Graduate School Marketing-Social Media

Good morning and welcome to the weekend!

As you take a look at statistics, prospective graduate students are using social media more and more to find their schools. The current stat is right at 52%. source: NAGAP)

So I know what you are thinking, how do you put your school’s best foot forward and draw graduate students using social media. Here are some practical tips:

- do not respond right away to negative posts (very hard not to, always respond with a cool head)
- do target geographic members within 50 miles of your campus (various sites have tools to do that)
- do join graduate students online communities, have one member of your staff coordinate all social media activities
- set up a twitter page, and tweet regularly (new class announcements, app deadlines, consistent messages across the board)
- do join sites such as college confidential.com as representatives of your university, regularly engage graduate students in online discussion
- hold bi-weekly chats on graduate studies on various online forums
- encourage and offer incentives to current grad students to engage these individuals (ones currently studying marketing!), remember current students are your best salespeople
-promote the message of health insurance (if you have), discounted tuition, and consistent academic excellence across the board
-advertise your graduate programs in other campuses newspapers (especially ones you already are drawing from)

-advertise your MBA program with local businesses, especially ones you know of that offer tuition reimbursement programs

-sponsor local community events that are important to your demographic audience and the community

best,

matt (marketmpb)