How to Promote

For a while now, I’ve been plugging our different avenues of communication in four ways

• email- it’s good for some things, granted a good percentage of students don’t do email. I’m also pretty cautious of how many times I email students about this stuff. The students who do care may start to delete my emails along with the continental sky points notices if I inundate their inbox with shenanigans. A great way to plug your stuff is to put a limited number of links in the signature of your email. So you’ll automatically notify students in a non-mass email sort of way.
•  Phone Calls- So I’ll talk to a student about what’s going on on the web, but the trick is… telling someone where to find something is a pain if they’re not navigating on the web as you direct them. You can give them urls (pbablogs.com) or locations on a web page (click the blue letters below my left ear on the about me page) but mostly this is just you making yourself feel good about getting the word out. You won’t notice traffic increases this way. I’ll remedy this in the last paragraph.
• Cross Plugging- I should probably come up with a better term… maybe later. So if you’re running a student blog, have a student put a link in their post to a video on YouTube and then plug the PBA podcast at the same time. Niceeee. (That was nice with 4 Es… spell check can’t handle me) Maybe you get crazy hits on your admission site… Throw up some banners linking students to other content.
• Print Publication - Ok so this isn’t something that I’ve tried out, but I hear it works well. Even better, why don’t you print up something like a club flyer (uv coated glossy 3×5 card) plugging your site. While your at it… put your IM on your business card.

Resolution- Closing the Black Hole

For your print publications, your phone calls, even your emails… It’s a great idea to have a single site to direct students to and let them experience the fullness of your web presence. It smacks of simplicity, but it’s important that you take all the difficulty out of finding out about your school. Any friction and they’ll give up and miss the cool stuff you’ve been posting. You owe it to your students to make things easy.

What’s more, you could just have all of these resources out there and no one uses them like a library in a national park or something. And your central site could look a lot different than what I have in mind. It could be something as simple as a links page on your admission site, or a whole separate web site. Just put all your stuff in one place.

Tibi over at Lost Art of Blogging gives some tips on Stickifying your blog (making up words here left and right). These are some great tips for student bloggers, but I think they can be applied to Facebook, MySpace, YouTube, and Podcasting.

If anyone knows about a free desktop video capture program for os x, please let me know. I’m working on some podcasts that publicize what my institution is doing online.

::Edit:: Just purchased one for 20 bucks. I got tired of searching.

Today’s post may be a breath of fresh air to some (one out of two readers). No joke: YouTube is meant to host unprofessional videos. Getting a custom made myspace background for your admission counselor pages takes away their souls. Facebook is meant to not have layouts and too many special applications. So the pressure is off!

In fact, it’s a good idea to purposely not shoot a podcast in HD (though people have gone there). The most succesful podcasts that I’ve made have been strong on the fun and content and weak on the flashy. Sure my transitions may have been off and my camera a little shaky, but prospective students found them really helpful. I put most of my effort on conveying a point in a clear way. If we were giving a tour of a residence hall, I made sure there were times I would pause and just let the viewer look at the dorm room. If we were telling the student about the purpose of a preview day, we would make sure the visuals weren’t distracting (made a slow transition slide show of pictures from the previous year’s event) and put a voice over of a current student explaining the event on the audio track. If the topic was boring, I used the toys on my desk to describe the process (How to Apply) and then put some cheesy computer music as the soundtrack.

It’s Called MySpace and Facebook, Not CorporateFront and CarefullyMarketedMailer

Let your counselors be people on these sites. Let them (make them) post their favorite appropriate song as background music to their site, or a background of LA Galaxy, or pictures of their kitty. This attracts students to their sites. Prospective peeps don’t go to myspace and facebook to look at a school, but they will definitely sign on to socialize with people and your institution may come up in the conversation. Ironically, this generation stares at a monitor (or three if you’re Al Gore) to socialize.

So the little guy wins in creative online marketing. Sure you’ll need an adaquate amount of man-hours to put into developing and initiating a online presence, but most of what I suggest on this site is free technology (besides purchasing a domain–your institution should be able to share its web hosting). As I’ve said in this post, you won’t need a graphic designer or video production crew to draw prospective student interest.

