IDEAS THAT WORK

SOCIAL MARKETING BEST PRACTICES

July 14, 2009

Featuring

Joanne Murray, Annenberg School for CommunicationJoel Cloralt, FIU College of Business AdministrationValerie Salyer, New England College

Expectations have changed… • Digital natives expect you to be accessible across

multiple channels (both new and old)– Facebook

– Twitter

– Web site

– Phone

– Email

• Context and relevance are much more important than ever before

• You must battle even harder for share of mind and share of wallet

2

STUDENTS ARE ON THE SOCIAL WEB…

• 75% of our college crowd, young adults aged 18-24 have a profile 

• Social network users are also more likely to be students-   68% of full time students and 71% of part-time students have a social network profile

• Nearly one third 31% of online white adults have a social networking profile, compared with 43% of African-Americans and 48% of Hispanics.

Source: Pew Internet and American Life Project

TRENDS IN SOCIAL MARKETING

SO ARE ADMISSIONS OFFICES…

• There has been significant growth in familiarity with, adoption of, and importance to mission of social media over one year ago.

• Adoption has grown by 24% in one year: 61% in 2007 as compared with 85% in 2008.

• Nearly 90% of admissions departments feel that social media is “somewhat to very important” to their future strategy

Source: UMASS-DARTMOUTH CENTER FOR MARKETING RESEARCH

TRENDS IN SOCIAL MARKETING

Joanne Murray, Assistant Dean for Graduate StudiesAnnenberg School for Communication

Joel Cloralt, E-Marketing CoordinatorFIU College of Business Administration

Valerie Salyer, Associate Director of Admissions New England College

Our Panel

WHERE DO YOU START?

Information Super Overload

WHOA!!!

FINDYOUR AUDIENCE

Online Presence

Coming Soo

n

(Alumni Only)

www.fiutwitter.com

• In just two months, YouTube traffic is consistently increasing showing positive comments regarding the various videos.

• Facebook fan pages and group pages are the most beneficial due to the high volume of feedback from students. Fan pages allow for the important messages to be conveyed without sending individual private messages.

• Twitter shows a large following. Most followers are above the incoming freshmen age, however Twitter shows a wonderful resource for alumni.

Social Networking

• Facebook Fan page for recruiting and general outreach. Too small to have more than one.

• Videos linked on ASC web and Facebook

• LinkedIn Groups for both alumni populations

– Graduate: 194 members (20%)

– Undergraduate 504 members (21%)

• Just started this initiative, too early for results

Social Networking

CROSSING CHANNELS

Social Web Recruitment Funnel

Social Networking

• Graphic Links for all three sites are used within counselor email signatures verifying that recipients are exposed to the option of these outlets.

• Facebook is proving to be the most effective among the NEC incoming students.

• This initiative is beginning to snowball throughout all three outlets. Student feedback is the primary source of statistic results.

WHAT ABOUT CONTENT?

Who owns what and where?

SM Content flow

Community

(Students, Faculty, Staff, Alumni)

• Facebook Fan page 99% of content has been from the school, goal is to have 20% content from fans by the end of the year

• Discussions/News/Jobs not being utilized just starting to post in this venue – no goals for member interaction

Content Generation

MOTIVATING AUDIENCES

MESSAGE CONTROL

Dealing with comments…

MEASURING SUCCESS

What about?

• Followers/Fans• Web Traffic• Comments• Inquiries• Etc.

Measuring Results

Measuring Results

• 2.2 Tweets a day.• Majority of Tweets between 8am and

4pm Mon-Fri.• 10% of total Tweets gets a reply.• 8.57% of total Tweets are reTweeted.

Measuring Results

• Campaigns have varied from 17-28% view rates with 1-11% Click Thur Rates

• Campaign had 44% view rate and 27% CTR

• New goal is engagement versus numbers of members

Measuring Results

Measuring Results

Measuring Results

Measuring Results

• 1.6 Tweets a day.• Majority of Tweets

between 8am and 4pm Mon-Fri.

• Followers grow by about 15 per week.

• Results have varied in the summer as opposed to the school year.