Enrollment Technology

A successful social media strategy means more than having a blog or a twitter feed. It’s one thing to have the tools, but using them correctly—that’s the key.

Our recent playbook, “10 Social Media Do’s and Don’ts for Higher Education Enrollment Success,” talked about the value of social media as recruitment tools. We struck a chord. Many of you asked me for more specific advice on making these tools work.

So, welcome to the advanced course! Admission Lab’s latest playbook, 4 Keys to Putting Your Higher Education Social Media Strategy into Action, outlines a winning strategy for social media. You develop it around these elements: channel, reach, credibility and sustainability.

This free Playbook explains how to match communication channels to your messages (for example, sending tweets about upcoming campus events). It looks at how to build those relationships that are so important to extending your reach. You’ll also learn why student-generated content is pure gold and why your strategy must be current, consistent and controlled.

I could go on, but instead, please download the Playbook. Learn how to get social media right. Admissions Lab

Admissions officials need to make sure both their message and its presentation are ready for the eReader, smartphone and tablet boom, according to a post on eMarketer.com. Schools should be considering whether apps, streaming video and audio, games, eBooks and periodicals and social-networking functions are the right fit for their site — and their audience.
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Duke and Boston University were the clear winners in the area of early admissions, as both institutions saw double-digit growth this year, according to an article in The New York Times. Johns Hopkins, Northwestern and William & Mary also saw growth. But Rensselaer Polytechnic, Massachusetts Institute of Technology and the University of Pennsylvania reported fewer early admissions applications.
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Having a great website isn’t enough to set a college apart in this multimedia world. To succeed, colleges must transform their marketing message using new channels. A recent post on Hubspot.com offers four ways to liven up your admissions message — Create a YouTube video, design a Slideshare presentation, create an infographic or turn it into an audio piece.
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While almost every college and university has some kind of social media presence now, their effectiveness on those sites is mixed, according to a recent U.S. News and World Report story. While some schools respond promptly to tweets, other schools haven’t grasped the immediate nature of the medium. One expert advised students solve problems internally, rather than tweeting about it.
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A new educational cooperative has pooled their data to better understand what influences student retention and progression. The six colleges and universities are examining the patterns that emerged when researchers combined anonymous data from institutions from varied backgrounds. The researchers said it’s the first project to look at such a large pool of data.
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If you want to make a movie about your school and post it on YouTube, remember one thing: younger audiences watch more content on their cellphones. EMarketer recently published research by Knowledge Networks that said 56 percent of 13- to 31-year-olds, known as Generation Y, are four times more likely to watch video on a mobile device than baby boomers.
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To meet President Obama’s call to become the world’s most college educated nation by 2020, schools are using lecture capture, which uses DVR technology to film and catalog lectures for online and after-class viewing. ...continue reading

According to the Chronicle, several colleges are leaving behind applications in favor of mobile-optimized versions of their websites. The schools spent all kinds of time, energy and cash building apps for iPhones only to find they needed separate apps for Google’s Android and BlackBerrys. Oops....continue reading

If college admissions officers mirror the general public, the value of Twitter to attract and retain a following is still somewhat unknown....continue reading