There has been a lot of conversation over the past day and a half regarding this 2013 ‘Facebookgate’ scandal. If you haven’t heard yet, the full investigative report from Brad J. Ward can be found on his blog at www.squaredpeg.com.
If you want the quick overview, College Prowler may have crossed the vague lines of ethical Facebook use when they created unofficial class of 2013 groups for various US educational institutions. College Prowler’s interns were in turn the admins of these groups hence controlling the flow of mass information to the group’s student members.
As Brad points out, while this isn’t a big deal if this were only done with one school, the fact that they had created groups for many schools and many students were joining each group, the potential power over the flow of information to a very valuable target market was in College Prowler’s control (they were definitely seeing dollar signs in their eyes)
I see this as a wake up call and an opportunity to point out how important it is for institutions to be of the conversations about their schools on the internet. The social web in which we live and participate is an ongoing conversation. A conversation that can’t be had unless all parties are willing to participate. Yes that mean you too admissions offices!!!
Institutions need to understand that it isn’t enough just to have a username and profile of a social network like Facebook or to have an account on Twitter. We need to be active participants of these mediums and not defer to our students to lead the initiatives on these internet services. We now see what can happen when we leave our voices out of the conversation.
I think Brad and all the others who participated in the investigation of ‘Facebookgate’ would agree that without collaborative tech like Twitter and Google docs this investigation would have taken much longer and may have never been uncovered (imagine trying to use e-mail to have a conversation amongst hundreds of people). So what does that say about the usefulness of social media?
If there is something to be learned today (other than karma is alive and well) it is that institutions can no longer sit on the fence with social media. We either have to committ or get out of the game (and unfortuantely getting out of the game isn’t really an option). So if you are going to be on Facebook, be a part of the conversations that relate to your school!
I think ultimately we will find that although we have to work a little harder to overcome the learning curve of new social media, in the long term it will make our jobs more fulfilling. But more importantly actively using social media will create a college admissions experience that the Gen Y prospective student demands!
I do want to congratulate Brad and everyone else who participated in the investigation. It is great to see the power of social media when used for good!
With the end of 2008 drawing closer what better time than now to make some predictions about 2009. Cheryl Drrup-Boychuck of the U.S. Journal of Academics points out some of the trends that she sees approaching our international student market in her report, ‘Top Nine Trends for 2009‘.
Here are some additional comments on a few of the trends that she foresees…
1. Travel vs. Technology:
More so than just a decrease in the budget for traveling I see the need to meet the new prospective international student in places that are comfortable for them. Let’s remember that it won’t be very long before the students we are targeting are the ones born after the advent of the world wide web! So make sure you are learning how to use web technology!
5. Global Mobile Usage:
Forget e-mail, embrace sms and mobile phone apps! There is going to be a shift over the next few years where we see fewer and fewer Gen Y prospective students touching PC’s. Everything is going to be about the mobile phone!
Not only ask yourself if your institution’s website has a mobile version but are you interacting with students via their mobile devices? Rather than collecting the e-mails of prospective students on your recruiting trips or on your digital inquiry cards start collecting mobile phone numbers!!!
8. EducationUSA’s Global Marketing Strategy:
If you are going to begin embracing the use of social media and web 2.0 technology make sure EducationUSA offices are very aware of what you are using and how student can find you on the web. As we all know these offices reach so many prospective students every year. So have EducationUSA help you by distributing the various avenues in which prospective students can learn more about you!
I have had a lot of fun meeting and talking to many college and university international admissions recruiters over the past few years. One common theme that always arises from these conversations is how admissions offices can embrace ‘web 2.0′ technology. Everyone is under the realization that the next wave of prospective international students spend more time on the internet than anyone before and for this reason we know that our traditional methods of recruiting need to evolve.
Throughout these conversations the topic of social networking always arises. ‘We have a Facebook group (or page) where students can find us!’ is a statement I hear a lot.
While I too agree that Facebook is a great place for exposure and interacting with prospective students, it is not the antidote to the problem of enhancing our recruiting of Generation Y prospective students.
There are so many more opportunities other than Facebook for us to broaden our ability to recruit prospective international students.
Where do I start?
The first question to ask yourself is ‘how social is your admissions office?’
What I mean by this is… working in the field of international student recruiting, we need to be extremely educated in the use of social media. So are you going out and learning from others what the emerging prospective international student market is utilizing and how you can use it to help your admissions office?
This industry is in the midst of a major shift. While some of our traditional recruiting techniques will still be effective, knowing what technology our prospective international students are using and how WE can use it will prove to be the game breaker between very successful recruiting schools and the status quo.
