One of the previous post I had written on how its imperative for colleges or to say education institutes to adopt Social Media. While the earlier post talked from perspectives of student & teachers, these one shall look from the institution perspective.
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| Photo Courtesy: www.sxc.hu |
1. Be Responsive
As as institution, you could have launched a page on Facebook or shall have a twitter handle, but how responsive is the institution to the constant chatter happening.
- Do you respond to admission queries?
- Do you respond to issues within the campus?
- Do you track alums (they are the best people to comment on the institution)?
Quite often, the institutions tend to forget to respond to these basic situation & concentrate on one-way communication. If yours is one amongst these, CHANGE the monologue to dialogue.
Frequent conversations shall help in building a strong brand & recognition.
2. Strategize
For institutions to succeed in the current era of Social Media and with plethora of channels to cover, building a clear strategy is the first step to success.
Take example of Syracuse University, which can also boast of a case study for FourSquare presence, it strategised to engage students & alumni even while they were not on campus.
While students are the biggest group of users on social media having ability to drive discussions, compel future students, teachers/Head of Departments should not be left behind. They need to be part of the institute's strategy with as many of them driving or heading discussion & also sharing the latest information in their areas of expertise using blogs or Twitter.
How will it help?? The online presence of an institute shall receive a great Filip owing to the knowledge streams generated. Prospective students shall be receptive of the numerous communication channels whereas the alumna's shall be keen to share the openess & innovativeness of the institute.
Lets face it, Social Media is not going away & its best to harness the capabilities of the free world. Though I am not an expert on the subject and there could be other benefits, but with the conversations that I have generated on this topic, it would be safe to assume that there are quite a few colleges/institutes wanting to adopt Social Media. With effective filtering, policies & technology am sure your strategies for adoption will be successful.
What do you think?? Do drop in your comments & will be glad to know your thoughts.
As an end note, here are 20 colleges that made the best use of Social Media.
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