The Social Side of College Admissions

For lots of admissions offices, the decision has been made to use Facebook in recruitment and yield efforts. The opportunity to reach such a large number of prospects in one place has become hard to ignore. However, many are not fully aware of the various options they have for promoting their school on Facebook and what the pros and cons of each option are.

We've pulled together a brief look at the various options for creating a presence on Facebook for your school and admissions office. We hope this helps you get started and make a more informed decision.

The 4 main options on Facebook are (in order of customizability):

1. Personal Profile
2. Group
3. Fan Page
4. Application

Personal Profile

A personal profile is meant to represent an individual on Facebook. Anyone can set up a personal profile. All you need is an e-mail address.

Pros

• It's free
• Easy to set up
• Status updates show up in the News Feed on a user's homepage

Cons

• Meant for individuals not institutions
• No access to user data in easily digestible format
• "Friend"ing is the main form of connecting with prospects and admits

How Profiles Are Used by Colleges

Admissions officers will often set up a separate profile for professional use. Many will use this profile to friend students they meet on recruitment trips, at college fairs, and elsewhere. Some universities have set up personal profiles for mascots or with the name of the university.

Challenges and Risks to Consider for Facebook Personal Profiles

First off, there is a limit of 5,000 friends for an individual profile. Second, Facebook profiles are meant for (real) individuals only. We have heard about several instances where a personal profile that represented a mascot or the school itself was shut down by Facebook because they were not individuals. Finally, some students may find a friend request from an admissions officer a little awkward. Adding someone as a friend typically gives them access to view your full profile, including status updates, uploaded pictures, and more. Students might worry that a picture from last Friday night's party will come back to haunt them. Many schools have stated that Facebook is fair game for use in the admissions process (even if they do not actively check Facebook profiles)

Group

Individuals can join groups on Facebook to interact with each other around some common interest, shared experience, common cause, or other attribute.

Pros

• It's free
• Easy to set up
• Group admins can message group members (as long as the group has fewer than 5,000 members)
• Admin can control access to group (Open / Closed / Secret)
• Users can upload videos and photos and admins create Facebook events

Cons

• Limited customization
• No access to 3rd party applications (e.g., accessing Twitter feed, linking YouTube video channel)
• No audience segmentation (messages go to all members, and all group members see the same information within the group)
• Size limitations (lost functionality when membership reaches 5,000)
• No access to user data (can only see a non-exportable list of group members)

How Groups Are Used by Colleges

The most common use for groups by admissions offices has been for "Class of 20XX" groups. In many cases, prospective and admitted students will set these groups up on their own. Some schools will create more specific groups for international students, for minority students, or for specific programs (e.g., study abroad) where prospects may face unique challenges, have unique needs, or have more specific questions.

Challenges and Risks to Consider for Facebook Groups

FacebookGate (2009 version and 2010 version), which involved companies setting up "Class of 20XX" groups, has garnered a lot of press and is something to be aware of. If you are not the admin of the group, you will not be able to moderate wall posts for objectionable or incorrect statements, and you will not have the ability to message all members, one of the biggest benefits of groups. This is definitely something to keep in mind if you are letting prospects and admits take the lead in Facebook. Additionally, while you can limit access to a group, it can be time-consuming to approve new members one-by-one.

Fan Page

Facebook Fan Pages could best be described as profiles for institutions. Individuals become "Fans" of your institution.

Pros

• It's free
• No size limitations
• Access to 3rd party applications (e.g., incorporating YouTube channel, twitter or RSS feeds, static FBML)
• Basic Traffic / Usage Data via Facebook Insights
• Status updates show up in the News Feed on a user's homepage

Cons

• Limited customization of design
• Limited audience segmentation (all fans see the same information, limited targeting for status updates based on geography, gender, or age ranges)
• Limited access to user data (can only see a non-exportable list of fans and limited demographic breakdowns)

How Pages Are Used by Colleges

By now, most colleges and universities have a Facebook Fan Page for their institution. Many have set up Pages for the admissions office, for specific departments, or for the athletics program as well. They can be an effective tool for broadcasting information and creating a way for Facebook users to connect with your school.

Challenges and Risks to Consider for Facebook Fan Pages

Most Fan pages are geared toward current students and alumni, and the information posted on these pages primarily reflects the interests of these audiences. While it can be interesting for prospective and admitted students to see this discussion, their needs are often not met by a university-wide presence. Think of most university websites, prospective and admitted students often have sections dedicated to them. Trying to address too many audiences with a single university presence can be a major challenge.

Application

Applications are akin to building a dynamic website within the Facebook environment. Applications have a variety of ways that they plug into the Facebook environment (e.g., Applications can access user data, enable user-to-user interactions, invite users to Facebook events).

Pros

• Access to user data (subject to Facebook's privacy controls and Facebook's terms of service)
• Traffic / Usage Data (can incorporate Google Analytics or almost any other method available to a regular website)
• Customization of design (e.g., CSS stylesheets can be used, school branding and color scheme can be incorporated)
• Audience segmentation (can adapt Application based on data from Facebook profile or other data collected by the Application)
  For example, our Application adapts depending on whether someone is a prospective or admitted student and what term they plan on enrolling.
• Can create unique functionality (incorporate forms, offer searches, export user data for use in CRM / SIS systems)
• Can do almost anything you can do with a website

Cons

• Cost and effort to build and maintain
  -OR-
  Cost to license
• No direct access to News Feed – Wall posts and notifications must be triggered by user actions (e.g., give a friend a virtual gift, share a video with a friend)

How Applications Are Used by Colleges

Several colleges have begun utilizing applications to create communities in Facebook for various audiences. We have helped nearly two dozen schools create communities for prospective and admitted students. Other companies have worked with schools to create communities where current students can connect with each other and the university's faculty and staff. These communities provide additional functionality to users and typically allow for improved metrics and data gathering.

