Social Media Strategies for College Admissions
The 2011 Kaplan survey conducted on 359 college officials revealed that 24% of institutions visit social networking sites such as Facebook to learn more about applicants while 20% search for potential applicants on Google. Indeed, Facebook, Twitter, and such other social media sites are becoming a very useful tool for various top colleges to find out and get connected with potential applicants who are very much active on these social media platforms. A growing number of colleges and their staff members and professors are seen opening accounts on Facebook just to connect with potential students before the start of a new semester.
Let’s find out how you too can explore Facebook or Twitter to get in touch with future college students.
Create an Appealing Profile Page
College administrators should set up a Facebook profile pages that truly speak galore about their intentions and objectives. Ensure that people searching for top ranked colleges spend at least a few minutes going through your page and reading about the courses that have been introduced recently and are open for admissions.
Take Part in Communities
Colleges should increasingly join various communities or groups that are on Facebook or LinkedIn, etc. to establish networks or connections with users. You can actually start up conversations or be aware of in detail about what the end-users want from you along with their standard of expectations.
Post Images of Your Previous Classes or Courses
You need to share your success with the whole world; how successfully you have created your classes and courses for so many years. You should post images of students as well as of classes plus recommendations and comments from ex-students explaining the advantages of attending your classes and how it has benefitted shaping their career.
Show the Benefits of Attending Your Classes
You need to market your classes well in order to fill up the places in the course. For example, write about how students will benefit from attending your classes. Don’t forget the fact that there are hundreds of such profile pages of colleges on social networking sites that have been optimized to attract maximum attendees. Thus, what different and better strategies can you employ to pull in maximum attention towards your page? A good way can be by offering incentives or discounts on say the first 50 enrollments to a specific course. You should also highlight the fact that you have expert teachers or lecturers to guide students throughout a semester.
Judith Olson, the Bren Professor of Information and Computer Scientists at the University of California, Irvine conducted a study to find out how social networking sites help in building up a relationship with people? Olson found that online social interactions foster a sense of trust and builds relationships like responsiveness amongst students. The study also revealed the fact that those educational institutions who have established good rapport with prospective students have seen a considerable rise in class registrations compared to those who have no online presence.