Become Your Students’ Biggest Fan

My boss shot me a link to this great article by TechCrunch guest writer Roger Warner, titled “Social Media Gurus Push Conversations Over Kudos, And Fail.”

In his post, Warner writes about the proper and improper use of corporate social media marketing to engage audiences. Warner’s tidings can be applied to any industry, and certainly to higher education.

If I had to delineate and apply Warner’s wisdom to a higher-ed institutional marketing and brand communications plan, it would boil down to these key Do’s and Don’ts:

Social Media Marketing Do’s

• Give students a stage to tell and share their story
• Use social media to create conversations between people (not with your brand)
• Create stories to share by giving students great content and experiences that make them the hero, i.e., smarter, cooler, motivated, and generous

Social Media Marketing Don’ts

• Create social media experiments that simply invite people to participate
• Use everyday college-based information to promote discussion, i.e. brand to fan conversations
• Enhance your institution’s brand over your students personal brand

In the end, we all want the same thing: schools want students to increase performance, graduate, get a job, and give back; students want to have their achievements recognized, publicized, and shared; and, campus communications and public relations offices want to share their students’ achievements, bring big attention to their institution, and create a brand that represents the ultimate academic community. Let’s not forget, parents. Parents want, well…they want it all: school reputation, child’s success, and the proper recognition of their child’s achievements.

At readMedia, we see the big picture and our readMedia application allows you to successfully create social media content, based on the activities and achievements of your students.

Stop wasting time trying to engage your academic community and let it happen naturally by showcasing your stakeholder’s Achievements. Getting them noticed, will get you noticed.