Gone are those days when you had to spend a great deal of time standing in queues to get the application form, brochure, admission details and in-depth details of the Degree Programs available at the college of your choice.
With rapid digitization of marketing in the Education sector, all these hustle-bustle can be avoided. This also provides added advantages like Universities/ Colleges giving you more in-depth and panegyric details of their institutes for comparison of different parameters of colleges like education, faculty, placements, infrastructure and etc.
In this post, we will give you a brief insight of how educational institutes have leveraged Facebook and Twitter to reach their prospective students, attract expatriates and students from across the continents.
Social Media is being used extensively over traditional Mass Media, the reason being:
- Millions of Prospective students are searching online for educational and training courses.
- Students spend more time on the Internet than they would spend on newspapers and magazines.
- Display advertisements on the Internet are highly effective as there is more visual content to be viewed.
- A large number of Parents, Guardians and Students these days, judge the school/college by its online presence.
- Web/Internet has become the most favored and convenient channel for admission process and queries (which are answered swiftly)
Expatriates and outstation students rely heavily on the web for college admissions.
Lets have a look at a few universities, who have leveraged Facebook and Twitter for a better brand building, improving reputation and promoting new programs started by the universities.
1. Carnegie Mellon University
Posts about new Innovations, Achievements, New Partnerships.
CMU led the commission of Working Examples, a networking platform to help educators and researchers share ideas and innovate.
2. Indian Institute of Management- Bangalore
Leverages Facebook and mostly Twitter to connect to students by posting rational tweets, pictures, and happening events.
3. Indian School of Business
Facebook page showcases its expansive infrastructure, state-of-art facilities provided by the institution.
4. Amity University
Uses celebrities (watch video) as Brand ambassador to promote the university.
Posts images about its new campus across the globe.
We can make some observations from the aforementioned examples and take into consideration that:
• A university is a hub for activities. There are a lot of activities happening round the clock, which includes admission, campus recruitment, inter and inter-collegiate fests, student councils, seminars, conferences and guest speakers giving lectures.
• All these parameters can lead to institution promotion on Social Media, only if the Content is valuable, clearly defined, attractive and engaging enough to grab attention of the target student groups, with the objective of driving profitable customer action. Always, remember “Content is the King. Only Good content (King) can rule”
• When closely observed, all of the aforementioned universities had a Unique Selling Proposition strategy for their respective social mediums. Some colleges promoted their expansive and impressive infrastructures; while some promoted their latest innovations and cutting-edge technologies, also some endorsed celebrities to promote their institute.
What can be noted here is that all of them had a strategy and knew what was core to them, or unique about their institute? Based on the unique factor that defines their purpose, they heavily promoted their institute as a more reputed brand.
• The main target audience for all the educational institutes is YOU(th). The youth in vertiginous numbers are using the Internet on Smartphones, and are majorly using Social media sites like Facebook, Google+ and Twitter. Keeping in mind Youth as the target audience, it’s of utmost importance to reach out to them by help of Mobile Apps so that they can make use of the app for any details at any given time.
• Another important aspect is that Social media provides opportunity for institutes to boost international reach at low and reasonable cost. Social media platforms are what the younger generations are always hooked on to. Also, With precise demographic targeting option available, you will be able target diverse student groups.