Social media is on the rise. In fact, three-quarters of adult internet users communicate through social media. To continue reaching potential students, colleges and universities need to include social media in their marketing strategy. In this presentation, we review current market trends and how colleges and universities can interact with current and potential students through social media venues.

1. Five Social Media Tips for Higher
Education Marketers

2. The Faceless Voice You’re Listening To
Jeff Berg
Social Media Strategist
jeff.berg@cunet.com

3. Agenda
• What is Social Media
(And Why Should You Care?)
• Five Social Media Tips
– One - Have a Good Plan
– Two – Keep Things in Perspective
– Three – Be a Boy Scout
– Four – Shut Up and Listen
– Five – Have Fun
• CUnet Offerings
• Q&A

4. Agenda Summary
• How not to do this:
• CUnet Offerings
• Q&A
4

5. What Is Social Media?

6. The Common Definition
Users are finding a human connection in
online social networking communities.
Communities may be general or focus on
a specific interest or a particular
demographic segment (e.g., boomers).
“Social software,” leverages the idea of
social networking toward a more specific
end (e.g., social mapping).

7. MEH!

8. Social Media Includes Thousands of Websites
• Wikipedia • Online niche communities
• Consumer opinions and reviews • Social biographies
• Internet mash-ups • Social news
• Blogs • Livecasting
• Message boards • Audio sharing
• Online gaming • Virtual worlds
• Photo sharing websites • Information aggregators
• Interactive fiction • Collaboration tools
• Instant messaging • Event organization tools
• Social bookmarking

9. Why is this Important?
9

10. The Answer

11. It Hits The Spot
Pepsi chose investing in social media
instead of Super Bowl advertisements

12. What is Social Media?
• Social media has changed how human beings
communicate, organize, and spend time online:
– 75% of all adult internet users.
– More than 20% of all time spent online.
• Comparisons of most well-known social media:
– If Facebook were a country it would be the 3rd
largest in the world with 400MM residents.
– If Twitter were a book it would be equivalent to 862
complete works of Shakespeare each day.
– If YouTube were a movie it would take over 400
years to watch.
• And social media has big implications for business
– 91% say consumer reviews are their #1 aid in
purchase decisions.
– 87% trust their friends recommendations over critics.
– Three times as likely to trust peer recommendations
over advertising when considering a product

13. Social Media for Educational Institutions
• Aid Student Enrollment
– Provide a feel for school life through an online community.
• 3 to 5 times more successful than standard marketing targeting
• Peers are more influential in college choice than advertising.
• Increase Retention Rates
– Reinforce academic and social interaction on and off campus:
• More connections with friends
• Deeper engagement in student organizations
• Higher satisfaction with their social life
• Greater connection with institutions
• Alumni/Student Relationship Management
– The best advocates for any institution are students and alumni
• Facebook fans are almost 70 percent as likely to recommend a
product. Twitter followers are even higher.
– Create active job boards and recruitment channels.
– Leverage social networks to drive alumni fundraising.

14. Why Aren’t More Schools Doing It?
• Overwhelmed by all the choices
• Measuring success seems difficult
• It requires dedicated staff
• Confusion of ownership

15. Climb Onboard!
• Now is an excellent time to get
involved
• Standing on the shoulders of giants,
both inside and outside the education
industry
15

16. Tip One:
Have a Good Plan

17. Have a Good Plan
Winning in social media is like winning in
sports.
• Establish rules
• Devise game plan
• Assign teammates
• Play the game
• Adapt when in motion
• Do post-game review

18. Have a Good Plan
• Situation
– Indiana University East wanted to
appeal to students not connected
with legacy communication mediums
• Solution
– Intensive social media push
including frequently updated
LinkedIn, YouTube, Flickr and
Facebook deployments
– Total budget of $1,400 (for print
advertisements in local papers only)
• Results
– Acknowledgement of campaign as
part of overall enrollment growth
– 30 percent increase in enrollment for
the semester following the campaign
– For the last four semesters, IUE has
experienced the highest enrollment
growth out of any IU Campus

19. Have a Good Plan
• Get everyone on the same page.
• Create a playbook
– Branding guidelines
– Communication policies
– Style guides
– Editorial calendars
– Responses
– The kitchen sink
• And be ready to throw it out when needed.
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20. Tip Two:
Keep Things in Perspective

21. The Friends Game
• In 2006, one of the most commonly
asked questions from reporters to
celebs on MySpace was “How
many friends do you have?”
• Today, “friends” has evolved to
fans, followers, subscribers, users,
visitors.
• It’s no longer about how many
friends you can amass. We’re living Dane Cook
in a gift economy. 2.6MM friends
Tila Tequila
3.8MM friends
21

22. Look at the Evolution
22

23. Keep Things In Perspective
How do we measure human
conversations in a gift
economy?
Think hard about what
you’re trying to achieve
before deciding your
metrics.

24. Social Media Tracking and Metrics
• Beyond basic measurements
– Fans/Followers
– Comments
• Independent tracking
– Text analytics
– Sentiment analysis
– Geographic and online locales
– Influencers (hybrid reach and volume)
• Specific ROI measurements
– Assess baseline rates
– Monitor rates after social campaign start
– Compare rates before and after the
campaign
– Correlate engagement measurements to
measureable results

25. Tip Three:
Be a Boy Scout

26. Be a Boy Scout
• Relationships are created through
trust.
• That goes for institutions, too.
• Consumers are smart–and we
hate liars.