Challenges and Risks to Consider for Facebook Applications

While applications usually provide superior functionality and features, they usually come with a price tag (either a development fee or an annual licensing fee or man-hours from your IT/web team). The continued utility of the application will depend on future upgrades of the application. The Facebook Platform is a constantly evolving environment. Working with a company or having an in-house team that stays on top of these changes and continues to innovate around them is a must.

Labels: Admissions, Community, Facebook

We want it to be easy. We want our first YouTube video to go viral. We want our blog to have hundreds if not thousands of followers within a couple months. We want our tweeps (and subsequently their tweeps) re-tweeting our Twitter posts, creating a giant echo chamber for our messages.

Unfortunately, for 99.999% of us, it just doesn't work like that. For every social media overnight success story, there are thousands of folks inching forward, building an online following for their social media presence a handful of users at a time. But maybe being the tortoise in this race isn't so bad. We may not all be able to catch lightning in a bottle like UQAM did with their LipDub video. But maybe we can build meaningful, ongoing relationships with our target audience (prospects, admits, current students alumni, sports fans, and more) through our social media efforts.

Keep the (Relevant) Content Coming

Focus less time trying to come up with a single Silver Bullet that you hope will knock the socks off users and more time providing them with a constant stream of good content. The more content you provide, the more opportunities your audience has to engage with your school.

This doesn't mean distributing the same content on every social media outlet to every audience. Also, don't feel like everything you post has to be an official news release. One of my favorite social media campaigns is the Ohio State O-H-I-O picture campaign. It literally involves them sharing the best pictures of people forming the letter O-H-I-O in fun, interesting, exotic, and unusual locations.

Create a Strategy for Maintaining Momentum

Trust me, I know this is not an easy task. I started this blog with hopes of producing a post every week or two. Unfortunately, they've become a little less frequent. I should've been more honest with myself up front setting up a more manageable timetable for posts.

Try and figure out what are realistic expectations up front. That means determining who will be responsible for creating and curating content, for responding to user comments, for actually posting the content, and for measuring the results of your social media efforts. It also means figuring out how many resources you can reasonably devote to these efforts, not just for the initial launch but on an ongoing basis.

If you have a small team with minimal time available, that may mean that being on YouTube, Twitter, and Facebook, while publishing your own blog is not really an option.

Again, be realistic about what you can achieve and what sort of effort you can maintain.

Let Your Audience Do Some of the Heavy Lifting

Effective social media efforts are two-way dialogues. Encourage your audience to participate. Make it easy for them to contribute content. You may openly solicit their feedback and opinions ("What's your favorite memory from college?" for alumni, "What's your favorite class?" for current students). You may create contests with prizes for the top submissions ("Take a picture of yourself in the college's sweatshirt. The most creative picture wins a $100 book scholarship" for admitted students).

First off, these efforts can help make your job easier since you won't have to be the one trying to generate all the content. Secondly, it'll provide you with some great feedback on what sorts of content your users may want more of.

The most effective social media efforts are able to harness the power of the audience and enlist their help in building an engaging community. Back to that that UQAM LipDub video I mentioned at the beginning of the post. This was not an official school video. It was shot, directed, and choreographed by students. While the school's marketing department did not have any hand in the video, it's probably one of the best social media campaigns they could have asked for.

Labels: Facebook, Marketing, Social Media, Strategy, Twitter, YouTube

Social media doesn't necessarily lend itself to easily tracking performance like your website or e-mail campaigns do. It's not always possible to figure out how effective a status update on your Facebook Fan Page or a Tweet from a university Twitter account is.

That doesn't mean you shouldn't try. We offer a number of ideas for determining the success of your social media efforts.

Capitalize on Existing Metrics Offered

Take advantage of the existing metrics offered and track changes over time. For Facebook, that might be monitoring the number of fans and wall posts for your Facebook Page. For Twitter, you might keep tabs on the number of followers for your account.

Don't just peek at these numbers on occasion. You might want to create a spreadsheet where you record these numbers over time. This will allow you to better understand what caused significant increases. Was it a blog post, a mention in your alumni newsletter, a big athletic event? Did you post a status update or tweet that was especially engaging?

Determine the Effectiveness of Calls to Action

Utilizing these existing metrics is just the start. We assume getting a Facebook Fan or a Twitter follower is not the end goal. You are typically going to want these fans and followers to take some sort of action. For alumni, you may want them to donate money or return to campus for homecoming. For prospects, you may want them to apply to your school or accept your admissions offer. For current students, you may want them to buy tickets to Saturday's football game. Asking your fans or followers to act on one of your messages is referred to as a Call to Action.

When you post a Call to Action via social media, try and do so in a way that you can measure the responses. An easy way to do this is via tracking links. With tools like Google Analytics, you can incorporate special codes into links, allowing you to determine how many people got to your website via a given link and which pages they viewed. So you can find out how many people donated money after clicking on a link from your Twitter account. Or how many prospects completed an application form after you posted an Apply Now link to your Facebook Page.

By measuring the performance of these Calls to Action, you will not only start to understand the value of a Facebook Fan or Twitter follower, but you will also get a better understanding on what types of Calls to Action work best on each of your social media outlets. What works on Facebook might not work on Twitter and vice versa.

Survey Your Users

Get information directly from your Facebook Fans and followers. Find out what constituency they are a part of. Are they alumni? Prospective students? Current students? Parents of students? Fans of your sports teams?

