The Social Side of College Admissions

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

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

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

While reading the book Predictably Irrational, I came across the concept of herding, where "we assume that something is good (or bad) on the basis of other people's previous behavior, and our actions follow suit." The author Dan Ariely uses the example of restaurants. If we walk by a restaurant with a line, we assume it's good. If the line is really long, we assume it's great. You have never eaten the food at the restaurant, but you already have a positive association with it.

Start with Your Most Passionate Fans

The book got me thinking about incorporating this concept of herding when establishing online communities for prospective and admitted students. Why not encourage the most passionate, most interested students to join first and let them set a positive tone for the community? Your admissions office could target students who have:

• Visited campus already
• Applied early
• Made a strong impression at college fairs
• Have parents / siblings that are alumni

Build a Line in Front of Your School

These students are likely to post positive comments on your walls, to share their excitement on your discussion boards, to actively engage in the community with specific questions and answers regarding your school's unique programs and opportunities. You may even consider letting them know that they are the first to be invited into the community, imbuing them with a sort of insider status. These students are the "first people in line for your restaurant."

Let These Users Create a Positive Herding Effect

Now, you start inviting the 2nd and 3rd wave of prospective and admitted students into the community. A prospect or admit that may have been lukewarm is now likely to see other students singing the praises of your school (see our previous post where we discuss authenticity). Perhaps their first thought will be "Wow, people really seem to love this school. Maybe I have been missing something and should take a closer look?" These students are now walking by a restaurant with a long line that a whole bunch of other people seem to really like.

Labels: Marketing, Social Networks

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