Facebook? Not in Our House! Part 2…
Posted by Chris Potts | Posted in Concepts, Marketing, Social Media, Technology | Posted on 03-17-2008
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Written by: Chris Potts, Senior Assistant Director of Admission
Using technologies like blogs and wikis, YouTube and Facebook, discussion forums and online reviews, your customers are taking charge of their own experience and getting what they need – information, support, ideas, products, and bargaining power – from each other. This phenomenon — the groundswell — has created a permanent, long-listing shift in the way the world works. Most companies see it as a threat.
You can see it as an opportunity.
I recently came across this quote, while perusing some interesting information that I found from Forrester Marketing (http://www.forrester.com/Groundswell). In a nutshell, I think this sums up perfectly my point of view on this topic, and hopefully helps to put my previous post in context. Based on all the comments to that original post and Brad’s most recent post, I am now even more convinced that this entire realm of social media most definitely hits a nerve in many people. And for those who are indifferent to all of this, one has to wonder how long they can sit on the sidelines claiming that this won’t affect them personally, their profession, or their place of employment. Obviously this blog site, SquaredPeg, attempts to analyze things from an education – and in particular higher education – perspective. However there are many topics, and I think this one in particular, that many industries are having to deal with; we as a profession are not alone in trying to figure out what all of this means and if it is really a fad to eventually die out to another, newer “social experiment,” or if it is truly for real this time – worth our time and effort to integrate it into our daily work (and personal) lives. It is clear, for example, that many employers are struggling with whether to use Facebook, MySpace, and other such sites to make hiring decisions (to verify this, a recent article in the national “Marketing News” publication entitled “The New Rules of Recruitment: Marketers Engage Job Prospects Through Social Media” shines a spotlight specifically on this issue). So take comfort – our struggles are not our own.
From an education perspective, I certainly am in agreement with Brad:
“Consider this my internet signature on the declaration of ‘Don’t take mediocrity for an answer’. It’s never been my goal, and I hope it never is. I want to innovate and try new things. I want to make our visitors say ‘wow’. I want to make my University stand out miles above the rest. Is it a lofty goal? I don’t think so. It’ll take a little more work, more research, and a lot of red-tape cutting.”
For our profession, we must be innovative and willing to try new things – and NOT be afraid of failure. As many people much wiser than me have suggested, often we learn more in our mistakes and failures than if we take a passive approach and do nothing. We must understand the stakes of doing too much AND too little on this front. But, as many of the comments to my original post suggest, we must also not forget our roots and what has gotten us to where we are today – our traditional methods of communication with students (i.e. all that “old media”). If we barge too suddenly and with too much emphasis into such realms of communication and marketing (the apt named “new media”), students will see right through us and simply shut us out. And if we totally ignore traditional communication methods such as viewbooks, paper applications, and even text e-mails, we will be forgetting about and alienating many – ESPECIALLY parents (and we all know the power over student decision making that parents now have, right??). But having said this, we must be willing to appropriately enter the student’s new realm of personal contact and communication. Being on a college campus or in some other educational setting, perhaps most importantly we must be willing to educate others on these new tools, their impact on marketing strategies, and how to begin integrating them in other ways (i.e. the classroom setting). So looking at this, I could hypothesize that the burden falls most squarely on our shoulders – the burden to persuade others that all of this really is not just another “fad” but something that SHOULD be paid attention to, and that should be given its due diligence in all those high-level strategy meetings.
For a great blog with much more in-depth conversation about all of this (not necessarily from an education perspective) I would highly suggest visiting http://blogs.forrester.com/charleneli/. Enjoy!
The key is integration. You can do both old and new and allow the students to pick which method they choose to communicate with you over. If you can show that students PREFER to communicate with you over the new media and relate it directly to the bottom line of increased enrollment, then that’s all you need to convince the higher ups that its a viable form of marketing.
Also, and I don’t think this can be understate, people who’s sole desire is to innovate are often WAY ahead of the curve when it comes to adaptation of technology. The next big thing at SXSW may not make its way into the mainstream until a year or two after the event. I’m not saying that innovation is a bad thing – I’m a huge fan of it. But we work in higher education and need to look at innovation in that context. What seems to be a very simple baby-step towards innovation to people like you and me could seem like a huge leap out of their comfort zone to the people we work for. I had this experience the other day – I made a simple flash photo gallery that I thought was cool but not that big a deal and people here practically fell off their chair over it. I guess what I’m trying to say that it’s great to be innovative in thought (and on our respective blogs) but when it comes to actual implementation, we have to practically manage our expectations about what is achievable or else we’ll go out of our minds in frustration.