You might ask them what sorts of information they want to receive. Do they want sports scores? Information on upcoming campus events? Alumni news? Admissions tips? The more engaged they are, the more likely they are to respond to your Calls to Action.

Find Benchmarks

It's hard to understand how you are doing if you only focus on your own efforts. See what colleges and universities in your peer group are doing. How does your performance stack up against their performance? For schools that seem to be doing a better job attracting Facebook Fans or Twitter followers, what are they doing differently? Are they posting more pictures on their Facebook Page? Is the tone of their Twitter account serious or more light-hearted? Are they running contests?

We've built a resource that will hopefully help you with some of this benchmarking. Our Facebook Page Directory can help find data on hundreds of college and university Facebook Pages.

None of these methods for measuring performance should be considered as one-off initiatives. These should be ongoing efforts that help you hone and refine your social media strategy, helping you better understand who your audience is, what types of information they want, and what types of actions they are likely to perform.

Labels: Facebook, Metrics, Strategy, Twitter

We've given dozens of demonstrations of our Facebook Application for college admission and marketing offices. All but a handful have gotten great responses from colleges, most of whom are looking to do more with social networks, specifically Facebook. The biggest reason folks pass on the opportunity is budget concerns. We've heard some variation of "We just don't have the money for this. Our budget has been cut this year" more than any other reason. We've only heard "We just don't see the value" once.

This got me thinking, are social media efforts primarily considered an additional expense and new responsibility or can they be viewed as an alternative to an existing initiative? As I started to think about this question, I started to realize the implications of the answer.

Social Media Is an Additional Expense and a New Responsibility

If your school views social media as one more thing it needs to do or one more product it needs to buy, you're probably facing an uphill battle, especially in these economic times. There are unlikely additional funds for these "new, non-traditional" approaches. Not only that, many universities are paring down administrative staff, increasing everyone's workload. That likely means any new initiatives only add more to someone's plate, a plate that is already overflowing with responsibilities.

It's easy to see how a school that approached social media from this perspective is going to choose the path of least resistance, requiring the fewest resources, both financial and human. That probably means a Twitter account that pulls directly from the school's news feed, a Facebook Page that regurgitates press releases, and a YouTube account populated entirely with the school's 30-second TV commercials. All content that does very little to play to the strengths of social media and social networking.

Social Media as an Alternative to Existing Practices

Colleges and universities that view social media as a new way to interact with prospective students, current students, and alumni are much better able to take full advantage of the opportunity. This might mean admissions counselors spend more time crafting status updates for your Facebook Page, fun Tweets for your Twitter account, or intersting blog posts that give an insider's view of the admissions process. And less time each week sending off e-mails or manning a booth at a college fair. These schools may choose to invest money from their limited budget in a Facebook Application or private social network rather than in a beautifully designed brochure.

For these schools, a down economy does not mean that social media goes by the wayside. These schools may find that social media actually offers a way to more cost-effectively reach students. A Facebook Page and Twitter account are free to set up, as is a blog if you use a site like Google's Blogger. Expensive viewbooks could be replaced by a lively Facebook presence that helps prospective and admitted students interact with real people in a two-way dialogue. You may choose to create a series of fun 1-minute YouTube videos about life on your school's campus rather than buy an ad in a magazine.

How does your school view social media?

Labels: Facebook, Marketing, Social Media, Social Networks

We're heading to the NACAC Conference in Baltimore next week. We're looking forward to exhibiting at this great event. We'll be at Booth #604 so stop on by and say hello if you're going to be there.

Raffle for Free Year of Our Facebook Application

We're going to be raffling off a free year of our Facebook Application at the conference. Don't miss your chance to win. Just come visit us and drop a business card in our raffle bowl to enter.

Can't make it to the NACAC Conference this year? Don't worry about it. You still have a chance to win the free year of our Facebook Application. Just submit our online Raffle Entry Form by September 25 and you'll be entered to win.

Give us a shout out on Twitter (@VarsityOutreach)if you are going to be at the NACAC Conference. We'd love to meet you in person.

Labels: Facebook, NACAC

Varsity Outreach will be hosting a webinar on September 15 at 2pm ET on how colleges can use Facebook to promote themselves. We will combine useful statistics and an overview of your options with practical, actionable advice regarding Facebook.

We plan on covering all the options you have for getting involved in Facebook, including Profiles, Groups, Pages, and Applications. We will highlight the advantages and disadvantages of each. Additionally, we will provide tips on how to get the most out of your Facebook experience and a roadmap for a successful Facebook presence.

So come join us next Tuesday, September 15, at 2pm ET. You can watch the webinar from your computer. If you want to participate and ask questions, there will be a chat room (registration on UStream required). We will also be monitoring the Twitter hashtag #VOWebinar

The webinar will be on our UStream channel:
http://www.ustream.tv/channel/facebook-tutorial-for-colleges

You will also be able to watch on the Varsity Outreach website at:
http://www.varsityoutreach.com/VideoPresentation.aspx

We hope you can make it!

Labels: Facebook, Marketing, Strategy, Webinar

It's hard to miss all the hype about social media. Stories about Twitter and Facebook are in the news almost daily. Several schools have attracted headlines for launching iPhone applications. The New York Times' The Choice blog just had a story about a site that aggregates and categorizes college-related twitter accounts called GlobalQuad.

So you may be thinking, our school needs to have a Facebook Page, a Twitter account, a YouTube channel, and more. It almost feels like blogs are a thing of the past (they're not).

But wait, take a deep breath, and relax. Just throwing something up and forgetting about it on these sites is unlikely to produce the sorts of results that you would hope for given the hype.