How do I get social?
If you are ready to learn and accept the challenge to educate yourself on the technology your emerging prospective student market is using a great place to start is to GET OUT OF YOUR ADMISSIONS OFFICE!
I live in the Boston area and I love it because there are so many people around here who are gurus with social media and love to share what they know. I learn more about what technology is available how to use these different technologies by going to meet-ups after work and listening to these guys.
I would recommend starting by looking on the web for meetups in your area. Here are a few website suggestions to get started:
If you aren’t using Twitter yet and your school wants to improve your recruiting in India or Japan, sign up NOW!
Twitter is a service that falls under the category of micro-blogging. Micro-blogging like blogging is used to inform others about what is happening through writing and dynamic interaction such as comments. The difference with micro-blogging however is that a micro-blog is restricted to certain amount of characters per posting. In Twitter’s case 140 characters (not words characters).
To learn exactly how Twitter works and what it is watch this video:
The great thing about Twitter is that it has a very grass roots feel. You can communicate with many individuals one-on-one all over the world.
There also seems to be no barrier to communicating with anyone through this service. Meaning your college or university has the potential to be easily accessible to any individual prospective student around the world!
Twitter for India
Earlier this year Twitter launched an sms short code for its users in India. This means that all users in India can receive an sms (text message) version of a Tweet to their mobile phone from any user they are following (a Tweet is when someone creates a new post on Twitter). It also means that Twitter users in India can reply to Tweets from their mobile phone. This is such a great opportunity because it removes the barrier that users can only use Twitter if they are on the internet.
I see this as a great opportunity for colleges and universities to have direct interactions with students in India who don’t have constant access to internet e-mail or other forms of itnernet communication, FOR FREE.
Twitter for Japan
Twitter created a Japanese version of their service because there was such a demand in Japan for the service. There are a couple of cool opportunities for the Japanese service.
First, if you have a Japanese student working in your international admissions office, this is a great way for you to connect with prospectve Japanese students in their native language! All of the sudden you go from being like every other US college and university to a cool school that is interested because you use the Japanese version of Twitter and on top of that are Tweeting in Japanese.
Second, Twitter is fun and easy project for them to work on. Get them actively using the Japanese version talking about their experiences at your school and communicating with prospective Japanese students.
Get Started!
If your school already has a Twitter account (such as @marquetteu) is it run by your international admissions office or even your general admissions office? If the answer is no then create an account and designate someone from admissions to use it. A great example is Worcester Polytechnic Institute (WPI) and Adam Epstien from the admissions office there. You can check out his Twitter account @epsteada. He offers a personal twist the WPI culture and admissions office.
Here are a couple of ideas for you to begin using Twitter:
- When sending out e-mails to prospective students or when talking to prospective students at college fairs be sure to give them your Twitter info or ask them for theirs. For example, I always include my Twitter info in the signature of my e-mails. ‘See what is going on @goswoop‘
- Start interacting and following people you want to learn from as well as communicate with. This can be prospective international students, current international students at your school (yes they are on Twitter too!), social media gurus and much more.
- Don’t give up! Twitter can be difficult at first to get used to. I have been using it for 2 months now and am only starting to get the hang of it and understanding its true potential.
If you have any questions feel free to get in touch with me on Twitter! Hope to see you there soon!
goSwoop had the great opportunity to work with Bentley University (still trying to get used to the name change) as a project company for their GB 301 class.
GB 301 is mandatory class for all Bentley students (typically in junior college standing) where over the course of a semester, these students will break up into groups and analyze the operations, marketing and financial strategy of a company. By the end of the semester students complete a business plan laying out their recommendations for how the company can improve it’s business model and ultimately a strategy for implementing those improvements.
Last night was the final class of GB 301 where each group gave a 15 minute presentation to us (the company) and we as well as the 4 professors teaching the course were able to determine who we felt presented the best understanding of the company and the best way to go about improving the company moving forward.
Jake and I had the opportunity to attend last night’s presentations and were incredibly impressed with every group that presented. We want to thank all the groups who spent countless hours preparing and presenting their ideas to us.
Every group gave excellent presentations on what they felt goSwoop was doing well and also what they thought needed to be implemented to improve upon what goSwoop lacked.
I really look forward to seeing which group is the winner of the presentations!
I want to once again thank all the Bentley students who participated in this class. Even though GB 301 is one of the most work intensive classes at Bentley, we hope you enjoyed it!
I have been referenceing the Gen Y target market quite a bit lately and thought it might be a good idea to explore more about these prospective college students.
