West Virginia University's "About WVU" website section and integrated communication

Communication Process

The website looked at herein is the West Virginia Website and of particular interest is the section "About WVU" that is seen to have significantly sufficient information and details about the University and the activities therein. Being that the website is comprehensive and has several sections, this "about WVU" section is managed and coordinated by the public relations manager within the university. This is reflected from the concentration on the information formatted for public consumption and the language therein is reflective of the public information. The perceived receivers of the information herein are the high school graduates who might want to join university for further studies. The section looks at attracting this group into the university and increases the number of enrollments progressively. It also seeks to have the potential students understand all the major and significant activities that are carried out within the university and how they can get to be part of the university.

Integrated business communication

One of the central aspects in corporate communication is the use of integrated business communication in order to have effective communication and response from the targeted audience of the communication. The integrated business communication is referred to as the use of varied promotional methods with an aim of these methods reinforcing each other, and this has been successfully used in this section of the website (Emerson University, 2014). The sender employs the integrated business communication to put across the message about the university. The sender uses moving picture, still pictures, words and divides or categorizes the information into sub-sections. This approach allows the reader to get some message even from the look at the pictures within the page. If the reader is more interested then there are further details found within the texts and even the sub-sections categorized according to the thematic areas. This use of integrated communication model within this page in effect creates more interest among the visitors to this page. It also has the effect of creating longer relationship with the people who come to read the page since they always are assured of quality information whenever they come back to this section.

Medium richness

This is an approach in marketing that can be defined subtly as when the medium fits the task intended (University of Twente, 2014). The intended task within this section of the website is to inform the reader and also get feedback and allegiance from the reader. These have been achieved through the use of the provision of the feedback mechanism where a reader can follow the university on the provided twitter handle or facebook page and literally talk to the sender as they express their ideas and ask questions. The allegiance of the reader is also targeted when on this page there is a provision highlighting the thousands of other people who are members of the twitter group of the university. This is an attempt to entice the reader to follow suit and feel the belonging to the WVU family by opting to follow the university on twitter.

Opinion leaders

Going by the information and the data and facts presented in this section, the opinion leaders are the administrators and the public relations personnel within the university. This is seen from the authoritative reference to intricate details like the number of activities, courses provided, achievements made and such like which can only be at the disposal of the administrators and the authorized persons.

Recommendations

This section of the website is largely relevant and accurate in terms of the wordings and the message intended to be put across. The sender achieves the targets of the message and the content is media rich hence captivating and communicating to the reader. There is however room for improvement and my suggestion would be that a section for testimonials by current and former students needs to be included in this section. This will help give more authenticity to the message and make the visiting potential students believe more in the message carried therein, especially those who might be skeptical about and may think that it is just a way of public relation and marketing.