Turning Social Media Buzz Into Outreach Strategy Presented by Jeremy Fern

NACCAP 2014 Annual Conference June 3, 2014

Harnessing the Noise

A little about me…not too much

Jeremy Fern Account Executive & Higher Ed Specialist

Seventh Point

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12 Years Higher Ed Experience Gardner-Webb University, (NC Baptist) -AVP of Graduate Admissions -Director of Admissions, School of Divinity -Director of Alumni Relations

Seventh Point Marketing & Advertising Firm -Higher Ed Strategist -Social Media Monitoring -Newsletters:

Connection Point “the higher ed minute”

About Seventh Point

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Located in Virginia Beach, VA Founded in 1985 Industry Verticals: Higher Education (15+ Yrs.) Transportation – Public Relations Automotive Legal, Insurance, Hospitality, and more

30 creative, caffeinated team members Capabilities: Digital & Traditional Media Planning SEO, PPC, SEM, SMM Content Marketing Programmatic/Real-Time Buying Social Media | eReputation Management Public Relations

www.seventhpoint.com

Today’s Session

Learning how to listen, analyze and organize the organic social media activity that affects admissions and recruiting

Defining the opportunity and aligning with your institution’s mission, principles and brand

Crafting an outreach strategy from social media listening

Looking at some “best practices” in higher ed

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Key Insights to Take Away

• Know your AUDIENCE

• Sentiment is EVERYTHING

• You have to be willing to LISTEN

• Be willing to offer social media SWAG

• Social Media needs a STRATEGIC PLAN too

• 5:00pm is not OFF TIME in social media

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Interesting thoughts about social media

“You are what you share.” C.W. Leadbeater (1854-1934), Theosophical Writer

“When you’ve got 5 minutes to fill, Twitter is a great way to fill 35 minutes.” Matt Cutts, Popular Blogger

“Transparency may be the most disruptive and far-reaching innovation to come out of social media.”

Paul Gillin, The New Influencers

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Speak Life

“We can turn a heart with the words we say.”

Toby Mac

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The World Before and After Social Media

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Think Voltaire There has never been a more amazing time in the history

of admissions and recruiting for communicating with students than today through social media.

But what did Uncle Ben tell Peter Parker

in the words of Voltaire?

“With great power comes great responsibility.”

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Here’s the SICHEEASHUN

This is us monitoring our brand in social media…

This is the student monitoring what we’re posting, tweeting, sharing, liking, yik-yaking, and vining.

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Know Your Audience

Mobile now accounts for

12% of Americans’ media consumption time

(DigiDay)

3 in 5 Mobile Users Pay Attention to Mobile Ads While Visiting Social Media Sites (Prosper Mobile Insights)

@UTexasProblems @fsuprobz

2/3 of students use social media to research college (Uversity)

Nearly 70% find using social media to research colleges moderately to extremely useful (Zinch)

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Only 44% of students find info on a school’s social media sites to be relevant. (Zinch)

31% of students search for specific #hashtags related to their college search. (Uversity)

63% of students say they would join a social network or group for admitted students. (Uversity)

Digital, Social, Mobile: The 2014 Social Admissions Report

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The Power has Shifted If we’ve learned anything from the corporate model, it’s that the power has shifted.

Now students are placing your college in their FUNNEL.

The Student Funnel

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The Student’s Funnel

Customer Service Programs and Majors

Cost

Financial Aid/Scholarships

Accessibility

Flexibility

Ease of Transfer

Digitally Techy

TOP CHOICES

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LISTEN, ANALYZE, ORGANIZE

Social Media Monitoring Sites sprout

meltwater

trackur

radian6

ubervu

hootsuite (free)

social mention (free)

tweetdeck (free)

(insert admissions counselor’s name and tell her/him it’s 10% of their job.)

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A good place to start Daily Social Media Monitoring Watching Sentiment Tagging Posts Identifying Themes Recording Trends Finding Top Influencers Measuring Conversation Volume Watching Outbound Activity Listening to the BUZZ Engage in the conversation for the sake of conversation, not

conversion….yet

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For Example: University of Georgia

Setting up your campaign: University of Georgia, the social media monitoring campaign set up included but was not limited to keywords such as "University of Georgia" AND ("universityofga" OR "uga" OR "@universityofga" OR “#uga” ) NOT (“uganda” OR “university gymnastics association”).

