Category: Social

The student recruitment process is never-ending – your institution is always targeting the next class. Paid social media gives your higher education institution affordable and measurable ways to reach prospects all year long on the influential social and streaming media platforms where prospective students spend their time.

Standing apart from the competition, especially during busy enrollment periods, can be a challenge and effective social advertising strategies on Instagram, Facebook, TikTok, and Snapchat, as well as streaming platforms like YouTube, deliver quick and very effective ways to narrow down your prospects and attract the students you’re after. You can easily customize and format your ads that you show on each platform based on audience preferences and further hyper-target and personalize those ads by optimizing your data and analytics.

Students spend a lot of time on their favored platforms gathering information.  According to Experian, 98% of college-aged students are on social media, which makes it imperative that your institution find ways to engage with students at all levels of education. Social ads can be tailored for high school sophomores and juniors, in addition to seniors, and for transfer-minded students and individuals pursuing graduate degrees. You want to reach your prospects with social ads before a decision has been made. Providing a targeted, appealing visual, text, or video message can grab their attention and begin building brand awareness early in their search process. 

Social Ads Can Target Your Audience

Social ads offer tailored options that can be based on specific demographics of your targeted prospective audience. Use your current students’ data and alumni information to gain a better understanding of the ambitions of your prospects and how your institution will fit into their plans. Go beyond mere demographic data, like age, location, and family income, and delve deeper to create messaging based on the field of study, extracurricular interests, career-building opportunities, or athletics.

Social Ads Attract Awareness

Social ads put your institution in front of people who are scrolling their favorite platforms and let you get found and discovered when they are most likely to want to learn more. This places importance on the look and relevance of the ad as well as the call to action. Social ads don’t let the moment pass by prompting your audience to visit your website, complete contact forms, or download additional information right from a click within their favorite platform. Create contests or highlight campus events and activities to encourage further participation and seize opportunities to collect data. Applying the newly gained data can help you to tailor further ads and campaigns to the likes and preferences of prospective students to keep growing the relationship.

Social Ads Generate Interest and Appeal

Draw interest and share the uniqueness of your institution’s academic curricula, campus culture, and community by offering your audience incentives like school swag, free event tickets, and scholarship offers in exchange for information. Share blogs, videos, and other content that they can use to make more informed decisions and be better prepared for the challenges and exciting times that await them. You can use the information you gather to build ever-more accurate prospect personas. Social ads also let you retarget audiences through other marketing channels and reinforce messaging through email and print collateral.

Social Ads Supplement Multi-Channel Marketing

Social ads work best when deployed as part of a unified and cohesive multi-channel marketing campaign that fits in nicely with the ways prospects search and gather information in today’s marketplace. When social ads have a strong call to action, it’s easy to direct prospects to your website, send them to watch videos on YouTube, or collect email addresses to stay in contact. According to a Nielsen study, audiences evaluate multiple sources of information along their journeys. Incorporate direct mail, printed promotional items, and email marketing to put information about your institution every place the prospective student looks.

Social Ads Scale To Meet Your Budget and Campaigns

Throughout the year, your institution’s enrollment marketing ebbs and flows to reflect periods of heightened prospect interest and increased campus events and activities like school tours. You’ll want to make sure your social ad campaign is established with a budget and metrics that provide insight into your cost-per-acquisition (CPA). CPA is an important metric for gaining valuable information on the effectiveness of your ad for converting prospects into qualified inquiries. Knowing your CPA allows you to adjust the levers of the campaign to gain the most from your ad spend as the season’s enrollment needs change. You’ll have more confidence and control over digital ad spending when adapting to the changing needs of your enrollment efforts by applying this data. 

Social Ads Intensify Testimonials

Social ads allow you to use your strongest advocates – students and alumni –  to provide validation and support during social media ad campaigns. Recommendations and positive reviews by current students and alumni are more trusted than traditional advertising, and can speak to the prospects’ situation from a personal, shared perspective. Social ad testimonials add authenticity to messaging and play a powerful role in the decision-making of your prospects. 

Adding social ads into enrollment recruitment for higher education institutions has never been easier. Contact a Marketing.com social advertising expert today to learn more about how we can help your school connect the dots and integrate social ads into your enrollment recruitment marketing. 