Social Media Is an Avenue to Get Your Message Out, Not the Message Itself

I think people sometimes forget that social media is a tool. It's not the end goal. In many cases, it can be an extremely effective tool to build and foster relationships, but, in the end, it is just a tool. Just like the telephone, e-mail, postcards, and other marketing outlets are just tools at your disposal. It's the content and people that really make the difference. Social media offers an opportunity to accelerate the distribution process, to create stronger feedback loops so you can more quickly react to what's working and what's not, and to let your community (which may be current students, alumni, prospects, admits, staff, and more) have a voice.

Social Media Is Not Fairy Dust

Free Can Be a Hard Price to Pass Up

I think one of the biggest advantages of social media is that it can be an incredibly cost-effective way to reach an audience. You don't have to pay for postage or printing. If you post your video on YouTube, you don't have to foot the bill for bandwidth and video hosting. It's free to create a Facebook Page or a Twitter account. However, the $0 price tag may also be the siren's call of social media.

Just because it's free doesn't mean you should be doing it. Creating a Facebook page that has no pictures, no wall posts, and only an address may not do you any good. In fact, it may be harmful. If I were a prospective student and I posted a question your wall, but never got a response, that may not leave a good impression.

I am a huge advocate for the potential of social media. I would encourage colleges to engage prospective and admitted students using tools they embrace like Facebook, MySpace, and YouTube. I believe providing a more personal touchpoint for interested students is a powerful selling point.

Content Is Still King

But you have to remember it's the underlying message you are trying to sell... the value of a college education at your school, the richness of the experience on your campus. It's unlikely that a student is going to pick your school just because you have a Facebook page, but they may pick your school because of the relationship they developed through interactions on that Facebook page.

Labels: Facebook, Marketing, Social Networks, Strategy

On the Mashable website, there was an interesting article about the friendly Facebook rivalry developing between Texas A&M and LSU for the top spot among college Facebook pages. In the article, there was a great quote that got at the heart of two of the biggest selling points of social media... access and convenience.

Kathryn Greenwade, VP of communications for the Texas A&M alumni association was quoted saying that the university's social media strategy is "to go where the people are rather than creating our own network."

Don't Re-Create the Wheel

Are you going to build a better social network than Facebook? Unlikely. Are you going to be able to keep up with the innovations that Facebook is making on a monthly basis? Also unlikely. Are 250 million people going to have easy access to your social network from day one? Pretty much impossible. Through tools like Groups, Pages, and Applications, Facebook gives colleges and universities a number of options to reach prospects, admits, current students, and alumni on one site. Is it worth devoting your scarce resources to building and maintaining your own Facebook-like site and to driving users to that site?

Minimize Barriers to Participation

If anything, the Internet has made people expect more information and functionality easier, faster, and more adapted to their specific preferences. You can get stock quotes streamed to your Yahoo or Google homepage. You can update your Twitter account and Facebook status at once. You can pay bills with the click of a mouse. Basically, we've been conditioned to expect more while doing less.

A large percentage of your target audience is already on Facebook. Why make them sign up for a completely new social network? Why make them maintain a whole new set of online relationships? Why make them log in to another website to participate?

Convenience is one of the most powerful tools you have to encourage engagement with your school. If it is easy to join and easy to participate, people will do just that... they'll become fans of your Facebook Pages, join your Facebook Groups, and add your Facebook Applications. They'll post on your walls, upload photos, and watch videos. Ultimately, they will build stronger relationships with your school.

Labels: Facebook, Marketing, Pages, Social Networks, Strategy

These past few weeks, Facebook has launched two major initiatives that can help colleges bring some of the Facebook experience to their own website. On June 24, Facebook rolled out the Live Stream Box, and followed that up with the July 8 introduction of the Fan Box. Both could be useful tools for colleges, in general, and admission offices specifically.

The Live Stream Box

You may have seen an early version of this if you visited CNN during Obama's inauguration. Facebook's Live Stream Box essentially creates a way for visitors to your website to comment back and forth in real-time. It seems best suited to allow your users to engage during a live event. Some ideas where this may be useful include a commencement speech, a live web chat by an admissions counselor, or an online broadcast of a college sporting event.

Some Benefits of the Live Stream Box

First off, the comments are in real-time and don't require page reloads. Secondly, Facebook is doing a lot of the heavy lifting for you. They are hosting the experience. You just have to drop a little code into your page. The system supported millions of users during the inauguration so it should be fine handling your events.

Finally, the biggest benefit is that comments users make in the Live Stream Box show up on their profile and in their friends' Facebook streams. And each of these comments includes a link back to your website.

Set-Up of the Live Stream Box

Facebook provides instructions for how to incorporate this feature into your website. Someone with some web expertise will likely need to be involved since it takes a little more than just copy-and-paste if you want to get the most out of it.

The Fan Box

Facebook's Fan Box helps you promote your Facebook Fan Page right on your own website. It gives you a way to bring these visitors into the conversation that is happening on Facebook. It also offers visitors a way to easily connect with your college or university as a fan.

Some Benefits of the Fan Box

First, the Fan Box enables users to become a fan of your Facebook Page without having to go to the main Facebook website. There is a Become a Fan option front and center. Second, you can show the Stream from your Fan Page. Visitors could read your latest Fan Page posts right from your admissions page. Finally, you can highlight the growing popularity of your Facebook Page. The Fan Box can display the number of fans your Page has and even some pictures of those fans. Nothing encourages people to join faster than seeing that others have already done so.

Set-Up of the Fan Box

Facebook has made it really easy to take advantage of the Fan Box feature. For Page admins, there will be an Add Fan Box to your site link under the profile picture. This will redirect you to a page where you can get some copy-and-paste code to drop into your own website.

