As students and faculty return to college campuses this fall, there is a new push to engage the educational community with social media tools. Yesterday Facebook announced its Universities on Facebook Page, featuring ads for discount products and details on how to involve your specific educational community through the use of Facebook Pages. While this attempt to get back to Facebook’s .edu roots falls well short of creating any type of comprehensive or custom solution for colleges and universities, but may suffice for dormitory connectivity, the announcement is certainly indicative of a growing need for educational institutions to establish a presence with social media.
So how are universities getting involved?
Research-inclined as this community is, growing statistics show that social media marketing have not gone unnoticed. Surprisingly, educational institutions are not especially resistant to social media involvement. This fall finds social media buzz words are on the tips of many administrators’ tongues, and statistics and success stories are finding their way into the educational mainstream.
In fact, the University of Massachusetts Dartmouth Center for Marketing Research recently released one of the first statistically significant, longitudinal studies on the usage of social media by college admissions offices, collecting data on the adoption of social media by all of the four-year accredited institutions from 2007 to 2008. Their results surprisingly reveal that educational institutions (41%) are leading Fortune 500 companies in use of public blogs (13%). (Source)
In reality, colleges and universities have the perfect community model to bring to a virtual platform. Campuses represent multiple user groups, to include students, staff and the surrounding community. Beyond this, alumni, parents and prospective students with a personal interest in staying connected frequently lack the proper social tools to do so.
Common hurdles are the burdensome process of establishing social media policies and creating an open, but professional forum for discussion and social interaction, further complicated by many layers of administrative offices and departments who require involvement and agreement on all of the above. Once these hurdles are overcome however, the results can be significant. Through frequent use of Facebook, Twitter and custom social networks geared toward specific university communities, schools are more successfully and more regularly connecting with their target demographics.
As the authors of the study aptly surmised:
There is evidence of enthusiasm and eagerness to embrace these new communications tools but there is also evidence that these powerful tools are not being utilized to their potential. Schools using social media must learn the “rules of engagement” in the online world in order to maximize their effectiveness.
I think once the hierarchies of academia can learn how to exist within and then maximize the world of friends, fans and followers–the world that their “wired” target demographic navigates so easily–they will really begin to tap the potential of their marketing and endowment goals.
