Social media and education marketing
We’re seeing a lot of interest in social media from educational marketers, not surprising given the age of their target market. There are conversations going on about college choice throughout social media with prospective students comparing notes, parents checking out each others’ experiences, current students talking about the college lifestyle and marketers ranking and promoting schools.
Many of the college marketing people we’ve spoken with are not thinking about monitoring, they are on the fast-track to having it in place and working for them now. And it’s not just promotion, it’s risk management because it doesn’t take long for a negative story or rumor to spread among this audience, true or not. They (students) don’t dip into social media, they live in it. So you have to have a handle on it and delve in when negative stories surface.
On the positive side, monitoring can also identify great stories and enable you to reach out to the individual telling them, add them to your official social media sites use them to position your school positively.