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Social Networking for Independent School Admissions
Emily H.L. SurovickDirector of Lower School Admission, Chestnut Hill Academy
Vincent H. ValenzuelaDirector of Admission, Chestnut Hill Academy
Social Networking in Many Forms
Message Boards
PodcastsVideo
Sharing
PhotoSharing
Blogging
Social Networking
Social Networking
The Stats:
Facebook just surpassed 300 million members, with more than 300,000 businesses.
LinkedIn has over 47 million members. A new member joins LinkedIn approximately every second and executives from all Fortune 500 companies are LinkedIn members.
YouTube- People are watching hundreds of millions of videos a day on YouTube and uploading hundreds of thousands of videos daily. In fact, every minute, ten hours of video is uploaded to YouTube.
Sources: http://www.youtube.com/t/fact_sheet, http://www.facebook.com/press/info.php?statistics,http://press.linkedin.com/about
Just to Compare….
Years to Reach 50 Millions Users:
Radio (38 Years)
TV (13 Years)
Internet (4 Years)
iPod (3 Years)…
Facebook added 100 million
users in less than 9 months
Why Your School Should Consider Social Networking
The internet is where people are going more and more FIRST to get updated and accurate information.
People trust the recommendations of their friends before an ad. Social networking sites allow for people to rate/ comment about their experience.
People trust customer reviews- schools can recruit parents to comment about their experience.
Social networking sites allow for faster word of mouth marketing- most schools would agree that “word of mouth” is their biggest marketing tool!
And……….
Why Your School Should Consider Social Networking
If you don’t create a site for your school, someone else will!!
They may already have!
Facebook is a free global social networking website that was originally designed for college students and is now open to anyone over the age of 13. Facebook users create a “profile page” where they can add photos, video and information about themselves and share this information easily with friends.
Facebook provides an easy way for friends to keep in touch and for individuals to have a presence on the Web without needing to build a website.
The Facebook Stats…
• In July, 2009 USA Facebook users= 69,378,980. This is a 150% growth over January, 2008.
• 20% of the adult US population is on Facebook. • The 35-54 year old demographic is growing fastest,
with a 276.4% growth rate from July 2008-Jan. 2009• The 55+ demo has a 194.3% growth rate• The 25-34 year old population on Facebook is
doubling every 6 months• There are more females (55.7%) than males (42.2%)
on Facebook – 2.2% are of unknown gender.What does this mean for schools?.....
Source: iStrategylabs: 2009 Facebook Demographics and Statistics Report, Jan. 2009
Facebook Stats
Parents and professionals are
rapidly adopting Facebook.
This is our target market!!!
Issues to Resolve Before You Facebook
What happens on Facebook,
STAYS on Facebook
Issues to Resolve Before You Facebook
How many pages do you want for your school?- One page for entire school? one for Admissions? just Lower School Admissions?...
Name of page- too specific makes it harder to search. Also, you can not change the name once it is set.
Who at your school will have administrator functions? What parameters will you set as far as what can be posted and
what can’t? ie: student first/ last names, grades, photos, etc. How often should it be updated? How much do you want your page to direct people to your
school website or substitute for your website? Do you want to create a “page” or a “group”? And……….
Issues to Resolve Before You Facebook
Schools need to be prepared to lose some control!
Issues to Resolve Before You Facebook
“Effective social network recruiting allows would-be customers to generate their own content. The danger for institutions is in loosing control of their image once it’s thrown into the hands of the public.”
- The Ottawa Citizen
Source: The Ottawa Citizen, Universities Turn to Social Networking Sites to Hook Recruits, Dec. 15, 2008
A Really Cool Idea!: The University of New Brunswick
In 2008, the University of New Brunswick challenged prospective students to create Facebook groups about why they wanted to go to UNB.
The winner received a year’s tuition.
There were a total of 90 Facebook groups created for the contest with over 11,000 members/fans.
Facebook 101: How does it work?
Facebook: Page or Group?
Facebook: Page or Group?
Pages- Operate like personal profiles that everyone on Facebook can access. Fans can post comments to pages. Pages allow for more direct interaction with fans.
Pages are designed for administrators to maintain a personal/ professional distinction on Faceboook.
If a page administrator posts a comment, it appears as if it is coming from the school/ organization, not an individual.
There is no limit on the number of fans a page can have.
Facebook: Page or Group?
Groups- Maintained by an individual person. When you send notices to your group, those messages will appear to come from a person, not the organization.
Groups are also good for when you want to limit access to your group and you want it to be more personalized. Admin messages are limited to 5,000 members.
