I can think of any number of reasons why Beloit College would want to sever its relationship with the Beloit Mindset List. But a January post (“Digital Brand Reputation and Social Listening: Beloit College”) on the Campus Sonar Brainwaves blog suggests the real reason might be a lack of alignment with the college’s “brand attributes.”

First of all, I will note that Campus Sonar is led by a “recognized thought-leader”/“strategic thinker”/“social listening expert” so you know it’s a legitimate organization, not a bunch of grifters taking advantage of a liberal arts college with a $7 million budget deficit.

According the blog post:

A longstanding liberal arts school, Beloit College, wanted to change public perception and re-invent its brand as a premier destination for the future. Tim Jones, Chief Communications and Integrated Marketing Officer, was charged with cultivating demand for the college and creating a niche in the market. To do this, the college needed to shift its narrative, telling the story of Beloit College as a premium product in the market, worthy of the price point. Tim knew social listening could help and enable them to see the total conversation, including how it bends and shifts and rises and falls around certain topics.

Tim and the marketing gurus at Campus Sonar cooked up three “brand attributes” of Beloit: liberal arts in practice, mentorship, and social justice. Next Campus Sonar

worked with Beloit College to analyze the data, segment the conversation, categorize opportunities and influencers, and identify emerging trends. Based on the analysis, Beloit College assembled a comprehensive picture of the narratives and topics that surrounded their brand. They discovered that the conversation dominating the marketplace was fairly hollow—the name of a place with average athletic teams. The exception was the Mindset List (an annual compilation of the values that shape the mindset of students about 18 years old and entering college), which didn’t speak to the college’s key brand attributes.

Clearly no one at Campus Sonar took a look at the Mindset List since it is clearly not an “annual compilation of values.” Anyway, “social listening” revealed that what students posted about Beloit College on social media was quite different from “the positive sentiments that came out of the student survey.” Go figure! For instance, students think the food stinks:

They found the root causes for some of the conversations that were happening, which was helpful in shaping the way they behave and administer services as a college. For example, dining service—what people say, think, and share about food service made the college recognize the need for conversation transparency, and provided the opportunity to listen to student concerns in a forum that’s separate from policy making. In turn, using social media to engage with students allowed the college to shape and enable more practical, informal conversations.

The bit about “a forum that’s separate from policy making” cuts to the heart of this enterprise: Let’s design an opportunity for the students to complain about the victuals that will trick them into posting nicer things on social media without actually serving them better food. And that is what’s called “conversation transparency.”

My favorite part of the blog post is probably the claim that issuing a press release caused “trending topics [to] change from ‘sunset’ and ‘click’ to ‘scholarship’ and ‘mentorship.’ Seeding and fostering the conversation was very influential.” Indeed. But I digress. Here is the conclusion of the report’s findings on the Mindset List:

Social listening is key to Beloit College making progress in monitoring their reputation and aligning their online narrative with their brand attributes. For example, Campus Sonar’s analyst Amber worked with Tim to analyze two major segments of the college’s online conversation: athletics and the Mindset List (an annual publication from Beloit College faculty). This analysis approach helped Tim get a clean look at what Beloit College’s audience was saying, and he discovered that these topics didn’t contribute positively or negatively to the conversation around the college.

To illustrate, online conversation volume for Beloit College increased about five times its normal amount for less than a week after the Mindset List is published online. Sentiment of the larger-than-normal conversation remains mostly neutral, and combined with the fact that the conversation earned from the list isn’t aligned with Beloit College brand attributes, Tim was able to start thinking about the continued value of producing this list. Should they continue to do so if it isn’t aligned with their brand? If its [sic] decided to phase it out, could Beloit College strategically leverage the conversation around the list and redirect interest in it to promoting the college as a premier college destination instead?

I guess we know now what Tim decided about “the continued value of producing the list.” But what’s that last part about? Beloit is supposed “strategically leverage the conversation” about killing the list to promote themselves as “a premier college destination”? How would that work?

Campus Sonar’s blog post isn’t a smoking gun, but it’s as good a story as I’ve found about the reasoning behind Beloit’s decision—a very good decision whatever its rationale—to divorce itself from the Mindset List.

Obviously, Beloit and Campus Sonar are “socially listening” to this post. (Hello, Tim!) If anyone associated with these fine institutions has any further information (e.g., memos, email exchanges) on the background of this decision, please send it our way.