While do some morning blog reading I came across a great guest blog post about this very topic on Chris Brogan’s blog written by Teresa Wu a student at UC San Diego. She breaks down Gen Y and offers some great insight into their minds and aspirations.
There are a couple of points in her blog that I thought were great.
The idea of how important company culture is to this generation. These prospective students are looking for an attractive atmosphere and it is important as institutions to convey your exciting college or university atmosphere to them. A good question to ask yourself is how are you telling the STORY of your campus’ student culture? If you are merely stating factually how great your campus is, consider your campus to be boring.
The other topic that I loved was how Gen Y is not afraid to ask questions. These students are very direct and transparent with what they want. So ask yourself as a college or university, are you prepared to answer the tough questions? If you can’t answer the tough questions and SHOW students the value of an education at your institution you might be in for some trouble ahead.
Blogs like this one are great opportunities for us to reflect and see if our marketing efforts are going to be well received. Let’s not get down on ourselves if we need to make some tweaks. Rather let’s get excited because as Teresa says, this generation is very transparent which means if we take the time to LISTEN to this target market we can learn and understand exactly what they want.
Ultimately, being able to read blogs like Teresa’s and others from this generation are allowing us to create more informed marketing strategies to effectively reach this target market! Let’s get excited and start listening to these guys and girls!
No admissions offices, I am not saying that by being lazy you will find success in increasing your international student deposits. I am actually saying quite the opposite. In order to attract today’s Gen Y prospective students we have to be even more active and innovative with our marketing materials.
I’m sure that many of you have spent time on YouTube. In fact I bet most of you have perused YouTube even while sitting at your office desk. Well you are like millions of other people who each year log billions of video searches on YouTube.
So the question is, what do YouTube videos have to do with my admissions office?
If a majority of these YouTube users and viewers are of Gen Y then we need to be embracing the style and format of YouTube videos because that is what prospective students enjoy viewing!
While clicking through many of your institution websites and viewing what kind of content each offers for prospective students, I have found how professional institutions are trying to make their media content appear. Take a look at Bentley University’s video as an example…
While this video looks spectacular and offers insightful information, it doesn’t speak to the Gen Y prospective student.
YouTube videos appear to be imperfect. They appear to be unscripted, natural events that just so happened to be caught on camera and shared with the world. An example of the style would be from the E-Trade ad campaign that I am sure many of you have seen. Click on the video below to watch…
Well, this video we can safely assume was well planned, scripted and produced but it doesn’t appear that way!
It’s this style of video that is appealing to today’s Gen Y prospective student. So rather than thinking about how we can make our videos perfect and professional we need to start thinking about how we can make our videos seem natural and imperfect.
I recently participated in College Week Live, which was a virtual college fair. If you have ever been to a real college fair or exhibition hall at a conference, College Week Live is an atmosphere of 3D images of exhibition booths where colleges and universities could market their schools to prospective students.
While not answering international students’ questions at the goSwoop booth, I clicked my way through the fair visiting the booths of various colleges and universities. With so many new ways to promote one’s school I was interested to see how colleges and universities were promoting their institution through College Week Live. Needless to say I was very impressed with some schools and was awe struck by others.
What struck me the most was the way in which many institutions projected their message of ‘Why study at our school’. This may seem like a very simple question but from what I saw many schools fail to answer it. For example, at one school’s virtual booth they had posted a video addressing this very question. I clicked on the video to watch and the ultimate message of the video dropped my jaw. Why study at our school? ‘Why Not?’
When I saw this answer It made me believe, ‘This school has nothing cool to offer its students. There is nothing different or interesting about it so why would I ever want to consider going there?’
Developing a message for the student target market is becoming more and more complex but increasingly more important. With the ever growing use of social media it is no longer enough to have one message for your international student target market. Social media is very grass roots which means one’s audience becomes more and more niche. So, a marketing message and social media strategy that works in India most likely will not work in China.
So how does one create an effective message that can be used for its social media efforts?
The best place to start is going through the process of developing an institution’s value proposition and benefit statements. This will force an institution to realize who their target market is (hint: you are not going to be able to reach all the countries and regions of students you would like with your available resources). Once a school understands who they can target, given the resources available to them, they will be better equipped to effectively pursue a successful social marketing campaign and more importantly be able to answer the most important question of all, ‘Why study at our school’.
I recently spoke to Amina Saigol. She is a senior at the Lahore American School who will be attending Brown University in the Fall. In this scoop Amina shares how she prepared for the US college and university application process.
