PS&L Blog

It’s time to admit that I was not an early advocate of social media in higher education. From where I sat (at the time), social sites were for high school and college kids who wanted to keep in touch with friends, share photos, and flirt with each other online. This was no place for a college admissions team.  At the time, I still think I was right.

That time was at least ten years ago, and a great deal has changed for those of us who live in the digital world.  Social sites have become mainstream; its not just for teenagers and college students anymore.  Every business has a Facebook account, and middle-aged adults Twitter on every serious subject imaginable.

So how come so many colleges are either not in the social networking business or are not utilizing it well?  As consultants in higher education, we can do a little more than speculate, we actually know why.

Fear.

• There are still those that believe that socializing on a network will lead to bad behavior on and off-line.  There has been bad behavior amongst humans forever; social networks will get their share of it, too, but no more than their share.

• We hear often of the fear that social networking will take up too much of someone’s time.  This argument was made 20 years about the internet and email.  Look how that turned out.

• There is always a fear that we might try something and it won’t be successful.  What if we created a Twitter account for admitted students and they didn’t use it?  I would argue that if you don’t set one up, and manage it, you are not connecting and communicating with prospective students in an arena that many are very comfortable with; if you don’t, I can guarantee your competition is.

• Fear of the unknown.  What will we use it for?  Why do we need goals?  (See my previous blog entry).  Higher education is filled with smart people, but fear of change is widespread – and that fear often can paralyze smart people with good ideas.

Overcoming Fear

Bring your working group together and start by articulating and writing down your fears.  Then systematically walk through each fear and slay each fear with your strategy and action plan.  Set your goals, develop a strategy, put a plan of action together, and execute it.  You’ll need to be willing and open to adapting the plan as you go along (part of slaying the fear of failure.)  The worst thing we can do is stick with something that doesn’t work, or is no longer working for us, and hope that the results will change.

If you, like myself, tend to avoid large-scale shopping malls, you may also appreciate the fascination I have when I boldly venture into a mega-mall complex, and cruise through it just to check out the trends. Likewise, I enjoy browsing the web for what’s new, what’s trending, and speculating on what will be next.

In higher education marketing and enrollment management we have a higher-level purpose. Sure we all want to meet our enrollment goals and use social and viral media to our advantage in order to truly “speak with” prospective students – but we also want students who “get us” as an institution, and want them to enroll, be happy, learn, graduate, and be supportive alumni. All in all, it’s a pretty tall order for a college Facebook account.

As a college Provost once said to me about progress in higher education “we move at the pace of glaciers.” Many colleges and universities are still in glacier mode when it comes to social media because they deliberate in meetings and through committee cycles, ultimately missing opportunities. But not all colleges are like that. Many are speeding ahead. The beauty of social networking and viral media is that you can jump in, test the waters, and jump out if you don’t like the temperature.

So ask yourself these questions:

? What is the goal?
? How does this add to the college/university’s engagement with students?
? Will this help us in marketing or enrollment management?
? What new trends in higher education marketing are out there?
? What might be worth a leap?
? What do I need to know before leaping?
? Who makes the decisions and how quickly?
? How and who is going to manage the interaction?
? How are we prepared to deal with what could go wrong?

As a university consultant talking through the use of social media, I always recommend my clients work through these questions, have answers, make bold decisions and act on them quickly – but also be ready to abandon it just as quickly and decisively.

Plan B? The beauty of what is happening in social and viral media is that rather than planning ahead, you really just need to pay attention. Keep up with the trends; walk through that mega-mall. As you see what’s new and how your prospective student audiences are reacting to it, you want to go back to the basic questions. And then, without hesitation, ACT!

The giant wave of kids “fwooshing” back to school made me think of some Philly-isms. I grew up and have always lived in the Philly area. We say “went down the shore.” or “up the mountains.” – not “down to,” or “up to.” We say “wudder” for water.

As a counselor talking to a prospective student or members of their family there are two easy ways to bond with the people you are talking with. Listen for and mimic their phrases or openly acknowledge the difference to start a deeper conversation.

Here are some other regional “isms”: Yunz from Pittsburgh, youse from Philly, and for those who don’t know they are the plural of you, or if you are from the South the same as “yawl.”  European English speaking people “go to the seaside.” Who drinks “pop?” I drink “soda?”

Dialect isn’t just words. In 1972 traveling through the South, Alabama or Georgia – I ordered a ham & cheese sandwich, instead of getting what I expected, ham & cheese together between two pieces of bread I got 2 different sandwiches, one ham the other cheese. Why they gave me both mustard and ketchup I don’t know.