If you want to learn more about these tools, you should check out these pages:

• Posting to the Stream in Real Time with the Live Stream Box
• Turning Website Visitors into Facebook Fans with the Fan Box

Labels: Community, Facebook, Public Profiles, Technology

Unlike the ethereal voice from Field of Dreams repeating "If you build it, they will come" to Ray Kinsella, your strategy for Facebook should not just stop when you create a Fan Page. That is just the first step in an iterative, evolving presence to establish a thriving community around your school.

Don't Just Recreate Your Admissions Website

If all you do with your Facebook Page is re-post content that is on your admissions website, you're missing a major opportunity. If all a student wants to learn about your college or university is the application deadline date or your admissions requirements, they'll go directly to your admissions website or they'll do a Google search and find it. I doubt their first thought is to turn to your Facebook Page. Don't waste a lot of space on your Facebook Page providing information that is easily accessible on your admissions website. Post a link to your admissions website so students who want to find this information can easily do so.

Don't Forget the Social in Social Networking

A Facebook Page should provide them a chance to make connections around your school, keep up with the latest happenings on campus, participate in conversations, and get their questions answered. These are all social activities.

Keep Them Coming Back for More

Just getting a Facebook user to become a fan of your Facebook Page should not be the end goal. You want them checking back periodically, building a relationship with your college or university, and, ultimately contributing to the community. Getting a user to become a fan should just be the first step in this process.

Take Advantage of the Hooks that Facebook Offers

Facebook gives you several mechanisms to re-engage fans of your Facebook Page. Understanding these mechanisms can help you make the most of your Facebook efforts.

Access to the Facebook Stream
When users become fans of your Facebook Page, your status updates (what you post in the box at the top of the page that says "What's on your mind?") show up in their Facebook Stream. The Facebook Stream is front and center on every user's homepage. It's the first thing they see when they log in. That's prime real estate to get your message out to your fans.

Notifications When People Reply to Comments
Make sure you allow fans to post on your Page's wall. If not, you are shutting off an avenue for them to interact with your school and you are losing an opportunity to get them to revisit the Page. When a fan posts a comment on your wall, they will receive notifications when others respond to that comment. It's like they're being given a little nudge to come back to your Facebook Page, and maybe even share another comment or respond to someone else's post.

Labels: Admissions, Facebook, Pages, Public Profiles

Everywhere I look, I seem to see reports of the demise of Facebook among teenagers. The standard logic goes something like this:

• Parents have now found Facebook
  The fastest growing demographic is women over 55.
• Teens don't want to be where parents are
  Inevitably, their parents are going to friend them, throwing open the doors to all the conversations between teens and their friends and all the pictures their children are tagged in.
• Therefore, teens are going to go elsewhere to connect socially.
  Upset at the invasion of their social space, teens look for another social network where they can connect without the prying eyes of parents.

Hold on a minute before you write off Facebook

1. Facebook is still growing among teens

Don't let the oft-quoted fact that women over 55 are the fastest growing demographic overshadow the fact that teens are still signing up for Facebook.

On February 1, 2009, 5.45 million U.S. teens used Facebook. By March 25, this figure had reached 6.05 million. In a little under two months this year, Facebook added more than a half million teenage users (aged 13-17) in the U.S. That's 11% growth in under two months, folks. Not too shabby.

2. Facebook has very strong privacy settings

Of all the major social networks, Facebook probably has the best privacy settings. You can limit access to your profile on a user-by-user basis if you want to get to that level of detail. If I don't want my mom to see my photos, I can change my privacy settings so that she cannot view any photos I upload or am tagged in. Maybe there's just one album that I'm worried about her seeing. No worries... I can just turn off her access to that potentially incriminating album. She'll probably never realize that she doesn't have access to it.

That level of granularity gives users a lot of control over their Facebook presence. Sure, it may take a little work, but not nearly as much work as switching to a new social network.

3. The network effect is strong

The power of social networks is their ability to help you make new social connections and strengthen existing social connections. The more of my friends and acquaintances that are on a social network, the more likely I'm going to want to join and participate in that network. Moreover, as I invest in the network (uploading photos, adding friends, taking quizzes, joining groups, becoming a fan of pages, and more), the greater the cost of switching to a new network.

Think of it like a party. Being the 1st person to the party is usually not as fun as being the 20th person to the party. This desire to be where the action is happening is likely even stronger among teens. If half my friends are on Facebook and only a handful are on MySpace, it is likely much more valuable and enjoyable to participate in Facebook.

The Google of Social Networking

I often think of Facebook as the Google of social networking. It wasn't first, or even second for that matter. But it seems to have done a good enough job to rise above the rest and establish itself as the standard. Like Google, Facebook has focused less on monetizing up front and more on creating the right user experience.

Still Unsure... Facebook vs. MySpace

It's not as though Facebook has plateaued recently. According to Nielsen, total minutes spent on Facebook increased by 700% from Apil 2008 to April 2009. Users spent more than 13 billion, yes billion, minutes on Facebook in April 2009. Over that same period, total minutes spent on MySpace actually shrunk by 31%.

If these are the numbers of a site on the demise, they're not too bad.

Labels: Facebook, Social Networks, Teens

We're putting together a directory of college and university Facebook Pages. As a sneak peak, we've included the top 10 U.S. schools by fan count.

Drum roll, please...

10. The University of Oklahoma - 15,469 fans
9. University of California, Berkeley - 16,830 fans
8. West Virginia University - 18,490 fans
7. University of Florida - 20,087 fans
6. Indiana University - 33,490 fans
5. Stanford University - 36,719 fans
4. Texas A&M University - 36,907 fans
3. The Ohio State University - 37,611 fans
2. The University of Kansas - 43,898 fans
1. University of Michigan - 44,713 fans

The major athletic conferences are well-represented. All of these schools are in the Big 12, Big East, Big Ten, Pac-10, or SEC.

