To effectively attract, recruit, and yield students, social media matters—but not the way you think it does.
Campuses focus attention on the accounts they manage, who follows them, what they publish, and how people engage with their content. This is “owned” social media. Right now, you may have the most visibility into owned content so it gets the bulk of your team’s attention. I urge you to take an audience-centric approach and think about how students use social media. You’ll quickly realize your owned content is a side dish, not the entree. Recalibrating what you assess and where you put your attention will correctly align social media with your strategic enrollment efforts.
Ask Different Questions
Start by moving away from “What networks should we post on?” as your guiding question for social media strategy. Instead, you should ask:
Where are people talking about us?
What are they saying?
How should we be involved in that conversation in order to achieve our goals?
Listen First
You can only answer these questions if you listen first. You’ll find that the valuable conversation is happening in spaces you haven’t been looking—because it’s not in the comments of your owned content.
For example, a recent Niche study found that more students use Reddit to learn about colleges than any other social network. Less than half of students surveyed viewed colleges’ owned social media accounts on any network. You may not have an account on Reddit, but you should absolutely use it to understand your audience, their questions and pain points, and perhaps interact with them.
The University of Calgary’s law school estimates 15% of the 2022 class found them on Reddit. Students talk about you, even if they’re not looking at your owned content. On social media, about two thirds of conversation about colleges is earned. You won’t find most of that conversation by focusing on your owned accounts. You need to listen differently.
First, define what to listen for. Focus on topics, not platforms, to answer “Where are people talking about us?” and “What are they saying?” Find people talking about your campus and its programs where they’re having peer-to-peer conversation.
It’s imperative you have visibility into this conversation because the themes, pain points, and points of pride within it are what your prospective students perceive as authentic (in contrast to your polished marketing messages). This kind of listening is impossible without investing in resources to find relevant conversation across as many platforms as possible—including those you’re not familiar with yet. Staff are quick to say they can’t afford to invest in technology, but are you willing to say you’re not going to invest in listening to students?
Measure the Entire Meal, Not Your Side Dish
This audience-centric approach ultimately shifts your thinking to metrics that matter across the entire social media ecosystem—not only your flagship accounts.
Total conversation volume, earned conversation volume, and unique voices are metrics that will grow over time as your integrated marketing efforts prompt word-of-mouth conversation with your target audiences. The themes you uncover will drive more authentic communication and marketing strategy. And ultimately, you can make a direct tie to enrollment outcomes.
I’m a very online leader of a very online company. I don’t put much stock in owned social media metrics. While I’m generally aware of the number of followers, and what expected reach we have, those aren’t KPIs. I pay absolutely no attention to engagement rates. I look at how social media impacts our business goals (organic social media is the original source of at least $730,000 in revenue, so far), alongside the value of the intelligence it provides for us to understand our audience, anticipate market trends, etc.
Expect Strategic Outcomes
The role of social media in enrollment strategy isn’t to go viral or reach as many students as possible. Social media should allow you to reach your enrollment goals because you’ll be able to:
Identify your prospects’ needs
Adjust your enrollment strategy to adapt to students as they progress through the cycle
Resonate with target audiences
Understand how you’re perceived related to key topics (e.g., EDI, specific majors)
Proactively reach new markets
Align your efforts in this way, and you’ll be less stressed when platforms decline or a new one launches. Center your audience, not your owned content, and you’ll always be in a position to serve them in alignment with your goals.
Liz Gross
CEO + Founder of Campus Sonar
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Partner Profile
We're not just your partner, we're your strategic expert. We collaborate to deeply understand your goals and questions, define a shared vision and action plan, and offer support and expertise to make progress toward your goals.
The social media and media relations team at Duquesne University contributes to developing audience-centric strategic communications plans for the university and continues to help senior leaders understand how social and earned media conversation contribute to the university’s goals.
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