What’s happening with Facebook in College Admissions? (infographic)
We talk a lot about Facebook in the admissions process. Whether we’re covering how prospective students use it, how institutions are measuring it, or common complaints about it, I’ve learned that all the blogging in the world doesn’t always clearly articulate how we view current state of Facebook in admissions marketing. Fortunately we have a [...]
5 Downsides to Facebook Pages and Groups
Since joining Inigral last summer, I’ve had the opportunity to talk with dozens of schools on how they prefer to engage with students on Facebook. Although there are many success stories, some folks in higher ed have expressed major complaints with Facebook’s current functionality. The general attitude towards them is still mostly positive, but some recent statistics [...]
Tufts University Social Admissions Tips
Last week I had the opportunity to conduct a design interview with Daniel Greyson from Tufts university. Tufts has received national coverage in the past for their innovative use of social media in their admissions process. USA Today named Tufts as one of 20 colleges making best use of social media and in 2010 the New York Times covered [...]
Making Social Media work for International Student Recruitment
Global Campus just released a whitepaper showing some surprising survey results for international student recruitment, and social media. Although conclusive results are up in the air, it shows more and more administrators are interested in leveraging social media to court and welcome international students. One of the benefits form the report states that social media can [...]
Is Your College Measuring What Matters in Social Media?
It’s not easy managing the growing number of online social outlets today. With limited time and shrinking budgets it’s important now more than ever for universities to be smart with their social media strategy. Prioritizing social media efforts begins with measuring activity and deciding what outlets have the best return on investment. In the fall [...]
Do prospective students use Facebook in their college search?
Last month, some students from Ohio University (who we’d been working with on a few social media related projects) gathered a group of high-schoolers for a focus group to learn more about the role social media played in their college search. The students asked a dozen high school juniors and seniors from Ohio the following [...]
Top 5 Reasons Why Students Join the Schools App (and why they don’t)
I love Facebook. Ever since my senior year of high-school when I received my .edu address from Ohio University, I was hooked on the connections and ideas that came from the social web. After working with colleges on social media strategy for the past few years, one of my biggest gripes is how they focus [...]
Secrets from the Inigral Design Team
I’ve worked at a lot of companies, but none that have impressed me more than the team at Inigral. I wanted to share with the higher ed. community an insider’s view on our design team’s process. Howard Kao is one of our lead product designers and Mike Petroff is an amazing client who acts as [...]
Recruiting International Students with Social Media
Early this morning I saw an article from The Times Higher Education UK that had quite a catchy title. International students ‘do not use Facebook to choose their university‘ It was a bold statement, although I’m not sure where/how the survey was conducted it makes for some interesting dialogue. The main statistic that led to [...]
Does Social Media Affect Student Diversity?
“The only way to keep your health is to eat what you don’t want, drink what you don’t like, and do what you’d rather not.” – Mark Twain In the fall of 2011 there was a New York Times Editorial bashing Roommate Matching technology (like RoomSync) as one of the many new technologies that take the randomness [...]
5 Reasons Colleges Can Do Social Media Themselves
Last week I was on a call with the director of marketing at a college where he explained the trouble he was having managing the school’s “social media.” He stated he was interested in hiring a consultant or agency to help him manage the admissions/marketing presence and was thinking about drafting an RFP to pay someone [...]
Community College Retention by the Numbers
Arlene Arnsparger from the University of Texas walked attendees through the challenges of the student experience at community colleges in her presentation: Student Success: From the Starting Gate to the Finish Line Community College retention is a huge issue facing our country. While 90% of students genuinely believe they are motivated and prepared for their [...]
EduWeb Recap: Lessons Learned from Texas A&M’s Social Media Scavenger Hunt
Texas A&M set out to bring divergent social media platforms together to build a brand through their Scavenger Hunt.
College Recruiting from the Teen Perspective (Part Two)
This is the second part of the TeensTALK recap from the Stamats Integrated Marketing Conference. In Part One, we discussed a few themes the panel found to be important during the college admissions process. In short, the students identified and expressed their approval of personal methods of recruitment. For Part Two, we are highlighting the [...]
College Recruiting from the Teen Perspective (Part One)
Last week, I was lucky enough to attend the 16th annual Stamats Integrated Marketing Conference in Chicago. Over the three-day conference, I sat in on both round table discussions and presentations led by higher education professionals. Surprisingly the event that resonated the most, wasn’t done by a professional, but by recent high school students. I’m referring [...]
Social Media Adoption Research in Higher Ed.
In order to stay up to date with the latest research in higher ed. marketing, we’ve been diving into industry and academic reports to gather consensus around the current state of social media in higher ed. Yesterday, Nora Barns and Ava Lescault from The Center for Marketing Research at the University of Massachusetts Dartmouth, published their longitudinal study [...]
Admissions Marketing – What’s Here vs. What’s Next
For the past few weeks, I’ve been summarizing the 2011 Noel-Levitz marketing and student recruitment research that is extremely important to the higher ed market. After reviewing their reports last weeks our CEO, Michael Staton, pointed out something: Focusing on what is true today is not going to help schools position themselves to take advantage [...]
Online Expectations of Prospective College Students
Noel-Levitz just published more research on the current state of online expectations of prospective students and parents. We already covered a summary of best practices in recruitment and marketing trends here, but wanted to update a new blog to dive deeper into the digital aspects of the recruitment experience.
Using Current Students in College Marketing
According to best practices from the Noel Levitz 2011 Admissions Marketing Report using current students to engage with prospective students is one of the most effective ways to recruit students. We absolutely agree with these findings, and believe student connectedness and community is a vital part in the recruitment process.
Admissions Marketing: Out with the Old in with the New?
The world of marketing and communications has grown to be quite complex over the past two decades, especially due to divergent communications technologies. Because of this, higher ed. marketers are faced with a tough job keeping up with all the new channels as well as completing a never-ending to-do list. Add in a shrinking budget and [...]
Dear Canada: Better Recruitment This Year, Better Data Next Year
“We are excited to integrate our higher education research expertise into Inigral’s innovative and highly successful social community product and add thoughtful research data and analysis to Inigral’s product,” said Philip Bliss, Chief Innovation Officer at Academica Group.
The Ivy League Bubble
Small colleges have a good reason to like Peter Thiel’s attack on higher ed. There’s lots of debate this week about Peter Thiel’s push to get undergrads to “stop out” of school. Thiel, who is the founder of PayPal, the first outside investor in Facebook and an investor in Inigral through Founders Fund, thinks more [...]
Social Media and College Admissions Usage
We found some great research from Dr. Nora Barnes and Eric Mattson from The University of Massachusetts at Dartmouth that provides some insights into the higher-ed social media landscape. Their study, mining surveys and interviews from 478 schools, has shown that social media has solidified a prominent position in the toolkit of admissions and enrollment [...]
Facebook for Admissions and the Schools App
Join the Inigral team for a free webinar as we explore the ins and outs of Facebook pages in Higher Ed, and how to move beyond them for optimal results.
“Beyond Pages: Enhancing Facebook to Achieve Institution-Wide Results”
Friday, October 30 at 1PM EST