Please note: These figures are as of noon ET on June 8, 2009

Labels: Facebook, Pages, Public Profiles, Rankings

According to Social Media and College Admissions: The First Longitudinal Study, 61 percent of four-year colleges have a social networking presence. I definitely believe that social networking, specifically Facebook, is a golden marketing opportunity for colleges and grad schools. There are very few places where you can reach such a large population of prospective students without paying for that access.

Why Are You on Facebook?

However, having looked at dozens of Facebook pages (now Public Profiles) for colleges, I'm sometimes left wondering what their goals are. Creating a presence on a site like Facebook is not the end goal. It's a means to an end. You'll have a lot more success if you have a clear goal in mind.

Are you really getting much out of your experience? Do you have metrics in place to measure success? These are questions every admissions office should be asking regarding their Facebook presence.

Keep Your Facebook Presence Fresh and Focused

Creating a presence on a social networking site can seem very easy, but keeping it fresh and up-to-date can seem incredibly daunting. It may only take you 5 minutes to set up a group or create a Facebook page, but just being there is unlikely to provide much impact for you. The other end of the spectrum is to start pulling in feeds from all over the university, posting pictures, videos, and more with no clear strategy in mind. Again, you may not get much of an impact heading down this path either, except for creating a lot of work for you and your team.

How Do You Define Success on Facebook?

The task of maintaining and updating your social networking presence will become much more straightforward if you define some goals ahead of time.

Do you want it to be an outlet for news on campus?
Then pull in RSS feeds and monitor which stories generate clicks. Adapt the mix of stories based on this information. Create a mechanism for students, staff, and alumni to submit their own interesting news and events.

Do you want it to be a place for discussion regarding college admissions?
Then promote your Facebook presence in your admissions brochures, on your admissions homepage, and in your admissions e-mails. Encourage a few current students to be active in engaging and responding to prospective student questions. Divide up the task of checking your discussion boards and walls so that someone is monitoring activity and answering questions on at least a daily basis.

Do you want it to be a media center?
Then post videos and pictures from around your campus. You may want to start recording lectures from popular professors and upload these to Facebook. You may even want to encourage submissions by current students and alumni.

Let Your Facebook Strategy Lead the Way

Defining what you want your Facebook presence to be about may seem limiting, but it will actually end up feeling liberating. Once, you have a strategy in place and clear metrics for success. It will be much clearer for you and your colleagues what sort of content will help you achieve those goals and how you can put in place a process for keeping your Facebook presence engaging and fresh.

Labels: Facebook, Public Profiles, Strategy

Several college admission offices have embraced the potential of social media. Davidson used Twitter and Google Maps to give a snapshot of where applicants were from and a snippet of what they had to say in their admission essays. The dean of admissions at George Mason maintains a lively and informative blog (filled with candid commentary about college admissions).

However, many admission offices seem to be treading very cautiously in the social media space. One of the main concerns we hear when we talk to admission offices relates to the loss of control, specifically with regards to their school's image.

I think those schools that fret about the loss of control are looking at social media through the wrong lens. Social media can actually be freeing. Here's why... in many ways, users expect less when it comes to social media.

Your marketing brochures are likely impeccable pieces of graphic design with top quality photographs. They have probably been vetted by several departments before ever being printed. All the text is carefully crafted to stay on message and support your school's branding. The recipients of these brochures (your prospective and admitted students) expect to be wowed by them. These are the "official" materials.

With social media, you have a lot more slack. There is greater emphasis on speed than on quality... not that you want to completely ignore quality. For example, they want quick answers to their questions, so they're more forgiving of a spelling mistake or typo.

I think the expectations are analogous to those of a speech vs. a conversation. Your website and marketing brochures are more like a speech, while social media (Facebook, Twitter, blogs) is more like a conversation.

What's Expected of a Speech (Website, Brochures, Postcards)

• It should be well-prepared with a clear structure
  The expectation is that you've had time to think about how you want to present the material and how to organize your thoughts. The audience anticipates that you will provide a clear and concise message that is to the point.
• You, the speaker, are in control
  You have the podium. There is a clear delineation between speaker and audience. You are the expert, the keeper of information. You are looking to inform the audience regarding the topic.
• You are responsible
  The onus is on the speaker to do most of the work. The audience is relying on you to make the material interesting and engaging.

What's Expected of a Conversation (Facebook, Twitter, blogs, discussion boards)

• Continuous dialogue is more important than carefully crafting every thought and idea
  A conversation implies a back-and-forth, a fluidity. It wouldn't be much of a conversation if you had to wait a week for someone to respond to your question so they could carefully craft that response. It's implied in a conversation that you are thinking on the spot, and therefore, your audience is much more forgiving.
• Control is shared in a conversation
  A good conversation typically involves sharing the spotlight and letting others decide how and what they want to contribute. It's not much of a conversation if you are the only one talking. People often tune out of conversations that are dominated by one person.
• Conversations don't always adhere to a clear path
  You likely need to be open to tangents. In fact, these tangents may be where the really interesting stuff is at. Participants may steer a conversation into completely unexpected territory and help you gain completely new insights.

Maybe social media offers your school an opportunity to sit back, relax, and engage in a lively conversation. Okay, you still may not be able to relax about losing some control.

Labels: Facebook, Social Networks

According to a March 2009 Nielsen Report, internet users now spend more time on social networks and blogs than on e-mail. Social Networking now accounts for 10% of all internet time. It's not just that more people are using sites like Facebook. They are also spending more time on these sites.