27. Be A Boy Scout – All I Want For Christmas…
• Campaign: All I Want For
Christmas Is A PSP
• Culprit: Zipatoni on behalf of Sony
Computer Entertainment American
• What It Was:
– Alleged blog of teen who
wanted to acquire a PSP for
his friend
– Utilized urban slang
– Discovered after users noticed
phrases like “viral marketing”
and “advertising” were filtered
from comments

28. “
Be a Boy Scout
”
“If your word of mouth isn’t positive, forget about brand awareness
and consideration. If word of mouth is bad, there is no
consideration.” – Zena Weist, director of social media, H&R Block
• Always be
– Trustworthy
– Loyal
– Helpful
– Courteous
– Brave
– Clean

29. And When In Doubt, Remember Bogie:
“ ”
You’ll regret it. Maybe not today, and maybe not tomorrow.
But soon, and for the rest of your life.

30. Tip Four:
Shut Up and Listen

31. Shut Up and Listen
“Marketers don't understand channels where you have to talk and listen
at the same time. […]This is what drives customers nuts.
- Josh Bernoff
• Consumer technology is
evolving towards mobility and
away from annoyances.
• The marketing narrative has to
evolve beyond monologues.
• We’re dealing with empowered
consumers here.

32. Make Your Message Valuable

33. Remember That Twits Are People Too

34. Remember That Twits Are People Too
• Domino’s could have ignored
this.
• But instead:
– Video Apology (Now
embedded about 90,000
times)
– Pizza provided for 350
Chicago Social Media Club
members

35. Remember That Twits Are People Too
• In addition:
– Dozens of online videos – Social sharing for pizza orders
• Specials – Photo-op posters that
• Guest pizza makers encourage customers to take a
picture and post it online
• Even going so far as to obtain
MC Hammer’s autograph as a – Online images of Domino’s-
thank-you gift for a blogger catered campus events
• His tools:
• Two web-enabled mobile • Spare batteries
phones • Tweetdeck
• Digital camera • Monitter
• Flip video camera • Viddler

36. For Education

37. Shut Up and Listen
“With every single delivery or order, we are part of someone’s life. No
matter how redundant the process is, the end result is not the same.”
- Ramon De Leon
• Commoditizing can lead to
dehumanizing. Don’t let it.
• Listen to what your students
are saying with an open mind.
• You’ll be rewarded for
championing your students.

38. Tip Five:
Have Fun

39. Have Fun
• One of the most common questions we get is, “That all looks fun, but what if
we’re a serious company?”

40. Have Fun
No matter who you are, this will always happen:
(Names have been hidden to protect the innocent)

41. Have Fun
How the school responded:
(Names have been hidden to protect the innocent)

42. Have Fun–In Education
Why not produce content that is
Fun Helpful Informative
Regulatin’ Genes UT Libraries’ USC iTunes Library
Facebook App
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43. Have Fun
• Have a sense of humor.
• Make whatever you say valuable
– In gift economies, there is a contract between publishers and readers.
– “Let us into your personal space and we’ll make our presence valuable.”
• Appeal to students’ curiosity, their sense of humor, or their core needs.
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44. Summary

45. Summary
Have a Good Plan
Keep Things In Perspective
Be a Boy Scout
Shut Up and Listen
Have Fun

46. CUnet Offerings

47. CUnet Social Media Methodology
• Monitoring ongoing discussions and surveying the existing social media
landscape, including competitive analyses, influencer identification and
sentiment monitoring.
Listen • Creates a bedrock for targeted social media deployments.
• Developing cohesive strategies and outlets for client interaction across multiple
social media spaces with an eye to aiding acquisition, increasing retention and
creating sustainable relationship management opportunities.
Touch • Lays the foundation for relevant, transparent interactions.
• Management of social presences across multiple platforms and stewarding
meaningful, personal interactions with prospective students, students and
Converse alumni.

48. CUnet Offerings
Full-service social media support
Identity
Corporate Comprehensive
development
policy guidance social analysis
and creation
Campaign
Sentiment
management Staff training
monitoring
and tracking

49. Ongoing Engagements
Tier III –
Tier I – Tier II –
Engagement
Monitoring Creation and
and
and Deployment Listen Response Listen
Reporting
• Monthly Reporting • Biweekly Report
Listen • Annual Social Media • Social Media Audit
Audit • Quarterly State of
• Monthly Reporting • Quarterly Webinar Social Media Webinar
• Quarterly Webinar
Touch Touch
• Social Media Profile • College Community
Creation Creation
Touch • Monthly Social Media • Quarterly Social Media
• Monthly Strategy Strategy Discussion Workshops
Discussion • Biannual Social Media • Social Media Strategy
Workshop and Consulting
Converse
Converse
• Reputation Management
• Reputation Monitoring and Monitoring
• Social Bookmarking • Blog/Profile Management
• Social Bookmarking

50. Questions & Answers

51. Q&A
After this, who wouldn’t have
questions?

52. Contact:
Jeffrey Leopold
Director, Corporate Marketing
E-Mail: jeffrey.leopold@cunet.com
Phone: 201.477.7681
CUnet’s Blog: http://blog.cunet.com