The Search for Authenticity — Practical Steps for Improving Your School's Social Media Presence

Prospective students are searching for the right fit and for a community they can belong to — and they turn to your social media profiles to get a sense of your school culture. On Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram, they can quickly skim images, read comments, and visit links. From extracurricular clubs to student life and academics, prospective students rely on social media to get an in-depth look into what it means to be a student at your school. This is even more critical during the pandemic when school tours and visits may be canceled or not feasible for everyone to attend. 

Failing to post on social media means prospective students may not have a way to visualize what your school has to offer. On the contrary, posting too often with irrelevant content will lead to prospects skipping over your posts, blocking them out as they scroll their timeline, or worse, unfollowing you. So, let’s dive into a few ways you can improve your social media profiles to better showcase your school and increase conversions from social media efforts.

Embrace Social Media Automation to Stay Active and Timely

Staying active by posting consistently on social media platforms keeps prospective students engaged, shows that your school is staying up to date on news and happenings around campus, and keeps your brand top of mind. There’s no hard and fast rule for how often you should post on social media platforms. The key is being consistent with posting and ensuring that your number of posts per week doesn’t drop off. 

Social media automation tools use software to automate specific tasks, eliminating the need to manage your account on the social media platform itself. Instead of logging into Facebook to promote your latest program catalog in a post, logging out, and then logging in to Twitter to write a similar post, you can do it all from one platform. You can schedule posts to publish ahead of time, weeks, or even months in advance. These automation tools also provide analytics dashboards to quickly provide you insights into impressions, clicks, engagements, and other common social media metrics. HubSpot, Hootsuite, Sprout Social, and BuzzSumo are all examples of social media automation platforms. 

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Adopt New Features on Platforms

Social media platforms frequently launch new features and tools. Aside from skimming the recent posts on your timeline or profile, prospective students may look to engage with you via the various opportunities available on social media platforms. Here are just a few examples of features or tools you can use within your social media accounts to bolster student engagement:

Facebook Messenger Bot:

Facebook has a chatbot tool which allows you to field prospective student inquiries/questions, provide responses, and direct people to resources that are helpful to their college search process. Instead of requiring students to call or email an admissions representative with their questions, you can set up a Messenger Bot that can answer questions directly within Facebook.

Linktree on Instagram:

Several companies utilize LinkTree, a simple webpage built for mobile devices that quickly links users to your content. Oftentimes, the LinkTree link will be placed in the bio of an instagram profile. LinkTrees can be used to promote your upcoming open house event, a new program guide, breaking campus news, or even student spotlights. An Instagram post might refer the user to “read more at the link in our bio” and provide the user with their LinkTree of links to further engage with your school or brand.

Facebook Live:

Showcase your school on Facebook Live to reach prospective students with high-quality video content. Whether it be live stroll through campus, a sit-in for the Q&A portion of your open house, or a “student takeover” segment featuring the day in the life of a student in your program, Facebook Live can help you do it all. Admissions representatives can even use Facebook Live to conduct live AMA (ask-me-anything) sessions to connect and answer questions from prospective students in real time.

LinkedIn Stories:

Only available on mobile devices, LinkedIn stories can run for up to 20 seconds and last on a LinkedIn member's page for 24 hours. The feature is currently being tested in select countries (not the U.S.). While LinkedIn Stories hasn’t been unveiled here yet, staying aware of its launch means you and your school can be an early adopter of this new feature. Start thinking about ways to repurpose educational content for LinkedIn Stories in order to engage prospective students by showcasing student life, classroom environments, research, and even highlighting alumni stories. Keep in mind the opportunity to reach highly-targeted professional audiences on this platform.

Utilize Social Listening

Keeping an active social media account means you’re likely to receive a handful of positive and negative comments on your posts. Employing social listening requires the monitoring of your brand’s social media presence for customer feedback, direct mentions, and follower comments. Social listening can help you better understand the pain points of your audiences and respond directly to those who post questions or leave negative comments. Social media automation tools can help make this process easier by notifying you when your brand is mentioned, a comment is posted, or feedback is left on your profile. 

For prospective students scrolling through your school’s profile or timeline, it can be pretty obvious if you’re not practicing some sort of social listening. If a prospect clicks into a post and sees a number of unaddressed complaints or questions, that could definitely leave a bad impression. To sum up this soapbox monologue, email marketing is widely important. It’s still the most influential channel in the enrollment journey.  For the enrollment managers and higher ed marketing and communications folks struggling to stand out from the crowd, focus on delivering an exceptional email marketing experience.  

Why Focus on Improving Your Social Media Presence?

Prospective students have grown up spending a lot of time on social media platforms. It’s where they go for news, talk to friends, and consume content. Failing to meet prospective students on the channels they frequent the most means lost opportunity to engage and convert them into enrolled students. 

Perform an audit of your school’s social media accounts. After 5-10 minutes of poking around your profile, do you get a clear sense of what your school has to offer? What about the community and culture your school tries to create? Identify if there is any room for improvement. Leveling up your social media accounts can go a long way in influencing and converting prospective students.

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