Good morning! I read a very interesting statistic this morning that higher ed marketers are only using 4% of their budgets for social media spends.
(source Razorfish.
com).
In the years I spent in higher education, the hardest single thing I had to do was to convince folks that there was a tangible return on investment with social media spend, but there a lot of intangible, valuable information as well.
How valuable would it be for your school (or business for that matter) to read unsolicited student (consumer) feedback in a online community? How valuable would it be to correct any misconceptions out there about your school or business.
It would be very valuable in my opinion.
The most difficult thing higher ed marketers have to do is justify their spends on social media to the VP of Enrollment's etc...
remember they are thinking big picture, but are still very concerned with ROI.
The "big thinkers" are interested in enrollment growth, retention, etc...
Let's ponder this...
how much would it be worth to you to take out all the misconceptions of your entity using these channels.
The student now says, "Wow, its really not like that there", I am going to consider attending, maybe, just maybe that was the only thing holding them back, you don't know, unless they stated it on Twitter:).
I am not a proponent of using all of your budgets for social media, however I am in favor of using more that 4%.
Think of this media as a great secondary tool to use along with your primary marketing methods, especially an SEO campaign.
Social media (without SEO) is like a speedboat without a motor.
The two go hand in hand.
There are many tangible and intangible results from using these tools to market your school or business, as a secondary means.