Creating web communities can help you build relationships of value with your most important constituents. Here’s how.
HIGHER EDUCATION IS JUMPING ON THE social media bandwagon. A 2008 UMass-Dartmouth Center for Marketing Research study states that colleges and universities are adopting social media tactics faster than Fortune 500 companies. More than 700 institutional Facebook pages were launched by December 2007 shortly after the site opened its doors to corporations and nonprofits.
But the review of eduStyle’s Gallery of Social Sites reveals a strong similarity among Facebook school pages. They typically include the kinds of photography and images available from campus marketing sources, don’t necessarily make the best use of outside applications and other robust Facebook features, and sometimes have startlingly few friends.
To gain any benefit from the social web, institutional social networks need to build sustainable communities that grow and significantly expand their reach. Simply throwing a page up on Facebook or pulling together your own online network is no guarantee of success. If you build it, they may or may not come.
Colleges and universities would be wise to develop networks that have the same kind of power that commercial networks like Twitter or MySpace do—the power to attract members who will broadcast network benefits throughout the digital ecosystem, attract other members, and create an ongoing community that feeds marketing and recruiting efforts. These steps can help you establish a powerful institutional social network.
Social networks can strengthen a marketing campaign even in a secondary role. So far, they seem to work best as campaign feeders, though they are now taking the lead role in many corporate efforts. Because of its relationship-building power, social networking could become a brave new tool to help achieve a number of significant goals for a higher ed institution, in particular:
