A colleague sent a link to an entry in Kyle James' blog about Rachel Rueben's report "The Use of Social Media in Higher Education for Marketing and Communications: A Guide for Professionals in Higher Education." [get the PDF] This is an interesting report and I recommend it to anyone how to market a program, college or university, recruit students, and reach alumni. Here is my summary.
In July 2008, Rueben posted a survey to several listservs and received 175 responses. After removing duplicates she wound up with 148 unique schools from which to draw data. The breakdown was overwhelmingly US (94.3%). Of those 148 institutions, 54% reported having an official Facebook page, 22% an official MySpace page. This tends to confirm what I've heard of late, that higher ed prefers Facebook to MySpace.
More stats: just over half these 148 colleges and universities have an official presence on YouTube and 60% have some form of blogs on their site. 17% reported using del.icio.us. (p. 6)
Being involved in the UA's YouTube channel, echo her observation that a big reason to have an official YouTube channel is the cost savings it represents. "Universities have been making videos for 20+ years to aid in recruitment." YouTube is a platform to distribute them for free and save on the costs associated with burning CD/DVDs, packing and mailing them. (p.4)
In terms of how the 148 are using YouTube, she wrote that use by these 148 colleges and universities "seems to be used primarily for recruitment purposes (30%) with some using it to share videos with current students and alumni. Most report spending 1-4 hours a week adding videos to their channel." (p. 7)
Her survey looks have solicited open ended "concerns" and the main concerns reported were: 1) loss of control, 2) time commitment, 3) information overload, and 4) anyone can create an "official" account for your university.
She concludes with her own "recommendations & considerations" (p. 11) emphasizing how social media offers ways to reach alumni and to recruit students. I'd be glad to talk with anyone interested in exploring the possibilities. One idea off the top of head is to have a UA site in Flickr and engage students to submit pictures of student life, the campus and the area. Students come up with great ideas on their own and maybe we need to be looking for more opportunities to tap into that creative resevoir.
I would like to see more implementation of social media in the industry where I spent the first few years of my professional life: study abroad and international education.
The opportunities for blogging, podcasting, collaboration, recruiting, unconferences etc. are endless.
Here are a few that I've come up with:
* Create a blog or a podcast all about study abroad -- latest news, tips for adjusting to life overseas, profiles of international education programs, discussion of types of programs (short-term, semester, year abroad), how to find scholarships and grants for overseas study, etc. This could be a killer marketing effort for the school that does this and does it well.
* Set up a website that features students blogging about their experiences overseas or international students adapting to life in America.
* An international student advisor can produce a short podcast with weekly tips/updates for the school's international students.
* A Skypecast between students overseas and a program coordinator back in the home home country
* RSS updates could help the strapped-for-time international educator to keep up with industry news from hundreds of websites without having to visit those actual websites.
* Create a "Global Island" with seminars, trainings, etc. for students and educators in different locations.