April is Social Media Month at Converge Consulting! By now, almost every higher education institution has some type of social media plan or strategy in place, but do you know if it’s working? Do you have specific goals that you are tracking? Many institutions know that social media is essential but many fail to strategically plan and track their social media efforts.

What is Social Media?
Social Media is defined as ‘forms of electronic communication through which users create online communities to share information, ideas, personal messages, videos and other content’. The first known use of the term ‘social media’ was in 2004—ten years later, social media is now the most popular activity on the Internet.

Why is it important?
With social media now being the most popular online activity, it’s obvious why it’s so important—your target audience is constantly using it! Besides that, social media is also a great way to distribute your content, which helps with your SEO efforts. It can also help increase traffic to your website, develop loyal fans and generate leads. Social media helps humanize your brand and opens up conversation between you and your target audience.

Current Social Media Trends
Based on a recent CASE survey, Facebook is the most used social media platform, followed by Twitter, LinkedIn and YouTube. The use of Instagram has increased from 27% in 2013 to 42% in 2014. More and more schools are joining the Instagram bandwagon.

Snapchat advertising is also starting to take off. Advertisers like McDonalds, Taco Bell, and various car brands are using it to connect with Snapchat users in a more unique way. With over 60 million installs, 30 million active monthly users, and the average Snapchat user age being between 16-25, it’s likely that higher education intuitions will soon follow suit.

More than 80% of schools say one of their social media goals is to raise private funds. Institutions using social media as a fundraising tool grew from 41% in 2013 to 47% in 2014. Besides fundraising, schools are using social media for alumni engagement, branding and marketing, student engagement, admissions and more.

However, with all of these upward trends, schools say a lack of social media dedicated staff is the top barrier to success on social media.

In Higher Education?
From the above stats, you can see that a social media strategy can be used in various types of higher education institutional campaigns. At Converge Consulting, we believe a great social media plan is vital for higher education institutions in terms of fundraising, branding, recruiting prospective students and much more.

As the use social media continues to grow and as new social media platforms develop, having a strategic social media plan becomes more and more important. It’s essential to build a social media team, define your audience and goals, monitor and track engagement and come up with unique engagement strategies that will set you apart from the pack.

But we know that’s easier said than done—so join us for our free one-webinar Social Media for Higher Education on Thursday, April 17th, at 2PM EST. During this free one-hour webinar, we will discuss developing a social media plan, implementing various social media strategies, tracking your social media efforts and much more!

Interested in learning more about Social Media for Higher Education?
✓ Check out our April installments of Friday After Class #FAC! We will be focused solely on Social Media for Higher Education.
✓ Register for our upcoming Social Media for Higher Education webinar! This free one-hour webinar will be on Thursday, April 17th, at 2PM EST.
✓ Sign up for our newsletter (at the bottom of every page of our website) to stay up-to-date on all of these things and more!