Drew Carls - Blog

Landmarks: The public art program at UT Austin

Drew Carls — Thu, 16 May 2013 14:00:43 +0000

During graduation week, thousands of visitors come to the Forty Acres. As you wander the campus, the Landmarks program is all around. More than 30 modern and contempary works are on display. Take some time to visit the collection.

An interactive map and audio tour are also featured on the university’s official iPhone app.Pictured: Sol LeWitt, Circle with Towers, 1985/2012. Photo by Sandy Carson.
Related:
Landmarks: Art on the Forty Acres
Landmarks website
Interactive Map

Mother's Day Facebook Post Review

Drew Carls — Wed, 15 May 2013 20:03:35 +0000

As social media coordinator for UT Austin, I'm always looking for content that is now - in the moment - and Longhorn-centric. If I make good use of this, Longhorns on Facebook (and other social) usually will take care of sharing our posts. For special occasions, like Mother's Day, I will look for content I can share but I do not always try to "capitalize" on holiday or special day moments. I couldn't resist wishing mothers a great day though.

FTD, and I'm sure other florists, sell burnt orange and white roses. I found the image (below) and added the standard greeting and a hashtag. Surprisingly (to me), the post did quite well, reaching nearly 300,000 people and counting, liked 6,700-plus times, shared more than 2,750 times and 108 comments (as of this writing). What was even more surprising was that 70 percent of the people who saw the post was viral - the number of people who saw the post in a story from a friend. Can we dare say viral?! Shareable media, in my opinion, not social media wins the day. Your brand message is spread and followers added when it's shared, not when people reply to the brand. Find your content that's immediately receiving likes, comments, and shares...the microviral content. Why did your audience like it? How can you replicate it with new content?

GoPro Hero3 Honeymoon Fun

Drew Carls — Tue, 07 May 2013 14:10:34 +0000

After Stephanie put the GoPro Hero3 in her wedding bouquet, she decided we needed to bring it with us on our honeymoon.

Here's the GoPro Hero3 Honeymoon Fun video she made:

Our Wedding Day

Drew Carls — Fri, 03 May 2013 04:36:22 +0000

Stephanie and I got married on April 13 at 219West in downtown Austin, Texas. We had some great vendors working with us.

The Cake Plate made our cakes. And my groom's cake is headed to Kerbey Lane menus, too!

219West was the perfect venue for us. We got married on the rooftop and had our reception downstairs. It was wonderful. The 219West team was excellent and the food was great (so I was told!). We'd recommend them many times over.

Our photographer was Brian Fitzsimmons. Austinites might know him as the Austin Fit Magazine photographer. Brian does amazing work and is a pleasure to work with. Steph used Brian before our wedding for some professional photos and those turned out great, too.

And GoPro helped us with this.

GoPro Hero3 Wedding Bouquet

Drew Carls — Fri, 03 May 2013 04:16:28 +0000

After I proposed to my wife Stephanie, I knew we were going to have something awesome added to the wedding. And Steph didn't disappoint. She asked me if it was OK to have a GoPro Hero3 camera added to her wedding bouquet. How could I say no?!

This was the result, our wedding video filmed on a GoPro.

You can also read her blog post about her idea.

Touring the Kniker Carillon Bells at UT Austin

Drew Carls — Thu, 02 May 2013 14:51:00 +0000

A few weeks ago, Austin Ferguson, president of the Guild of Student Carilloneurs, took me on a tour on the Kniker Carillon and the UT Tower for our story prep. (First story) Now that the restoration is complete, we took another look at the Carillon and its bells. Here's a look:

Ranking the Top 100 Colleges and Universities Online

Drew Carls — Wed, 01 May 2013 15:42:23 +0000

Chuck Hemann, group director-analytics at WCG and co-author of Digital Marketing Analytics, released their Top 100 Colleges and Universities Online ranking. This is one of the first, if not the first, higher education ranking for social and web presences I have seen by a top strategic communications firm.

Chuck used the U.S. News World Report Top Colleges and Universities list and applied WCG's social and digital analytics approaches to it. In his report, Chuck looked at the primary social media accounts, excluding athletics and other secondary school accounts, on Facebook, Twitter and YouTube. The school's primary .edu website was also considered in dozens of metrics used.

Read the entire post on WCG World's CommonSense blog.

Oh, and UT Austin came in at number 10. Hook 'em!

Image via WCG. Click to enlarge.

