engaging prospective students using social media
TRANSCRIPT
UAS Conference Series 2013/14
1 October 2013
@oxfordgradstudy
Engaging with prospective students using social media
Tess Ablitt and Nicola Mastroddi Graduate Admissions and Funding
14 September 2010
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@oxfordgradstudy
Why should we use social media?
• Show a human side to Oxford – engage informally
• Flexible, low-cost channel which students occupy
• Quick distribution of news, events and updates
• Allow prospective and current students to interact
with each other
• Act as a central hub for all graduate-specific news
1 October 2013
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@oxfordgradstudy
How do we use social media?
1 October 2013
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1,860 followers (using for 2 years)
2,500 followers (using for 6 months as a PAGE)
206 followers (using for 8 months)
Using for 1 month; stats to come!
Other channels to consider: LinkedIn, Vimeo, Flickr, Google+,
Vine, Delicious, Digg, StumbleUpon and the list goes on!
Feed into the University’s Facebook and Weibo
@oxfordgradstudy
How should we use social media?
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Quick updates re. news and events
Promote news & events using photos, videos
Boards of photos to represent your brand
Collections of graduate-related videos
• Regularly engage students with interesting and relevant content • Call to actions are important and always measure effectiveness
WEBSITE
PRIMARY CHANNELS
SUBSIDIARY CHANNELS
@oxfordgradstudy
CONTENT QUIZ: FACEBOOK AND TWITTER
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• Five past Facebook posts and five past Tweets from our
accounts on your handouts
• In pairs, we want you to rank the posts by popularity and
discuss the reasons why you’ve ranked them this way
• Results and discussion
@oxfordgradstudy
HOW TO BRAND
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Important to retain your brand in your social media so people
instantly recognise you and to give your account credibility, e.g.
consistent logo, colour palette, account names
@oxfordgradstudy
HOW TO PROMOTE
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• Hard copy promotional materials
• Website
• Promote through each social media channel
• Email signatures
• Any communications to your target audience
• Ask the main university page/GAF to share your content
• Facebook advertising and boosting posts
• Follow some influential accounts and hope they follow you!
@oxfordgradstudy
THINGS TO CONSIDER
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• Senior management buy-in: develop a Strategy/Policy
Tools:
•Research externally – benchmark with competitors
•Research internally – current use within the university
•Establish target audience, objectives, targets and
methods
•Establish use and resources needed
•How to measure success and future considerations
@oxfordgradstudy
HOW TO POST/TWEET
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• Regular posting to engage/inform followers
• Simple language – informal and friendly tone
• Include link for further info and call to action (FB can
track; use bit.ly for Twitter)
• Include photos or videos to represent post
• Time of day and during week
• Schedule into Hootsuite if not in the office
• Twitter – 140 characters; Facebook – no restrictions
@oxfordgradstudy
POST-BUILDING EXERCISE
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Using the previous principles explained, we want you to
create a post for either Facebook and Twitter in groups.
Topic: new graduate course launched – see handout
@oxfordgradstudy
HOW TO MEASURE SUCCESS
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Page 11
It is important to measure your impact on social media
and provide regular reports to inform your team of
progress
Tools to use:
• Google Analytics – campaign tracking links
• Bit.ly – track shortened links
• Facebook Insights
• Crowdbooster
@oxfordgradstudy 1 October 2013
Page 12
<screen shot of Google
Analytics – campaign
tracking>
@oxfordgradstudy
QUESTIONS?
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