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