Social media is something that has only been around for about a decade, but has completely changed our lives. When it comes to staying in touch or finding people, social media has revolutionized the way we do things. It has also revolutionized how we advertise. In business, social media has become something so important that if you aren’t doing it, you may as well hand over your client list to your nearest rival and give up. For educational institutes, the reasons to be on social media and use it strategically are even more pressing.
1.Young People Have Grown up With Social Media as Their Main Source of Information
One of the main reasons why social media is so very important for colleges and other schools who are trying to win students is that the target audience is young. People who are 17 or 18 years old have had social media in their lives almost as long as they’ve been able to read. These things are not new technology to them, but part of the world they grew up in. The people you want to attract as students are more familiar with Twitter as a news source than with reading a newspaper. They are used to reading what is going on as soon as it happens, often with pictures or videos. If you don’t meet with them in their own territory – the internet – then you are going to miss out on their attention. Colleges who want to show themselves as a good environment for young people that have a lot to offer also need to seem like they understand the demographic, and this means using social media well.
2. Colleges Have to Compete with Online Education
There are lots of reasons why people can get something out of going to a physical school rather than studying online. They get a chance to make friends with like minded people and share their experiences. They get more face to face mentoring with their teachers. They also get to enjoy the lifestyle you can offer. However, many people need convincing of this, because online education is now a very real option. Online education is cheap and flexible, and online educational facilities put a lot of work into winning over potential students online. You may be sure that you can offer something better, but you need to be making those points and engaging with young people online to be able to convince them.
3.Social Media Is Highly Targeted
Colleges usually have a very specific target audience in mind. You want people with specific interests or career aspirations in mind, in a specific location, usually of a certain age. This makes it very easy to set up a social media campaign. Most people have some data about themselves in their social media profiles, for example, their age and location, and this means you can isolate people who fit the criteria of your ideal new student. You use the things people post and share to identify what they are interested in, and so a good social media marketing campaign will allow you to talk to the exact people you want to reach with very little waste. With other forms of advertising, you will usually spend a lot of your time and effort advertising to people who are outside of your demographic, but in social media marketing you can laser target what you do to only reach the people most likely to respond. This makes it very efficient in terms of both time and cost.
4.Social Media Lets You Interact
Another reason why social media outperforms other ways that you can promote your school to potential students is that it is interactive. The people you want to reach can ask you questions and engage with you in real time. This can require you to have someone on hand to manage the conversations, but is well worth it. Having interactions with people you want to attract as students shows you to be helpful and responsive, and fun to deal with. These are all things that appeal to younger people who are used to online interactions as their main way of talking to businesses and brands. You can impress them with your fast reaction times and helpful answers, and all of this will also be visible to other users, further boosting your online reputation.
5.Social Media Is Easy
You want to win over potential new students, and social media is really the easiest and most cost effective ways to do it. You can make yourselves more visible to people in your area, target the people you most want to advertise to, engage with your chosen demographic and also operate in a way that is natural and appealing to young people. Even better, social media is easy and cost effective to use as a marketing tool. While these days, trying to use a free Facebook page isn’t very effective, and so for a good social media strategy you usually do have to have some budget for advertising, there is little waste and a good return on investment due to the targeted nature of social media campaigns. Put some time and resources into managing your social media accounts, and you will definitely reap the rewards, and be able to lure students away from online educational institutes and into your courses.
There are lots of approaches that can be used in EDU performance marketing, and it is usually best to talk to a consultant who specializes in this field before dramatically adjusting your strategy. However, if you are not currently making the most of the opportunities social media offers to engage with your target demographic, then you are almost certainly losing out. Look at how you can apply social media marketing to your audience and more in terms of targeting and engagement. Just some small changes that don’t cost very much can help you win a lot more interest from potential students, so it is well worth looking into.
