In mid-August, a very interesting survey was released from University of Massachusetts Dartmouth, that was focused on “how does a college or university recruit in this new highly networked, constantly on world”. This is the 5th year of this survey, which has been collecting information on the use of social media since 2008.

1. Social Media in Recruitment Survey Indicates Higher Ed
Marketers are Listening Less
Slide 1
Social Media in Recruitment Survey
Indicates Higher Ed Marketers are Listening
Less

2. Social Media in Recruitment Survey Indicates Higher Ed
Marketers are Listening Less
Slide 2
1) The Recruitment Survey
2) Twitter and Facebook
3) LinkedIn
4) Decrease in Listening
Overview
Source: Higher Education Marketing – Social Media in Recruitment Survey Indicates Higher Ed Marketers are Listening Less

3. Social Media in Recruitment Survey Indicates Higher Ed
Marketers are Listening Less
Slide 3
 In August 2013, a very interesting survey was released from
University of Massachusetts Dartmouth, that was focused on
“how does a college or university recruit in this new highly
networked, constantly on world”.
 This is the 5th year of this survey, which has been collecting
information on the use of social media since 2008.
 Authors of the survey, Nora Ganim Barnes, director of the Center for
Marketing Research at the university and Ava Lescault, interviewed
managers responsible for social media efforts at schools, across the
landscape of higher ed , including, public, private and for-profit, small
to large, including 474 institutions in total.
 Interesting enough, the aspect of the survey that has
attracted the most coverage is the amount of tweeting and
facebooking done by university presidents.
1. The Recruitment Survey
Source: Higher Education Marketing – Social Media in Recruitment Survey Indicates Higher Ed Marketers are Listening Less

4. Social Media in Recruitment Survey Indicates Higher Ed
Marketers are Listening Less
Slide 4
 The survey found that 58% of top administrators are
facebooking and 55 % are tweeting.
 This topic was highlighted recently at the EduWeb conference in
Boston, with an opening plenary from President Santo Ono from
the University of Cincinnati about his experiences tweeting on behalf
of himself, the university and the impact that it has had on
recruitment.
 It seemed from audience reaction at the conference that this was a
rather rare circumstance but the survey seems to indicate it is much
more common that we all understood.
 A tweeting president is a new and important component in
your social media mix but the meat of the survey is about the
evolving trends in social media marketing channels.
2. Facebook and Twitter
Source: Higher Education Marketing – Social Media in Recruitment Survey Indicates Higher Ed Marketers are Listening Less

5. Social Media in Recruitment Survey Indicates Higher Ed
Marketers are Listening Less
Slide 5
 The survey suggests that the big three continue to grow in
use by higher ed marketers.
 LinkedIn had the most dramatic growth, almost doubling in
use from 47% to 80 %.
 And this stat was determined before general knowledge of
the recently announced LinkedIn University pages, which will
likely increase the use of LinkedIn even more dramatically.
 Pinterest, Google+ and Instagram, measured for the first
time this year, also have strong and growing bases of use.
3. LinkedIn
Source: Higher Education Marketing – Social Media in Recruitment Survey Indicates Higher Ed Marketers are Listening Less

6. Social Media in Recruitment Survey Indicates Higher Ed
Marketers are Listening Less
Slide 6
 So how is this being funded, you ask.
 Well, the survey indicates that needed budget is being taken
away from traditional offline activities, but frankly it’s
surprising how little these have decreased.
 This indicates two things.
 One, higher ed marketers are very reluctant to turn off the taps to
traditional advertising for fear of losing hard fought ground.
 Two, they continue to experiment with social media channels,
generally for free, with minimal investment made, until they can
confirm their actual effectiveness and ROI and they then invest
(usually in people to manage it).
3. LinkedIn
Source: Higher Education Marketing – Social Media in Recruitment Survey Indicates Higher Ed Marketers are Listening Less

7. Social Media in Recruitment Survey Indicates Higher Ed
Marketers are Listening Less
Slide 7
 Another very interesting piece of information revealed by the
survey was about the use of social media listening.
 The use of social media listening has actually decreased
quite dramatically over the last few years, down from 73% in
2009 to 38% in 2013.
 This stat seems rather odd, unless the question was
misunderstood, given the expanding use of social media
channels across the board.
 Perhaps it is because the people managing these channels are so
maxed out, especially given that most colleges are pushing more
content to more channels, that they actually have less time and
energy to monitor the results of their activities and actually listen to
the interactions on the channels themselves.
4. Decrease in Listening
Source: Higher Education Marketing – Social Media in Recruitment Survey Indicates Higher Ed Marketers are Listening Less

8. Social Media in Recruitment Survey Indicates Higher Ed
Marketers are Listening Less
Slide 8
 Consistent with this is one other survey stat, that reported
that half of schools still don’t have guidelines for acceptable
online student behavior.
 Strange, given how sensitive most schools are to the risk of
social media being used to criticize their institutions and then
not being able to control it.
 This is a very dangerous tipping point, as the quality of
content on any given social media channel is directly related
to your listening to the channel and interacting effectively
with it.
4. Decrease in Listening
Source: Higher Education Marketing – Social Media in Recruitment Survey Indicates Higher Ed Marketers are Listening Less

9. Social Media in Recruitment Survey Indicates Higher Ed
Marketers are Listening Less
Slide 9
Questions?
1.514.312.3968
info@higher-education-marketing.com
Visit our Website: Higher Education Marketing
FOLLOW US ON FACEBOOK
FOLLOW US ON LINKEDIN
FOLLOW US ON TWITTER
FOLLOW US ON PINTEREST
FOLLOW US ON GOOGLE+