Shift to Social Networking is an Opportunity

While interacting with prospective students on Facbeook may seem more daunting than hitting the send button on a mass e-mail to prospective students, this is actually a huge opportunity for admission offices. These e-mail "blasts" tend to be a one-way dialogue. You, the admissions office, are pushing information out to these prospects. If they like what you have to say, then they may check out your site, come to an event, or send you an e-mail back.

Social networks like Facebook open up a much more active dialogue around your school. Prospects can post questions and add comments on your school's wall. You also eliminate the barrier between prospects. They can now interact with each other. Instead of being passive e-mail recipients, prospects are now active community members.

Harnessing the Power of the Community

Relying on e-mail newsletters puts the onus on the admissions office to constantly engage prospects. You need to keep their attention in this one-way dialogue and anticipate what types of information they want and when they want it.

Within a social networking environment, you have an opportunity to let the community take some of this responsibility. That includes responsibility for answering each other's questions, for providing the admissions office real-time feedback regarding what their issues and concerns are, and for just generally engaging fellow community members.

With social networks, you can change the nature of your relationship with prospective students. You can make them active participants. You can get them invested in the community and, in turn, your school.

Think of it in terms of a classroom. Which do you think is more engaging and impactful... a professor lecturing for 60 minutes on a topic OR a classroom discussion, initiated by a professor, but driven forward by students.

Labels: Community, Facebook, Social Networks

Nothing can fully replace face-to-face interactions. An exchange of instant messages will likely never have the same impact as an in-person conversation. An e-mail isn't the same as a phone call. However, with state governments slashing budgets and college endowments taking major hits, the search for cost-effective recruitment solutions is becoming more important than ever.

The slumping economy has had a major impact on admission offices and families of college-bound students. Many admission offices are now facing budget cuts, meaning less money for student recruitment efforts, including trips to high schools and college fairs. Additionally, families now have less money to invest in the college search process. According to a Longmire and Company survey of 1,030 parents of college-bound students, a quarter said they would be making fewer college visits as a result of the economy.

It's now time to be creative in how you cost-effectively reach out to prospective and admitted students. With fewer face-to-face interactions, using virtual solutions may be the way to build relationships with these students.

Virtual Interactions May Be the Next Best Option

For several years, hundreds of colleges and universities have been utilizing online chat rooms to interact with students. Having participated in several online chats, it is by no means a fast-paced back and forth between prospects and the admission office, but it does offer an opportunity for students to get some of their more pressing questions answered. And chances are that the admissions office's answers are relevant for a good portion of those on the chat.

Wake Forest has gone even further. Starting this past December, Wake Forest began using Skype to conduct "face-to-face" interviews for students who could not make it to campus. While they would likely be the first to admit in-person interviews are preferred over these virtual alternatives, this solution has allowed admission officers to have a personal interaction with applicants when it otherwise would not have been possible.

Building an Online Community Around Your School

Many schools are still figuring out what to make of Facebook and whether they want to engage with prospective and admitted students within social networks. I think schools that sit by and do nothing to engage candidates on social networks are missing a huge opportunity. If a prospect can't make it to your campus, social networks like Facebook give you an opportunity to bring your campus to them, or at least a taste of it.

The stats about your school (standardized test scores, size, location, and diversity) are important, but it's the personal connections that a prospect makes with your school that will stand out and tip the scales in your school's favor. You don't want to hijack the conversation on these social networks, but there is plenty of room between taking over the conversation and not participating at all. You can be a facilitator, helping prospects connect with people and resources on campus. When they have questions, you can point them toward answers. If done effectively, you can even help them build relationships with each other. My guess is that there is no better sales pitch for a college than an excited student (whether it is a current student on campus or a high school senior that has fallen in love with your school and is dying to get admitted).

Play within the "Rules"

Don't forget that Facebook is a social space. If you are going to participate, make sure you participate in a way that is in line with how Facebook is used. Don't just recreate your admissions website in Facebook. Start conversations, promote events, build a community around your school.

Virtual interactions are unlikely to ever supplant personal interactions as the best way to build relationships. However, they may be a good alternative when live, face-to-face interactions are not possible.

Labels: Facebook, Marketing, Skype, Social Networks, Technology

Yesterday, I tuned in to a live stream of a presentation from the folks over at .eduGurus, entitled Social Media Storytelling. My hats off to the six folks who collaborated on the presentation (and made great use of technology, video conferencing in five of the participants and live-streaming out the presentation).

They made a number of great points while sharing anecdotes from their own experiences with social media and higher ed marketing. The one that stuck out most for me, though, was the emphasis on authenticity. In theory, everyone wants their message to sound authentic and real, but, in practice, it involves ceding some control, especially within a social networking environment.

Don't Lose the Authenticity

Students who visit Facebook and other social networks to learn about your school are seeking out this authenticity. If they want the "official" information about your school, they'll go to your admissions website. On social networks, they're looking to build a dialogue with you, with other prospects, and with current students, and they can sniff out a canned, marketing message from a mile away.

Your Blemishes Make You Real

To get this authenticity, you may have to let these users see a few of your school's warts. You will have to resist the urge to delete every wall post or discussion thread that does not reflect the exact image you want to project. What you get in return for this restraint is greater trust. Greater trust that you are presenting an unfiltered view of your school. Greater trust that when someone posts a positive experience about your school, they really mean it.

Let Your Students Sell Your School

Chances are, admissions counselors are not going to be your best salespeople. It's going to be fellow prospective students and current students, who have already fallen in love with your school and want to share their experiences. And if you over-moderate, users may not believe the authenticity of these experiences.

Labels: Facebook, Marketing

There's been a lot of press coverage about a study correlating the use of Facebook with lower GPAs. The study, carried out by two PhD students, surveyed 219 undergraduate and graduate students at Ohio State.

