PS&L Blog

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!