Colleges Explore Digital Recruitment – Pt. II

Brad J. Ward joins the discussion for Pt. II.  Brad is the Chief Explosion Officer at BlueFuego.com,  BlueFuego helps universities effectively utilize web-based tools for admissions, marketing, yielding and more!

In Pt. I we discussed identifying new media platforms that you should invest in.  When you begin to build your presence on a platform, you need to identify your goal.  What is your purpose for being on XYZ network?  Build relationships?  Build awareness of your brand?  Maybe a bit of both?  You must identify the purpose and goals before you dive in.  This will help later when trying to examine your progress and success which sometimes can be difficult.  Traditional marketing and advertising analysis often don’t apply to measuring social media.

When diving into the social media pool, what do you want to accomplish?

• Create brand awareness?
• Build relationships?
• Both?

Once you have you goals identified you must then assign resources to manage your new web presence.  Part of assigning your resources is trying to figure out where they will be spending their time.  But where is your audience!?  If your trying to reach students the likely choice will be Facebook or MySpace, if your trying to reach out and connect with Alumni, LinkedIn might be a better choice.  Brad J. Ward of BlueFuego.com often speaks to universities about ‘Big 6′: Facebook, Twitter, MySpace, LinkedIn, YouTube, Flickr.  “Typically, not all 6 fit within the strategy of the school’s presence due to limited resources (staff hours).   If you had to go with one, I would choose a Facebook Fan Page.  That’s where it’s at right now. ” says Ward.

Universities often ask who should manage this presence?  One or two people?  Each department separate and ‘doing its own thing’?  Brad Ward and I agree that there needs to be a champion leading the social media effort.  It doesn’t necessarily need to be a communications specialist, but someone from a department who feels comfortable with the task and is knowledgeable in these new media technologies.  The most ideal situation when using social media on a campus is when each department can dedicate someone to manage their social presence.  However, communication is crucial between the departments as they try to gain synergy and push in a common direction while accomplishing their goals.

You have now identified your platforms and have begun invading them.  You begin uploading pictures to Flickr, start tweeting on Twitter and managing your Facebook Fan Page.  Easy right?  Well yes, but no!  Wait, What?  Social media is often thought of as self-sustaining. You sign-up and your presence alone will draw traffic and conversation.  This might be one of the biggest misconceptions with new media.  Your presence alone is not enough.  Would you design a static webpage, never update it and feel content with it?  I don’t think so.  You need to engage on the platform your utilizing, this is ‘social’ media after all, right?  Your Twitter should not simply be a one-way broadcast platform for your news.  Your Facebook fan page shouldn’t lay dormant with no new photos or notes.  When you enter the realm of social media, your trying to build a community of followers around your brand.  To build that affinity you need to engage your audience in a interactive manner, not just broadcast content like a normal website would. 

“The schools who are really investing resources and staff hours into the social web are the ones having success.” says Ward. 

Now that you have started to invade your selected platforms and understand that you must dedicate resources, how do you go about engaging your audience?  This and more in the next installment of this multi-part blog!

Thanks to Brad J. Ward of BlueFuego.com for providing his commentary and insight.  Brad is a leader in higher education recruitment and is the Chief Explosion Officer at BlueFuego, a company he co-founded for consulting universtiies on how to recruit students using social media.