Wait to Sound the Alarms

Based on the headlines themselves, you'd think that Facebook makes students dumber. However, the study does not claim any causality, and the reports' authors have not made any statement indicating Facebook use affects grades.

What Might It Really Mean

There have been a number of comments on the NY Times' Freakonomics blog that I've found interesting. The study may be more enlightening because it leads to questions about who does NOT use Facebook. I can't imagine that college students are not using Facebook because they don't know about it, especially since penetration of Facebook on college campuses is around 85 percent.

Do they just not have time for it? Do they view it as unnecessary and frivolous? Is it a certain personality type that is opting out of social networking?

Labels: Facebook, General

Facebook has just surpassed 200 million users. It's hard to ignore an opportunity like this for your college or university to reach such a large audience... all in one place, especially when more and more people are using Facebook to communicate socially in lieu of e-mail.

So let's assume you get over the initial hurdle and decide that it's worth it for your school to be on Facebook. The next questions are who is your target audience, what types of information do they want about your school, and what type of relationship are you looking to foster.

For colleges, there seem to be a few major buckets that people will fall into, and each of these groups is likely to want very different information about your school. And you are very likely hoping to achieve different results for each of these groups. The lists below are by no means comprehensive and I'm sure you could add several bullets to each section, but they start to scratch at the surface of this challenge.

Alumni

They've already got your diploma on their wall. Their time at your school has likely left them with an emotional tie to their alma mater.

What types of information are they likely to want?

• Alumni news - Information to help them stay connected with each other and with the accomplishments of fellow graduates
• College news - Information on exciting happenings at your college, important achievements, prominent hires
• Sports scores and updates

What are the college's goals?

• Fundraising - money for your next building project
• Brand building - alumni are often some of the most powerful advocates of your college's brand

Current Students

They're laying down good money for a degree from your esteemed institution.

What types of information are they likely to want?

• Campus Events - Speakers coming to campus, upcoming performances and concerts, and career fairs
• Important Deadlines and Announcements - Due dates for student housing and financial aid forms, holiday schedule
• Sports scores and updates

What are the college's goals?

• Information Dissemination - Keeping current students up-to-date on what's happening on and around your campus
• Support - Creating a presence where they can reach out with questions and concerns
• Relationship Bulding - eventually they'll be alumni, and fundraising will become more important

Prospective and Admitted Students

They are in the midst of one of the biggest decisions of their life, where to go to college. Dozens of colleges and universities are sending them marketing materials.

What types of information are they likely to want?

• Program / Major Information
• Important Deadlines and Forms - Admissions and financial aid application deadlines and forms
• Recruitment Events - College fairs you'll be at and visit days
• More than Just the Stats - Virtual tours, student blogs, the information that college guidebooks don't have about the real feel of the campus and the students who attend your school

What are the college's goals?

• Increasing applications
• Improving yield

Does One Size Fit All?

Can a single Facebook Page (Public Profile) or Facebook Group address the needs of all of these segments effectively? Getting someone to become a Fan of your school's Facebook Page or join your school's Facebook Group should not be the end goal. I'm guessing any large, public university could have a thousand Fans within a month with a little bit of work, but then what? Engaging your Fans in a meaningful way is the real challenge and that is what will ultimately help you get real results from your Facebook presence.

To really engage each of these groups, you need to give them a reason to keep coming back, to stay tuned in to what is happening with your college or university. To do this, do you need a separate Facebook page for the alumni office, the admissions office, and the student services office? Maybe.

There may be other options to consider as well. At Varsity Outreach, we've built a Facebook Application specifically designed for admission offices to reach out to prospective and admitted students. Inigral has built a Facebook Application primarily for current students. iModules has built a Facebook plug-in for its alumni community product.

Social networks like Facebook may be a relatively new phenomenon, but the numbers are hard to ignore. Figuring out ways to build connections with alumni, current students, prospective and admitted students, faculty, sports fans, and more is likely to provide real value for your college or university.

Labels: Facebook

Facebook recently made some major changes to their Pages (now called Public Profiles), which are profiles for organizations like colleges, businesses, music groups, and other celebrities. They've essentially made them more like personal profiles, giving the Wall greater prominence. This seems to be a response to the growing popularity of Twitter, which emphasizes quick snippets of information.

The Upside of the New Public Profiles

The major upside is that Public Profiles are given access to the Streams of its fans. That means that when you update the status of your college's Public Profile, it will show up on the homepage of your fans along with the status updates of that fan's friends. That gives your updates placement on prime real estate. The homepage is typically the first page Facebook users see when they log back in.

With this opportunity comes a new challenge&mdahs;relevancy. It is now more important to find the right balance between maintaining a relationship with the Fans of your Public Profile without "over-streaming". Whereas before Facebook allowed you to see more or less about a person or page on your feed, it is now an all-or-nothing deal. You are either part of their Stream or you are not. So if you start updating your status and posting items very frequently, you want to make sure that it is relevant to a good portion of your Fans or you may lose the main advantage of the new Facebook Public Profiles, placement in a user's Stream on their homepage.

Given that Fans of a college's Public Profile are a varied bunch, relevancy becomes particularly challenging. Do your alumni want the same updates as current students or even prospective students? What about fans of your sports teams? So what type of information should you be posting in the status of your Public Profile?

The Major Downside of the New Public Profiles

Facebook has drastically reduced the ability of organizations to present any sort of unique branding / unique feel in their Public Profiles. The Wall has become the most important feature and any Applications that were added have been relegated to their own tabs, off the main page of the Public Profile. It is now much more difficult to express what makes your school unique, to cater to the particular wants and needs of your Fans.

Labels: Facebook, Public Profiles