steed the messenger rides in….here he comes, can you see him?
He arrives, he gets off his horse and walks to the center of the town square, opens the scroll, and reads
the scroll….then what does he do? He walks over to the wall and he posts it there for all to see…and off
he goes on his horse up the hill back to the castle.
Then what? Everyone runs over to the wall to read the posting. You read it with such anticipation and
you get to the end at it says….from your King-Content.edu. For more information, please come see me!
That is what you do, because you are excited and want to know more, so off you go up the hill, it’s not
far and you enter palace and there he is waiting for you. “Come inside” he says, and how can I help
you,” he asks.
You ask your question and he the king says, that is an Admissions question and his Admissions officers
wakes up and jumps to attention and comes forward and off you go to talk to him. Then you have a
question about Academic Programs and that officer jumps up and comes over to meet you…and then
you have questions about Advising and so on.
Before long you leave the palace so encouraged so excited because of what you just learned. A new life
is opening up for you, a life of dreams and hopes and answered prayers….
…..then all of a sudden you hear this sound…..and you immediately duck for cover…Whoosh! (Dragon
sound) and you see the beast….the three headed dragon that flies over your village over and over again.
Now that excitement you just felt is gone and now you are faced with reality. (Heavy sigh)
This story has something very real for all of us here today! What?
The Castle where Content is King represents our website. The Town Square where everyone is,
especially at certain times of day, is our Social Media site. The Wall with the scroll that the messenger
posted represents when we post a message in Facebook. The Three Headed dragon represents three of
the obstacles we face as web developers, marketing, and social media personnel at our higher education
institutions.
The three heads of that Dragon represent: (Show graphic slide for this)
1. Proper web design with mobile first and desktop second
2. Proper use of social media with that website
3. How to manage that content, social media, etc with the proper tools to satisfy needs of your
audience.
Our next part, by Melony Ritter, will discuss this topic from a content editor and social media marketing
perspective called, _______________ (20 min) After that I will return to talk from the web
development and marketing point of view. Let’s now give our attention to Melony…