The Social Side of College Admissions

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

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