Week 11: Budgets? We Don't Need No Stinking Budgets!

As discussed in my previous post, I will not have an option to use paid advertising given the nature of my employer. I don't see this as a disadvantage, rather an opportunity to be creative in using free resources to get information to our students in an attempt to better serve them. I am fully aware that instead of a monetary payments, the cost will come in the form of time and energy. From the lecture and readings, there seem to be many important factors which can contribute to success in unpaid marketing through social media. A few that I think will be especially needed for me would be to always make a conscious effort to continually market toward building a large and loyal following, creating appealing calls to action, and learning which demographics you want to target and when.

My first step is to utilize both social media and on-ground interactions and activities to increase our web presence and build a social media community. I can come up with the most creative inspiring posts in the world, but they mean nothing if they aren't reaching anybody. Luckily, we can use school resources and some budget to create advertisements directing students to our social media and even explain the benefits of connecting with us. As we are establishing a larger following we can use insights and other analytics tools to better determine when and what types of posts are most effective. I would then take the step to integrate that with calls to action, and as the lecture states, create a circular movement between our different platforms.

A few examples from this week's assignment can be seen on Facebook and Twitter. On one Facebook post, I asked the community if they have already scheduled an appointment to meet with a counselor and posted a link to a recent video made by our department on how to prepare for a counseling appointment. I then posted a call to action when, after reminding new students of the first day for their enrollment, I urged them to visit our website or call our department for an appointment. Similarly, I posted on Twitter a link to our Facebook page, letting students know that they can get more up-to-date information their, and that they should "like" us. I would like to get more creative with these posts, such as using hash tags for specific ongoing campaigns. I saw another school use a specific hashtag for students to post why they love that school. As I learn more about social media, I'm excited to explore the opportunities with these smaller details.

While these are just some basic ideas and concepts to follow, I know that time and energy are going to be the major factors. My goal is to demonstrate the benefit of social media to the point where it is no longer a pilot for our department, but an added responsibility of our job description. While that will naturally create the time necessary to work on this, we need to "find" time to put in until then. Some practices are going to be more time sensitive, such as listening to conversations and engaging appropriately, while some may be more long term goals, such as researching and learning from similar departments and industries. We are already experiencing benefits of social media and some practices have been adopted as part of our job, and while I'm hopeful of this continuing, I know that we have a lot of work still to do.