Social media is central to the way in which young people engage with the world around us. It is essential for your institution to establish, of course, brand awareness and brand loyalty, but one that is of significant importance, is the connection with students. With so many people already active on social media platforms, you need to meet your prospective students, current students, and alumni where they are. An effective social media marketing strategy can be a great recruitment tool, a convenient way to quickly share announcements, an effective way to build a community, and so much more. The possibilities are endless!
Create a hashtag
Create a hashtag for your university that isn’t used anywhere else and that is specific to your institution. Looking at examples, the majority of the content under the hashtag is from the school itself, however the second type of content is from their students, whether that’s current or alumni.
Some great examples:
Students will be proud of their school so will use the hashtag to share photos of acceptance letters, sporting events, campus activities, and other university-related content. Once students start using that hashtag, you are able to easily find user-generated content on social media by simply searching for that hashtag. And once you are able to easily locate user-generated content, you can incorporate it into your social media platforms! You can do this by re-posting your students’ posts onto your social media feeds or as Instagram Stories, for instance. User-generated content is effective in higher education recruitment efforts because it displays authentic experiences from real students. It also increases engagement on your social media accounts as well!
Need more specific information on hashtags? Read more here.
Do social media takeovers
Speaking of user-generated content, another great idea is to do social media takeovers. This is a great way to tell stories or share events through an authentic first-person narrative, and students love to be involved too! You can use social media takeovers to share experiences of your student athletes, student clubs, campus events, and more!
Content trends
Content trends, mainly from TikTok, are a fun and creative way to get your students involved in your social media content. Out of everyone at your institution, students will be the most likely to be on top of trending sounds and video trends.
POV trend
Of course trend
Sad hamster trend
https://vm.tiktok.com/ZGey1ss1X/
Feature student stories
Showcase your student experience by sharing testimonials or stories from students. Not only will this foster a sense of community, but it can also be a way to personalise your university to prospective students. A great way to do this and to celebrate different cultures is to tell a series of student stories during certain heritage months. You don’t have to limit this to just students though, you can also involve your faculty and staff members.
Go live on social media
Going live on social media can be a great way to recruit students. While fairs and campus visits have been the more traditional way of recruiting students, universities now have the ability to have a live discussion about their programmes and campus life on social media. By doing this, students and parents can engage and meet members of your university’s admission team without leaving their homes! Also, going live on social media can be a great way to engage with existing members of your university community!
Here are some ideas of what you can do when you go live:
- Important announcements
- Q&A about the admission process, campus life, things to do in the surrounding area etc.
- Virtual fundraising events
- Graduations
- Campus tours
Conduct online campus tours
This is perfect for international students who are interested in your institution, but do not want to travel a long distance to visit, make sure to give them a way to view different parts of your university through an online tour. The best way to give these types of tours is to have a student conduct them. This will establish authenticity and trust with the viewers and will make the tour a more relatable experience. You can conduct accommodation tours, campus tours, even location attraction tours, and more. There are many ways to conduct these types of tours. You can create a long YouTube video that talks about certain spaces in your university in detail. You can create Instagram Story tours and leave them on your Instagram feed as a Highlight so that students can see the tour right from your Instagram account. Or, you can create a campus tour series on TikTok.
Be responsive and engage your social media audience
Engagement is key to not only beat the dreaded social media algorithm, but also to create a positive institutional social media presence. It is not enough to just post content on social media and call it a day. To grow your social media presence, you need to engage with your audience. So, make sure you are on top of responding to DMs, comments, and mentions on your social media platforms. By growing your social media presence, you will be able to create an amazing online community for your institution and in return, it will also have the potential to attract prospective students to enrol in your institution.
Would like to find out more information on how to also engage your students? Read my blog on How to engage students on social media.
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With an eye for style and always keeping impact in mind, Megan is dedicated to delivering consistently interesting content that influences audiences, demonstrating growth in both engagement and follower numbers across different key platforms and networks. Beyond creating gripping content, Megan regularly produces key insights into how business schools and universities could, and should, be using social media as a marketing tool.