Karlyn
“What seems to be a very simple baby-step towards innovation to people like you and me could seem like a huge leap out of their comfort zone to the people we work for.”
Karlyn has a great point there. I’d further add that innovation/technology can step out of a tech-savvy prospective student’s comfort zone, too.
Facebook is a great example of this. Facebook class of 2012 groups pop up on their own and attract a noteworthy number of students. And if you proactively send out invites to admitted students to join such a group, you will receive the occasional reply back that “I don’t have a Facebook account” and also some people joining who are finally setting up a Facebook account for the first time.
From my experience during this recruiting cycle, this number is dwarfed by those who already have Facebook accounts and join such a group without thinking twice about it. Joining isn’t a huge leap out of many prospective student’s comfort zone (though you aren’t likely to get even the majority of admitted students to join until the withdrawn apps go up and the pool whittles down to who is actually attending). I would say Facebook is one of the technologies of the moment in this regard.
On the other hand, a very small number of those same students likely have an account set up on Ning. Ning is cool, it is social, and it doesn’t have nearly the adoption rate. Mention Ning to a high school student, and they more often than not have no idea what you are talking about.
That may change in a few years, and in the future an invite to an admitted student group on Ning would pose few hurdles in terms of getting people to join. Even getting a prospective student to create an account on an older technology like a Web forum/bulletin board is a greater hurdle than getting them to join a Facebook group, at least from my experience.
That’s not to say a Facebook admitted student group isn’t without pitfalls in terms of customization and administration, but a person may decide that is worth the compromise for the other reasons stated.
For a more pointed example, visit a college’s Web site where you have to fill out a form to even get on the mailing list, all in the name of “personalizing” the site. Prospective students might be uncomfortable with that (from a perceived privacy standpoint? the hassle involved? the unlikelihood of returning to the site?) when they simply want some information in the mail. This is innovation executed badly, imho, but a common approach the vendor will insist on implementing to keep numbers of students creating a personalized site high, thus making their product *seem* useful.
I try to keep up with what is happening in the tech world, particularly if it may be useful for recruiting. I made a mental note that AOL bought out Bebo. That could be huge, or it might not be. I didn’t rush out to build a presence on Bebo for my college admissions office. Given limited time, I tend to push the boundaries where I think it will have the best ROI (or, more accurately, ROE: return on effort).
Rob, per usual you and I agree. I’ll take issue with one thing though:
“For a more pointed example, visit a college’s Web site where you have to fill out a form to even get on the mailing list, all in the name of “personalizing” the site. Prospective students might be uncomfortable with that (from a perceived privacy standpoint? the hassle involved? the unlikelihood of returning to the site?) when they simply want some information in the mail.”
Many of the fields a student is required to fill out on forms like this are the same fields they have been required to fill out to request information from any college for years. I don’t think it’s something they view as that out of the ordinary or a hassle. At my last job, I ran a split test on the request information form – one was a very sparse, simple form. The other asked for more information. There was no significant difference in the completion rate of one form over the other.
“Given limited time, I tend to push the boundaries where I think it will have the best ROI (or, more accurately, ROE: return on effort).”
You totally read my mind! It’s not that I won’t constantly be THINKING about areas that I could innovate in or new tactics I could try but after having been at this for a bit over 4 years now, it’s just impossible to implement them all given the environment we’re in. You just get burnt out and tired of the frustration.
Karlyn, I’m glad you posted, because you pointed out what I was thinking but didn’t make clear in my comment: these forms for “personalizing” a site are (nearly, if not completely) identical to standard inquiry forms. And kids are surprisingly tolerant of longish inquiry forms.
Often, however, the college admissions offices offering a personalized site present no option to “request info” or “join the mailing list” but they do present an option to “personalize this site.”
So there is the hurdle I was talking about, but I didn’t make my point clearly. I want info. I’m not concerned about personalizing the site, and don’t care to do so. I see no way to request info…
I could link to many specific examples, but prefer not to single out schools in a negative way.
So, if anyone thinks personalizing a site is worthwhile, be aware of the options you present to join the mailing list. Perhaps two links: “1. Personalize this Site” 2. “Join Our Mailing List” or “Request Info” – perhaps even toss in a checkbox on the second option where they can opt-in to personalizing the site from the “regular” inquiry form.
You could even track to see which approach is more effective. No matter how vertical your recruitment funnel is, it is likely still a funnel. Capturing names is beneficial, especially if the lead is warm as it is when a prospective student went so far as to visit your site.
“Often, however, the college admissions offices offering a personalized site present no option to “request info” or “join the mailing list” but they do present an option to “personalize this site.”
Well that’s just silly of them LOL