I barely read my email anymore. I’m not sure if it’s because I need Ritalin or drink too much caffeine, but email is boring. We need email though. It is necessary: for opening up MySpace, Facebook, YouTube, and Second Life accounts. But that’s about all it’s good for. I can subscribe to feeds instead of signing up for newsletters, I can message loved ones on SNS sites, and I can find great deals using Google. Email is for working chumps and students check it if their school makes them or if they are nerdy. It has turned into TV without DVRs. So little information and so many commercials… Kind of like this blog.

How to Publicize Properly

SNSs have built in sweet features to plug your events to all of your “friends” and target geographic or interest groups of non-friends. I have a bunch of gold nuggets for reaching students using other sites, but SNSs are beautiful places to advertise for free. Sure, you could send out mass emails to your applicant or inquiry pool, but why not use something more effective. There are a couple of ways to do this in MySpace and Facebook, and I’ll only briefly touch on them here. I can save the in depth stuff for later when people may actually read this stuff.

Bulletins

Bulletins are used for quick updates for your friends when they first sign on to the SNS. Usually a user will ask for comments on their newly posted pictures, or notify friends of new content on their profile, or just complain about life to all of their friends. Bulletins are perfect places to direct users to websites, newly posted videos, notification of deadlines, or to let them know about a college fair in their area. You get bonus points if you bulletin your friends about updated content. It signifies that you’re a committed SNS user and not just on the site to advertise. If a counselor or recruiter takes a trip, post some pictures of the largest ball of wax or Art Linkletter’s Volkswagen and bulletin your students. You’ll get feedback, you’ll make them think of your institution, and you’ll build a relationship.

Posting Events (AKA Big Red Things)

Events are postable and invitable elements on SNSs. The invite function of the event is a great feature, because you’re able to send individual invites to all of your friends on an SNS but you’ll also have your event posted on the general events calendar (if specified). The event will pop up as an alert on your friend’s dashboard when they login to their site as a big red notice. I still get excited when I see big red things on my login page.

Maybe This Was My Point

So all that to say, it’s a good idea to solidify a SNS presence before branching out to other tech venues (podcasting, youtube). You could put the cart before the horse but you’ll make the horse mad and you’ll have to walk.

I’m not sure that using SNSs for screening is a good thesis for Counselor MySpace pages. It betrays trust, word gets out that your institution befriends students to find out their darkest secrets and your campaign to reach students through MySpace and Facebook takes some damage. Now I’m not saying that you shouldn’t address inappropriate content on a prospective student’s page, but using information to hinder their application without notification can be damaging both to the reputation of the institution and to your SNS endeavor.

Tripping Off Of Bob Marley

To illustrate the proper function of a MySpace relationship: a story. I was messaging one of my prospective students–I’m not sure of the purpose of the message so let’s say it was a simple, “What’s Up?” I click on his photo to get to his page so that I can message him, and homeboy has a new background of Bob Marley sparking a doobie. Most institutions have a no tolerance policy for drug-use, and mine was no exception. Being the levelheaded counselor that I was, this really wasn’t a big issue for me seeing as my student loved Marley’s music. There is a certain element of approval in posting pictures of drug use on one’s site, so I messaged the student about it.

The Same Response, Every Time

The beauty about this whole thing was that my response was the same as my coworkers. In anticipation of everything going haywire in our new pursuit of MySpace friends for admission purposes, my office crafted responses to inappropriate content and placed them in an easily accessible folder on a network drive. I’m able to copy and paste the text and customize my response to the content.

My message was first the initial, “What’s Up” that I wanted to convey followed by a request. My coworkers decided at the onset of SNS use to request a student remove the inappropriate content from their site. A cool feature of SNSs like MySpace and Facebook is their ability to connect friends of friends to the nth degree. So future college roomies can connect through my friends list because both are my students. Not only the students but the parents of the students can check this stuff out too. So using this reasoning, we ask students to remove the inappropriate content that our SNS sites point indirectly. My response also addresses that drug use isn’t even remotely tolerated at PBA, including posters with blunts, t-shirts etc. but we do like to listen to No Woman No Cry on Fridays. The goal in the Admission Process is to ultimately decide if a student is a good “fit” for the University. Also, we need to “fit” the student. By bringing up this content in a private conversation, we’re able to address these issues before a student gets on campus.