Groom's Cake Heads to Kerbey Lane Cafe

Drew Carls — Thu, 25 Apr 2013 13:14:41 +0000

For our wedding, Stephanie and I worked with the Cake Plate Austin to create our wedding cakes. They did an outstanding job. My cake - the groom's cake - was extra special for a few reasons. Scott worked with us to create a one-of-a-kind cake. I love German Chocolate Cake and Scott convinced us to use his chocolate praline cake as a substitute. After we got my next request out of the way (Longhorns-related decorations), we came up with adding 512 Brewing's Pecan Porter to the cake. It was the first beer I drank when I met Stephanie. Scott helped us add that little "secret" to the cake. The beer was added to the cake, making it not only delicious but uniquely us...err, me.

Here's the post from the Kerbey Lane Cafe blog about their decision to add the cake to their menu.

This week we’re very excited to preview a new cake, which will see Kerbey Lane Cafe join forces with 512 Brewing and The Cake Plate.

Our friends from The Cake Plate stopped by our S. Lamar store earlier this week, with a new creation that we are very excited about. It is a cake inspired by Drew Carls, who requested a groom’s cake, made with 512 Brewing‘s famous Pecan Porter. When we heard about this amazing concept we knew that we had to try it. We love working with 512 Brewing and we love working with The Cake Plate so, it only made sense to work with both of them together.

Kevin from 512 Brewing and Scott from The Cake Plate met up with, our own, Chef Joel at 3003 S. Lamar to sample a couple of (512) Pecan Porter Chocolate Praline Cakes. Both cake samples were delicious but the gentlemen chose the one, which best highlighted the flavor-notes of the Pecan Porter.

512 Brewing describes their Pecan Porter as:

“Nearly black in color, (512) Pecan Porter is made with Organic US 2-row and copious amounts of Crystal malt, along with Baird’s Chocolate and Black malts. Its full body and malty sweetness are balanced with subtle pecan aroma and flavor from locally grown pecans. Yet another true Austin original!”

This new cake has been officially dubbed the, (512) Pecan Porter Chocolate Praline Cake (Inspired by D. Carls). We plan to make it available at all five, 24hr Austin locations within the next few weeks. In the meantime, we did take a couple of pretty pictures of the cake and the Porter to delight and entice. Keep an eye on our Facebook and Twitter pages to find out when this cake will be available at your nearest Kerbey Lane.

Photo via Kerbey Lane.

What Starts Here Changes the World TV Spots

Drew Carls — Tue, 02 Apr 2013 18:13:24 +0000

In 2002, UT Austin produced nine broadcast advertisting spots. They were narrated by legendary newsman Walter Cronkite. The most famous spot was the "Horns Up" ad that zoomed through the city of Austin and ended at the UT Tower.

For the first time, the university has now made all the famous spots available on the UT Austin YouTube channel.

Below is the first video in the playlist. Click on the playlist button to see all nine.

The Daily Texan Features Top UT-related Twitter Accounts

Drew Carls — Mon, 01 Apr 2013 15:32:51 +0000

The Daily Texan's Bobby Blanchard writes a weekly column about media. This week he reviewed ten UT-related Twitter accounts. The @UTAustin account I manage was featured. (Thanks, Bobby!)

Here's an excerpt:
Photo Credit: Olivia Kwong, Daily Texan Staff
UT is more popular than Beyonce. At least maybe on Twitter.

Among Texas’ universities and colleges, UT-Austin has the highest Klout score. Klout is a company that analyzes a person’s or company’s social media influence and engagement by providing a ranking between one and 100. UT-Austin’s Klout score may be higher than that of any Texas institution, Texas business or Texas celebrity — at least I can’t find anyone higher. Even Beyonce's klout score is two points below UT.

It’s easy to contend that Klout may not be the best way to rank social media popularity and influence — Beyonce has 7 million more followers than UT-Austin, and her Klout score is based solely on her Twitter account while UT-Austin’s is based on several of its social media accounts.

But it’s hard to argue the UT-Austin Twittersphere and social media landscape isn’t a buzzing, fun and interactive place to be. After all, the University has won awards for its social media work.

With that said, here are 10 UT-related Twitter accounts every UT student should be following:

1. @UTAustin:
@UTAustin is the mother ship. It is the main, official account of the University. With more than 46,000 followers, this Twitter account has a lot of reach.

Drew Carls, UT’s digital content coordinator, manages and runs the @UTAustin twitter account.

“The purpose of this account is to share the news of the University as a whole,” Carls said. “Everything from research to athletics, and just shed light on all the great things going on.”

Carls also engages with people talking about UT, and he helps answer questions.

Read the entire article.