At Marketing.com, we don’t see making predictions for 2023 as putting on a swami’s hat and gazing into a crystal ball. Sure, there may be some game-changing app or innovation that bursts onto the market and completely disrupts something. That’s rare, however. Tik-Tok is everywhere these days, but it was launched in 2017 and it took a few years for its popularity to go stratospheric.

Instead, we’ve studied the social media landscape to identify five things that have been around, gaining in use, and now ready to dominate social media strategies in 2023. We’re confident that putting one or more of them into practice can help your business generate brand awareness and grow your business.

1. Keep (or Get) Real – Authenticity Matters

Social media audiences will continue to want authenticity when they choose who to follow in 2023. Cliches and jargon just won’t cut it anymore. In fact, authenticity is not just an expectation, it’s a demand.

The old axiom is that people don’t want to be sold to. With social media, that’s not necessarily true. According to Twitter Marketing, 80% of respondents agree they don’t mind being sold to on social media as long as “it’s fun, useful, entertaining, informative or moves me in some way.” This means you can develop stronger bonds with social media followers when you share honest and relevant content on social channels.  

One way to keep on top of the issues that matter to them is through social listening. What you learn can drive conversations with them and create communities around issues that can create fuller and more meaningful relationships.

2. Customer Service Goes Social

In 2023, it will be more important than ever to quickly address potential problems through a direct line of communication to your customers. People have grown to expect fast responses to social media questions and complaints. If someone is experiencing problems, you don’t want to exacerbate things by taking hours to get back to them. In fact, even one hour may be too long.

According to Sprout Social,  88% of business executives say social media will become the primary channel for customer service and support. One way that will happen is through expansion of chatbots that can be available 24/7 to enhance customer service activities.

One of the biggest benefits of adding social media to customer service is the ability to turn a potential problem into something positive and immediately strengthen your relationship with your customer.

3. Selling on Social Takes Off

Your followers spend time engaging with your business through your social media app to learn more about your business and the products you offer. It only makes sense to give them the option to make a purchase when they’re there. Online stores give customers the ability to browse products and make purchases without leaving your social media app. Statista.com projects that by 2025, social commerce in the United States is set to grow to nearly $80 billion. 

Social media ecommerce is about more than making sales, however. It’s an opportunity to nurture your followers through strategies to build brand awareness, manage your communities and communicate through personalized ads.

Augmented reality (AR) use will grow in 2023 and further enhance the customer shopping experience. More businesses will give shoppers the ability to “try on” apparel or see how furnishings will look in their homes before making a purchase.

4. Dependence on Influencers Grows

Businesses have been relying on influencers for several years now. For good reason. Businesswire.com reports that in 2022, 61% of consumers trusted influencers’ recommendations as opposed to only 38% trusting branded social media content. Their importance will grow even more significantly in 2023.

One significant shift in the next year will be the growth of the micro and nano influencer. When used strategically they can increase social media engagement without busting your marketing budget. Matching your product or service to their smaller, yet devoted base of followers might help you hone in on your targeted audience.

Businesses will also increasingly rely on influencer-created content not only because it’s viewed as more authenticate than branded content, but it costs them nothing to produce.

5. Social’s Role in Omnichannel Marketing Grows

In 2023, businesses will more fully integrate social media across other channels like email and direct mail into omnichannel marketing campaigns to engage with their customers at multiple touch-points. People are gathering information across multiple channels. The research firm Forrester reports that 95% of customers using social media use at least three channels in a single interaction and 62% change devices midstream.

Historically, social media has been used as a tool for building brand awareness. That will not change but, as discussed above, it is transforming into so much more. It will become a vital component in personalized, seamless experiences that reach customers where and how they choose to interact. Social media, with its in-the-moment conversations and ability to share videos, reinforces the popularity of direct mail that uses QR codes and the effectiveness of email for permission-based communication.

Chances are your business is more prepared than you think to take advantage of the growing inclusion of social media into your digital and omnichannel marketing strategies. Wise implementation of influencer-generated content can reduce costs and reach new followers. Social media ecommerce can change the way you connect with customers. Chatbots responding to queries strengthen customer satisfaction and trust.

There’s a lot happening in social media. Our predictions are based on what trends we believe have the potential to generate results for your business over the next twelve months. It’s up to you to find the best fit.