Facebook Pages: Some School Examples
Northfield Mount Hermon- a basic site, but they have loads of fans. A great example to follow in terms of information posted.
Chestnut Hill Academy-Lower School Admissions- Lower School/ Admissions-focused. We have embedded our YouTube channel and our Twitter stream to our page. We have also created a sidebar for Application materials and a link to an interactive online viewbook.
Calvert School- has a great online catalogue and virtual fieldtrip tab. Louisiana State University- SU has 117,000 fans- they got it by
getting into a competition with Texas A&M for Facebook fans. Gonzaga University- great idea for Development. Also, they are
utilizing the “poll” function- great way to drive traffic! Check out edSocialMedia’s facebook page- each week they nominate
a different Facebook “page of the week” and they have great notes. Search schools you know and see what they are doing….
“What is it? It sounds kinda silly.”
Twitter is an online service that allows you to share status updates with other users by answering one simple question: “What are you doing?” in 140 characters or less.
Twitter Usage is Growing!
A Twitter Vocab Lesson
Tweet - When you post or write your 140 characters on twitter and hit send
Handle – Your twitter name, eg: @ChesnutHillAcd
Follow –The act of adding someone to your list of people you are following – this makes their tweets show up on your homepage.
DM – This is a message that is sent directly to another user. A tool for private messages.
Hashtag – A way people categorize tweets so that others might use the same tag and create a way for people to view related tweets. Eg: #iran
A Look at Twitter
Twitter- It still doesn’t sound that great….
Your alums are probably the ones that are going to find you first. Twitter’s potential lies in “word of mouth” marketing.
Highlight the great things your school is doing and word will spread, especially as Twitter usage grows.
Twitter- Still to Come….
Twitter to soon launch a new location-aware feature.People will be able to add latitude and longitude to any tweet.
People could read tweets from anyone in their neighborhood or city.
It remains to be seen how this plays out, but there is significant potential for schools with this new feature.
YouTube
• Create a YouTube Channel for your school and upload videos. Link this channel to your school’s website and to your school’s Facebook page.
• Ask students/ parents to create videos about your school and post them to YouTube.
• Create a virtual campus tour….like this one…
• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tI8j50e6pxo
Another YouTube Use for Schools
CHA’s Development Office recently used YouTube in its Annual Fund appeal. Humor is a great marketing
strategy!
Facebook Advertising- What a Great Idea!
Cheap! Easy-to-create. (You don’t need to be a savvy design/ marketing
person) Micro-targeted Instant tracking and feedback! Click-throughs can go to a
Facebook page or to your school’s webpage
People can also become a “fan” of your page directly from the ad or they can RSVP to an event directly from the ad.
Facebook Ads- Micro-targeting
Facebook is like no other publication in the way you can target your audience.
Let’s try…..
http://www.facebook.com/advertising/?src=pf
Anatomy of a Facebook Ad
CHA Open House April 23rd
Chestnut Hill Academy Open House April 23rd, 7PM. Tour our campus, visit our new science center and meet faculty, students and parents.
← Ad title is limited to 25 characters.
← Only one photo/ image permitted.
← Body text limited to 135 characters.
Facebook Ads: Tracking
Facebook automatically tracks your ads for you. You can see impressions, click-throughs and they even chart your ad’s success for you!
Once You’re Feeling Confident…Some Other Sites For You to Consider
www.SlideShare.com• Share student work/
projects• Share expertise of
faculty
www.WordPress.com or www.Blogger.com
• Create a free blog for your school.
Blogging- WordPress.com
How to Promote Your Facebook/ YouTube/Twitter Pages- Basic
– Put “Find Us on Facebook” and “Follow Us on Twitter” links (with logos) on your website.
– Put logos in your viewbooks– Get current parents “fanning” your pages- it will
show up on their friends’ pages– Parent newsletters– Use Facebook ads and link your ads to your
Facebook page
Once Your Up and Running…Some Other Ideas to Consider
Video Contest – “Why I Love CHA!” Detail a student project through tweets Learn FBML (Facebook Markup Language)
and create some custom tabs for your page Encourage parents/ kids to post their favorite
pictures of your school on your site Look into Facebook Connect
In Conclusion….
• Remember that most schools are new to social-networking, so feel free to experiment and get creative.
• The potential for its use is growing as its popularity grows.
• Wherever possible, engage user participation, not just readership/ viewership.
Audience Participation: Comments/ Questions?
Social-Networking: What More Can We Say?
