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

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

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

Now I won't claim that jury duty holds a treasure trove of lessons about marketing to and recruiting prospective students, but I was definitely surprised by one aspect of the process: the Your Turn video, offering a brief outline of the roles and responsibilities of a jury.

As I sat in a giant windowless room at the Brooklyn court house, I looked around and saw the majority of people engaged by this video. Rather than blandly laying out what a jury is and how it fits into the judicial process, the video presented potential jurors with a brief narrative of the history of judicial systems, featuring appearances by Ed Bradley of 60 Minutes and Diane Sawyer. It wasn't just facts. The video was crafting a story.

We were educated about trial by ordeal, used in the Middle Ages, where a person's innocence was determined based on their buoyancy – the accused was bound and tossed into water... you float and you're guilty, you sink and you're innocent. They weaved in scenes from Perry Mason and portrayed the courtroom as a drama with a cast of characters including the judge, attorneys, clerk, stenographer, and more. As a juror, you were a central actor in this drama.

Sure, this wasn't an episode of Lost or American Idol, but most of the potential jurors had put down their newspapers and books or taken their eyes off their laptops. They even threw in some interviews from regular Joe's about their jury experience. And pitched jury duty as a "chance to serve", painting it as an opportunity rather than an obligation.

The video utilized several effective marketing tactics.

The video told a story

We were not bombarded with facts or simply told why jury duty was important. We were given a brief history of judicial systems, spanning from Aristotle to the Middle Ages to revolutionary America to today.

The video showed a human side

Testimonials from normal citizens provided a more personal feel. And it wasn't all roses. The video incorporated people complaining about having to serve on a jury duty ("I've got lots of work on my desk" or "I'm going to have to sit in a room all day"). We were offered some sympathy. But we were also presented with jurors commenting how much they learned about the judicial process. Some even claimed to have enjoyed it.

Don't forget that your prospective students are shopping for an experience. And numbers and facts are not the only ways to convey the quality of the experience your college is offering. Share your school's personality with a narrative. Give your prospects an opportunity to envision themselves on your campus. Highlight interesting stories that will stick in their memory. And make sure you are applying these lessons across all the media that you use, including social networking.

I know I won't soon forget the re-enactment of the trial by ordeal portrayed in the video. It was amusing, unexpected, and interesting. And if they can do that with jury duty, think of what you can do with all the great material you have to work with... distinguished faculty, historic buildings, quality academic programs, and a diverse and dynamic student body. Find the stories and share them with your audience.

Labels: Marketing, Strategy

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