Higher-Ups Eat This Stuff Up

So we’ve built a relationship with a student, addressed conduct expectations pre-enrollment, and prevented the connection of inappropriateness with the institution. All in a days work. Again, I chose to deal with this issue initially because it’s one that snags progress in developing innovative recruitment techniques. Instead of reacting to social stigmas, let’s embrace this stuff and make it work. You may start with SNSs, but there’s tons more to explore. Blogging, podcasting, the resurrection on Instant Messaging, and maybe even getting a (Second) life!

You wouldn’t use a salt shaker to put mayo on your sandwich. Nor would you use a straw to cut your steak. A good idea would be to use the shaker for salting your food (or the radical sugar in your coffee) and then straw to drink in a more controlled environment (or to shoot toothpicks).

MySpace and Facebook are social networking sites. By definition, they link people to people by common interests, social connections in real life (RL), or carefully angled poorly lit pictures that give them a chance at attractiveness. Companies may effectively advertise on the pages of these sites, but they rarely draw a fan base from creating a single account and spamming the network with friend requests. I’ve linked to an article in my post on the dangers of Myspace. Brian Niles lists his criticism on this approach, and I agree with him. But most, including Brian, hastily assume that this is the only approach to using Myspace and Facebook in college recruiting.

Side Note: I realized this was even a trend when the institution I work for asked me to set up a single account for recruiting purposes to go along with our current approach. I’ll address why in a bit, and by bit I mean not this post.

The Right Way

I took some Kung Fu lessons two summers ago. A lifelong dream was to learn martial arts and be the new awesome. I would look like Bruce Lee with a Chuck Norris Beard and defend cats from dogs, chubby kids from post pubescent ones, and Mazda Miatas from Hummers. Back to Kung Fu. Wing Chung is a type of close combat Kung Fu that never forces but always redirects incoming force and somehow your opponent ends upside down in a tree. Using this Wing Chung knowledge, we can use redirection to effectively utilize social networking sites (SNS) for recruiting.

SNSs are effective tools for relationship building. The necessary relationship in recruiting students is between the Counselor and the student. Each Recruiter should have a specific SNS account (besides their personal account) to interact with students on a DAILY basis. Through implementation and use of this method, messaging within Myspace and Facebook has replaced my email communication with students who have SNS accounts. It’s not only faster, but this messaging allows for human interaction in a normally sterile email environment. Students see their counselor’s pictures of campus life, life in the office and on the road while asking them if their transcripts have been received. Counselors can ask a student how their football game was and tips on school spirit face painting while they remind a student to deposit. Admittedly, I have come across sites with inappropriate content. Just like with everything relating to technology and recruiting, I have a solution to this dilemma as well. But first, I’m going to get a latté.

There’s some sick stuff on Myspace

I will only expand on this point with a relevant story and then dip into the main idea. A friend’s MySpace account used specifically to connect with students in a convenient way sent messages to all of his friends directing them to buy male enhancement products. So the experience for a friend of his account was as follows: “My Admission Counselor just messaged me, very cool.” “Ok, Wow. This is inappropriate.”

Technology has calloused us, and I think this is a good thing. Students who received my buddy’s message were not the least bit offended because they know, as we know, that he wasn’t the origin of this message. We all receive spam, and we’ve all had accounts commandeered for the purpose of transferring money to Nigerian bank accounts or male pattern baldness prevention.

The front line is not a safe place

These spamming situations are only the top of the pile for institutions questioning the validity of social networking sites. The Big Guys question the effectiveness of the social networking phenomenon harnessed for recruitment, mission casting or spreading the word.

Brian Nile’s account

Certainly there are solid reasons for hesitancy. (I would love to hear your–or your higher ups–objections to the use of MySpace and Facebook for recruiting.) But I write to open doors. I want exploration and discovery though risk may follow. My institution started out by putting as much as possible out there in a web browser and trimming the trees as we observed what worked and what didn’t.

I agree with the article that I linked to earlier in the post, so next I’ll unpack my thought bundle of how to do MySpace the right way.