As competition heats up in higher education marketing revel and celebrate the differences you find.

If you can think of more dialect, send a note to CB and we’ll share all the differences in a blog post next week.

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A long time ago, in another life before I was in higher education marketing, I was taking photographs of an expert in relationship management (their words) at a corporate event.  He had a great pitch to start his presentation, “Opposites attract  -  for the first two marriages.”

What’s that got to do with walking backwards during a campus tour?

We all agree, connecting with your audience is an important part of the campus tour, so we certainly don’t want to position ourselves as one of those opposites.  That expert of long ago then talked about the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator as a tool to help people understand themselves and their audiences so they could interact better with customers, colleagues and even spouses.

Myers and Briggs designed a test, based on the work of Carl Jung, to determine which of eight personality dichotomies were prevalent in a persons approach to life. I remember that I am an ENTP, an Extraverted, Intuitive, Thinking, Perceptor.

The eight dichotomies are:

Extraversion  -  Introversion

Sensing  -  Intuition

Thinking -  Feeling

Judgement  -  Perception

Their theory is that if you understand your personality type and the general theory you can tailor your communication to your audience, which might mean toning down your natural enthusiasms to match your more reserved audience or vice-versa.

The Index of Learning Styles developed by Richard Felder and Linda Silverman in the late 1980s is another tool.  Felder and Silverman also have eight dichotomies:

Sensory – Intuitive

Visual – Verbal

Active – Reflective

Sequential – Global

The web site, Mind Tools has this to say about how to use the Index of Learning Styles, “Whenever you are training or communicating with others, you have information and ideas that you want them to understand and learn effectively and efficiently. Your audience is likely to demonstrate a wide range of learning preferences, and your challenge is to provide variety that helps them learn quickly and well.

Your preferred teaching and communication methods may in fact be influenced by your own learning preferences. For example, if you prefer visual rather than verbal learning, you may in turn tend to provide a visual learning experience for your audience.

Be aware of your preferences and the range of preference of your audiences.”

So while our tour leader has taken connecting with her audience to the extreme by internalizing walking backwards we all can remember that your personality type and your role as leader is just part of a continuum of behavior.  As with any role; we should be able to step into it and out of it.

While we don’t specifically use either Myers-Briggs or The Index of Learning Styles during our SMART seminars we do coach recruiters how to be much more natural so they can maximize their effectiveness in their role as a college enrollment consultant.

Not unlike many high school juniors, I’ve spent a lot of time on various college campuses this summer. When you travel from school to school, you can’t help but compare how this one stacks up against the last one. Although it’s been years since my college search, I’m sure students are comparing your school to the next school they visit.

It would be nice if all they compared were the official messages and marketing we spend hours training the faculty and staff on. However, let’s face it, sometimes it’s the little things that have the biggest impact on prospective students – for better or worse.

On one campus, after finally finding a parking place, I could not find any signage for the admissions office. I had to ask several people for directions, and unfortunately one of the people was not at all friendly. Had there been a clearly marked admissions sign, I could have avoided the negativity. A designated parking space for visitors would have also been helpful to make me feel welcome.

At another campus, at the end of their school year, I noticed trashcans filled to the brim with bottles and other paraphernalia. Clearly a party had occurred the night before. As a way to avoid this, perhaps admissions could work with maintenance on identifying areas that need special daily attention.

During a campus tour on another campus, there were low hanging branches over the sidewalks that required me to duck or walk off the sidewalk. To avoid the appearance of a poorly maintained campus, admissions could work with grounds personnel to maintain the tour routes.

While in another admissions office, I witnessed prospective families walking in the office and taking a seat before they were acknowledged and greeted as guests. An attentive staff who is eager and enthusiastic when greeting visitors is a great way to set a positive tone for any campus experience.

The little things can make a difference. OK, I’ll be the first person to admit that not finding a parking space close to the admissions building is not going to be the reason a student doesn’t apply to your college, but it can set the “tone” for how they feel about your school. First impressions do count.

So why bother? Simple gestures toward a prospective student or attention to details during the campus experience can make their visit seem more satisfying. Sometimes, the “little things” can set you apart from the competition – for better or worse.

To avoid these negative little things, put yourself in the role of a visitor to your campus. Approach the visit with fresh eyes and see if there is anything that could use improvement. Obviously not everything is in your control, but you can talk with others on campus and make them aware of your goal to look out for the “little things.”

Do you remember the last time “a little thing” made you smile or just brightened your day?