American Indian College Fund
The American Indian College Fund is dedicated to increasing the number of Native Americans with college degrees. Since 1989 the nonprofit has provided more than 131,000 scholarships and $193 million to support these ambitions. The College Fund uses Meltwater's all-in-one platform for media monitoring, media contacts, and news releases.
Meltwater Enables American Indian College Fund to
Keep up with key conversations and news items in real-time
Produce a newsletter to widen their reach
Identify relevant journalists and pitch stories that support their message
Challenge
Earning Attention
When only 1% of college students are American Indian, it takes work to attract the media?s attention, and yet the College Fund never got the feeling their previous media intelligence provider was on the same page. The service rep kept changing, and the tool they were using offered a very limited media contacts database, preventing the College Fund from tapping into the appropriate spheres of influence. Even basic searches returned just a fraction of relevant, published articles.
"It was disappointing. We were paying a lot for that tool," says the College Fund's Dina Horwedel.
"I'm using Meltwater to create a newsletter informing journalists of what's going on in our world. This is helping us ramp up our advocacy effort."
Dina Horwedel, Director of Public Education, American Indian College Fund
Solution
A Team Effort to Create New Spheres of Influence
The College Fund's Meltwater service rep has been with them from the beginning and frequently meets with the team to discuss their goals and methods. Real-time alerts notify the Communications Director of trending conversations and key news stories, allowing her to be more proactive. Meltwater's platform also assists her in communicating with audiences outside her traditional audience by identifying and targeting journalists receptive to her message. By pitching journalists directly, she finds them more likely to follow up, particularly when she shares Meltwater's readership metrics on the type of article she's envisioning.
"I'm using Meltwater to create a newsletter informing journalists of what's going on in our world," says Dina Horwedel. "This is helping us ramp up our advocacy effort."
Summary
Meltwater Helps American Indian College Fund
Connect with the right journalist to tell your story
"I wanted to propose an article on why community college education is undervalued. I used Meltwater to target journalists and pitched my article featuring a student who coded for Google. I found just the right journalist and the piece she wrote will soon appear in a high-profile higher ed publication."
Uncover social conversations before they affect your brand
"The monitoring tool came in handy recently when I noticed a lot of social activity. I pulled up the report and realized our agency had placed ads in media that didn't support our messaging or our audience. Naturally we were getting a lot of blowback. I wouldn't have noticed so soon without Meltwater."
Earn key media placements from consultants insights
"My advice is to implement the strategies you learn from your business reviews with your personal Meltwater rep. After strategizing new ways to pitch our brand on social, we got huge placements in The Atlantic and The Chronicle of Higher Education."
— Dina Horwedel, Director of Public Education
