Happy post Halloween and first Monday of November :) This week we’re hearing from Michelle Tarby, senior director of digital engagement at Le Moyne College in Syracuse, New York.
Q: What do prospective students need from higher education institutions in order to confidently take the next step in their journey, and how can storytelling help fulfill that need?
Students experience their college search through several core questions: What can I study? Is this worth it? What can I do with this degree? Will I belong here? What happens next? How do I get ready? While the questions are very different, they all rely on two basic things: reassurance and proof.
Students need the reassurance that their fears (e.g., being undecided, fitting in, managing time) are normal and manageable. They also need proof that people like them are succeeding on our campuses.
Delivering both can be a challenge. In higher education, we’re never short of content, but does content answer those questions that’s on our prospective students’ minds at the moment? Offering reassurance and proof doesn’t mean providing an encyclopedia of every possible answer. It means giving clear, empathetic answers to the specific question they are asking right now. We have to shift our strategy from channel-first publishing to journey-first problem solving, using authentic, human storytelling as the ultimate evidence.
I began questioning why we’re still organizing our content into internal content silos (web, search, social, email). Those channels all still have important roles, but students don’t experience their college search in neat departmental categories. They move between platforms, sources, and conversations as they try to make decisions.
And in the age of generative AI, that distinction matters even more. As the ways students discover information continue to evolve (seemingly daily!), generic institutional claims aren’t enough. Authentic student experiences, specific examples, and peer perspectives help turn those promises into something tangible.
It’s one thing to say “we support undecided students”, but what happens to a prospective student’s thinking when they hear a student talking about exactly how that support works and what that meant to their academic experience (and subsequent success after graduation)? Now we’ve shown them they’re not alone or behind their peers who seem to have everything all figured out.
This storytelling converts our institutional claims into human evidence. Rather than telling a prospective student “We have great undergraduate research opportunities,” we share a story: a sophomore detailing how working alongside a specific faculty member conducting field research led to presenting at an international conference.
Storytelling converts our institutional claims into human evidence. And it’s taking so many forms. We leverage student success coaches, student bloggers, and faculty quotes to demonstrate real outcomes and answer real questions. We’ve also built targeted, stage-specific guides to curate practical questions about college (“How do I talk to professors?”, “How do I make friends?”, “If I’m shy, can I still get involved?”). The content was largely already there, it just needed to be packaged in a way that re-assured prospective students at each step of their journey.
We rotate these guides seasonally so students are getting the answers at the moment. At the same time, we realize that every students’ journey is different. They can bounce between stages.
I can get so immersed in the day-to-day work. This decision framework serves as a reminder that the most effective content strategies aren’t organized around what we want to publish. They’re organized around what our audiences need to know next.
What I love about this answer:
There are so many different things I love about Michelle’s response, but I want to start with her question about why content is organized by silos. That question highlights the same reality about most higher ed websites that are organized by department: they’re internal facing.
But prospective students aren’t internal.
What Michelle is talking about here is making school’s content more human-centered — not only in highlighting the stories of people on campus, but in understanding the questions, realities, and challenges facing prospective students.
The content coming out from a school should meet prospective students where they are, not force them to try and piecemeal information together in order to find the answer to what they’re looking for.
And that gets me to one of Michelle’s other gems: seasonal guides.
What a fantastic way to seamlessly answer what many prospects are thinking about. Plus, as Michelle said, much of the content already exists. It just needed to be repackaged.
By stepping back and thinking about what matters to prospective students instead of what matters internally, Michelle highlights how engaging storytelling can provide reassurance and proof — and inspire prospective students along the way.
What part of Michelle’s answer most resonated with you? I’d love to hear. Also, if you’re going to be at AMA this year, drop me a note and let me know!
