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Drawing from a blend of academic research and real-world campaigns, CUnet's social media strategist, Jeff Berg, will discuss how social media can play a key role throughout the school selection and application process and provide attendees with practical tactics to implement in their social media strategies today.
Citation preview
More Than Just FriendsCreating Vibrant Social Communities for Recruitment and Retention
Agenda
• The World of Social Media
• What is Social Media (And Why Should You Care?)
• Social Media for Recruitment and Retention
– Inspiring Human Interactions
– Acclimating New Students
– Enabling Existing Students
– Spotlighting Students and Staff
• CUnet Offerings
• Q&A
What is Social Media?
• Social media has changed how human beings communicate, organize, and spend time online:
– 75% of all adult internet users.
– More than 20% of all time spent online.
• Comparisons of most well-known social media:
– If Facebook were a country it would be the 3rd largest in the world with 600MM residents.
– If Twitter were a book it would be equivalent to 1,500 complete works of Shakespeare each day.
– If YouTube were a movie it would take over 400 years to watch.
• And social media has big implications for business
– 91% say consumer reviews are their #1 aid in purchase decisions.
– 87% trust their friends recommendations over critics.
– Three times as likely to trust peer recommendations over advertising when considering a product
Social Media for Educational Institutions
• Aid Student Enrollment
– Provide a feel for school life through an online
community.
• 3 to 5 times more successful than
standard marketing targeting
• Peers are more influential in college
choice than advertising.
• Facebook fans are almost 70 percent as
likely to recommend a product. Twitter
followers are even higher.
Social Media Inside Educational Institutions
7
Heiberger, “Have You Facebooked Astin Lately?”, “New Directions for Student Services” no. 124
Student Usage
• Prospective students today…
• Grew up with Internet technology
• Nearly three-quarters use social media
• 18 percent use Twitter
• More than 9 out of 10 own a cell phone
• 67 percent own an MP3 player
• 81 percent access the Internet wirelessly
• 70 percent believe colleges should have
a presence on social networks
• 70 percent want online contact with a
school as they complete an application
“Scrolling Toward Enrollment,” Noel-Levitz, 2009
Pew Internet & American Life Project, 2010
Prospective Students Want to Be Engaged
“Scrolling Toward Enrollment,” Noel-Levitz, 2009, “Recruit at Bowling Green State University: The Role of Social and Digital Media,”
Glassford , Dec. 2010
• What do they want?
• 70% of prospective students want
colleges and universities to create a
social media presence
• 51% want to be contacted directly
through a social network
• 75% want schools to create private
communities
• What do they find most effective?
• 50.1% said event notifications
• 47.7% said posts from other students
• 46.6% said posts from the school itself
Why Aren’t More Schools Doing It?
• Overwhelmed by all the choices
• Measuring success seems difficult
• It requires dedicated staff
• Confusion of ownership
Don’t Feel Like This
11
Social Media for Recruitment &
Retention
You’re Probably Already Using It
• University of Mass, Dartmouth Center
for Marketing Research
– SM Usage
• In 2007, 61% of admissions
offices used at least one social
media outlet
• In 2008, 85%
• In 2009, 95%
• 91% said it was important or
somewhat important
Two Caveats
• We realize school rankings are contentious
– Weighting is not empirically determined
– Methodology changed from year to year
• Even if they weren‟t, social media is not a silver bullet
– Schools that engage students through social media are also more likely to innovate
– Innovation is the key
Social Media Adoption
• U.S. News & World Reports Top
30 National Universities
– 23 link to social media
presences from their front
page
– Active engagement
• Ten schools currently
use some type of active
social media
engagement
• Of those, six have
maintained or improved
their standing (and one
decreased by one rank)
15
0 20 40
Message …
Futurity
Flickr
Blogs
iTunes U
YouTube
Used
Didn't Use
Student Engagement – DeVry University
16
Student Engagement – Dartmouth
Student Engagement – Jack Welch Management Institute
18
Inspire Human Interactions
• Human interactions inspire confidence
• Don‟t be afraid to speak with your own voice
• It doesn‟t have to be every interaction
• What part of their lives do you want to be?
19
“Learning to speak with a human voice is not a parlor trick. It can't be "picked
up" at some tony conference.” – Thesis 33, The Cluetrain Manifesto
Pre-Start Communities - Rutgers
• Problem
– How do you keep admitted students engaged before they start classes?
• Solution
– The school created Go Rutgers, a private community site for admitted students
– Encourage existing students to interact with enrolled students, sharing experiences and advice.
– Features
• User forums
• Social profiles
• Image sharing
• Results
– Within 72 hours of launch, 457 admitted students logged in, viewing the question forum 32 times
– Within seven months, 2,000 admitted students had joined.