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Things to measure in SM

Conversation Volume Last 30 Days 14,844 Last 6 Months 36,519 Average per Day 237 Twitter Conversation Spike December 8 - 877 Tweets/Retweets Topic: @AmazingColleges tweets

“University of Georgia - pic.twitter.com/ljcu5drFsn”

Facebook Conversation Spike November 30 - 617 FB posts Topic: Response to Daily Mail article

concerning UGA alumnus Dr. Eugene McCarthy’s view that humans likely evolved from the mating of chimpanzees and pigs.

Conversation by Channel Facebook 67% or 9,994 posts Twitter 25% or 3,750 posts Blogs 6% or 724 posts Comments 1% or 181 posts Message Brds. 1% or 172 posts Other <1% or 33 posts Total 14,854 posts

Keywords Amazing Colleges, Bulldogs, UGA,

McCarthy, Hybridization, Chimpanzee, Georgia Tech, NCAA

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877 Tweets/Retweets - @AmazingColleges Tweets UGA Arches Image

How much is your audience talking about you?

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SENTIMENT is everything

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Look for SPIKES in Sentiment

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DEFINE THE OPPORTUNITY ALIGN WITH YOUR BRAND

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Define the Opportunity Do I respond? Do I let it slide? Do I turn a negative into a positive? Is it worth my time? Will it just fuel the fire? Is this a hill I’m willing to die on?

Will taking a few minutes out of my day to do this make the difference? Probably so.

Proper monitoring and engagement can help you define the opportunity and align social media with your institution’s mission, principles, and brand.

Help fuel the college’s loyalty and followership by capitalizing on social media conversations that can be turned into “pride campaigns”

Highlight the college’s success in teaching, research, and service to the world Capture the voice of students giving the college insight into the student

experience Give the college a wealth of content which can be utilized to increase

national standing and awareness for the institution Aid in the conversation and dissemination of major university fundraising

campaigns Showcase student and faculty academic excellence and research

Aligning SM and Brand

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CRAFT AN OUTREACH STRATEGY BEST PRACTICES IN HIGHER ED

Plan your work, Work your plan

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Social Media Strategy Plan - If you don’t have one, write one What goals do you have? What platforms make sense? How many can you realistically handle? Be ready for a time commitment. How are you measuring? (likes, shares, retweets, posts) What kind of content are you posting?

Don’t gag me with a deadline, tell me why. Don’t shove your application in my face, send me an

article about “5 things you shouldn’t do on your college application.”

Are you considering Paid Social as a complement to your

organic social strategy? Even $100, $500, or $1,000 at the right time can produce great dividends.

High Point gives SM Shoutouts

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“It’s strictly a matter of supporting our campus culture via social media.” Roger Clodfelter, VP of Communications

Storify your Shoutouts

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The Breadcrumb Effect

Maria/Sophia enjoy afternoon at ABC University’s campus….

Maria tweets “I love #ABCUniversity’s campus!”….

ABC University intercepts #ABCUniversity through SM Monitoring….

ABCU engages Maria on Twitter/Invites Sophia to an event….

Sophia makes friends and meets the college president…

Sophia enrolls at ABCU for her freshman year…

And on and on…

53% of people recommend products in their tweets. Yet organizations take, on average, over 6 hours to respond to direct questions on Twitter.

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Duke University and Google HOAs

“Connect students with a piece of campus they care about. We use Google HOAs all over campus to give them a window into the Duke culture.”

Cara Rousseau Digital/SM Strategist

Duke University

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Steal ideas…I mean glean ideas Use Facebook as a “lifecycle tool” to engage students. Amy Curtis, MidAmerica Nazarene University

Let current students connect with prospects real-time through Twitter. Day in the Life @CofC Melissa Whetzel, College of Charleston

Chronicle your students’ stories in their words through social media. In Their Words and Photos – Move-In Sarah Glassford, University of Tampa

4752 Euclid Road Virginia Beach, VA 23462 757. 473.8152 | seventhpoint.com

Jeremy Fern jfern@seventhpoint.com @JeremyFern7P

Have a great day!

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