Pre-Start Communities – Warwickshire College• Situation
– Lengthy period between program acceptance and joining the course caused students‟ loss of momentum, reconsideration of course and even college attendance
• Solution
– BTEC ND Media Games Development Group
• Students engage in pre-semester group projects
• Allowed for increased discussion and social integration prior to actual college attendance.
• Additionally, increased academic integration and faculty interaction
• Result
– Decrease in time spent on “ice breaking” curriculum
– 100 percent increase in overall retention rates
– Complete lack of course withdrawals
Acclimate Students
22
“Students can ask questions like „what's the food like?‟ or „what's there to do near campus?'. If I were 18 years old,
this is how I would want to get my information about university. It gives students an authentic look at the university.“
- Yuri Rodgers Milligan, Director of University Relations
• Some schools see huge success with this
• ASU‟s social community increased sophomore retention by 5% for students that
used it.
• Users of the UT Tyler Facebook community were five times as likely to enroll as
non-users.
• Social technologies allow you to make students part of the community before they‟re
geographically close
• Allow admitted students to talk to enrolled students
• Encourage admitted students to form their own social connections with each other
• Don‟t neglect the personal aspects
• Provide resources that enable students to hit the ground running
Private Communities - PhoenixConnect
• Released by the University of Phoenix School of Business in Sept. 2010
• Features
– Focus on existing students
• Support to students from peers and faculty outside of the classroom through message boards
• Specific interest-specific communities
– Focus on students nearing completion
• Profiles indicate academic information, employment aspirations and status
• Alumni directory with over 120,000 connections
• Outcome
– 99% adoption rate after one month
– Intended to be rolled out to all students by Sept. 2011
23
Enabling Students – University of Florida
• Goal:
– Provide a resource for students to find quality tutors
• Offering
– A Facebook application allows people to volunteer as tutors and tutees to rate them
• Result
– More than 120 tutors contributed information
– Organizes more between 50 to 100 hours of tutoring each week
Enabling Students
25
• Social media isn‟t just a megaphone
• Just because you offer it, doesn‟t mean that everyone uses it or
trusts it
University of Chicago - TweetChicago
• Launched October 2008
• On Dec. 10, 2009, totally replaced “A Day in the Life” blog
• Now 15 authors featuring both students and faculty
• Content ranges from the mundane to relevant to the legal community
• Launched October 2008
• On Dec. 10, 2009, totally replaced “A Day in the Life” blog
In Summary
• Inspire human interactions
• Acclimate new students
• Empower your existing students
• Showcase their successes (even if it‟s just finishing the crossword puzzle)
27
CUnet Offerings
So you want to…
• Monitoring of all brand-related topics across thousands of social media websites
• Near-real time updates on published content
– High priority or important posts
– Can be delivered right away, daily or weekly
• Monthly trend reports examining
– Key topics of conversation
– Trends in content categories
– Activity across multiple social media types
– Tracking of student outreach
– Expert analysis and recommendations
Discover What The
World Is Saying
So you want to…
• Social Engagement
– Reach out to prospective students, existing students and alumni
– Go beyond just a Facebook page
– Show thought leadership in your industry
• Encourage students, alumni and faculty to take part in existing massage therapy communities
• Aggregate discussions to showcase interesting conversations about the industry as a whole
• SocialThumb Social Media Management Solution
– Manage all of your social media presences through one control panel
– Assign tasks, manage approval processes and schedule content publishing
– Seamlessly cross-publish across multiple networks
– Track unique visitors from each social network to target more efficiently
Manage Your Social
Media Presence
So you want to…
• Social Media CRM Solutions
– Proactively address student
issues before they become a
problem
– Get real-time updates as issues
appear online
– Manage workflow through
social media engagements
– Auditing engagement trails
– Analyze positive interactions
Improve Student
Satisfaction
So you want to…
• Retention-Focused Communities
– 76% of incoming students in 2009 said they want their school to provide a private social network
– Customized communities address your students core needs
– Impact enrollment and engagement by driving interconnectedness
Increase Retention
or Enroll-to-Start
So you want to…
• Alumni engagement networks
– Help alumni network
– Create active job message boards
and recruitment channels
– Aid in fundraising
– Disseminate prestigious alumni
news
Help Graduates Get
Hired
So you want to…
• Social Media Consulting Services
– Create a flexible policy for your school‟s social media presence
– Learn effective techniques to streamline engagement methodologies
– Audit existing social media presences
– Receive strategic and tactical insight from industry experts
– Expertise on building
Figure Out Just
What to Do
Questions & Answers
Q&A
After this, who wouldn‟t have
questions?
Contact:Jeff Berg
Social Media Strategist
E-Mail: [email protected]
Phone: 201.477.7687
CUnet‟s Blog: http://blog.cunet.com
For more information: http://www.cunet.com