In an earlier post in this series, we went over all you need to know about goal setting and strategy within your Higher Education institution. Now, we’re going to provide a list of platforms to help you reach those goals you’ve hopefully set.
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Your goals will slightly vary compared to other institutions, but every institution is sure to have goals centered on recruitment and retention, and using more content, emotive stories, various forms of mixed Media and Social Media to help you reach your goals. And the following are platforms your institution should be implementing if you aren’t already.
Social Media Platforms
Today’s teens and young adults are online several hours each day. They do their banking, shopping and researching online, but they more so use their connected devices to communicate with their friends. Social media use continues to grow amongst high school and college students. Social media is where students are, and it’s where you need to be.
Facebook is the most used platform in higher education; and for good reason since a 2014 survey revealed approximately 87 percent of high school students use Facebook. It’s by far the most used social media site for American teenagers. Facebook allows you to post photos and videos, as well as links to content you’ve written or that’s relevant to your prospective and current students. But even better, it’s a great tool to keep engaged with your alumni, which Ohio State University discovered after launching their Facebook page and saw that the most interactive and engaged members of their Facebook audience were alumni.
Twitter is another top platform. Prospective students use Twitter as part of their researching methods to decide which higher education school they’ll attend. Help prospective students choose your school by posting links to your content on your Twitter account, interacting with them when they ask your school questions or make a statement about you and tag you in their tweet or use one of your hashtags. Twitter is also a great platform to reach everyone in your school’s diverse audience, bringing together future, current and former students using creative hashtags.
YouTube
Video is one of the most consumed forms of content. Your prospective students can watch hours of videos a day; some may even be up-and-coming YouTube stars. Most likely, as they scroll through their Facebook newsfeed, they’ll pass statuses and other wordy updates, but if they see a video, they’ll stop to watch. You can use YouTube to showcase school events, interview faculty and even to teach classes using webinars.
Hootsuite
If you’re going to effectively engage with your future, current and former students, you need a tool to manage all your social media accounts. Hootsuite is a great platform to keep all your social media efforts organized. With Hootsuite’s Enterprise feature, you’ll have access to unlimited social profiles and enhanced analytics. You can easily and securely send updates via various social media platforms, listen to the online chatter about your institution and collaborate your efforts with multiple team members. Hootsuite even provides a Higher Education Social Media Toolkit to help you get started with your social strategy.
Content Management Platforms
Maintaining your website (looking for how you can get more out of it, having the right content on it and reflecting your school’s best assets in a unique way) isn’t an easy task. It’s demanding, but with a good content management platform, you can alleviate some of that demand and stress.
OmniUpdate Campus
OmniUpdate Campus is used by more than 700 higher education institutions around the world that use this solution to manage their school’s website. This system, specifically designed for higher education institutions, has an array of first-rate features, including an easy content publisher, extension modules and helpful tools and gadgets to make your everyday site tasks easier. With its functionality and extensibility, OmniUpdate Campus can be your perfect solution in the content management sphere.
Hannon Hill
Founded back in 2001, Hannon Hill was one of the originators in the CMS solutions in the education sphere. Like other CMS platforms, you can expect quality features, like content publishing and editing, workflow management, personalized administration dashboards and scheduled publishing. But, one thing setting Hannon Hill apart, and that it prides itself on, is going above and beyond with its customer support. They encourage you to contact them as often as you want with problems and questions you have, and they don’t give you limitations on who you can talk to in terms of platform support.
Web Analytics Platforms
Understanding and being able to view all your web analytics is vital to tracking and measuring the progress of your institution’s digital marketing goals. From admissions information requests to your blog to your engagement goals with your website content, you’ll quickly see what’s working and what’s not with the right analytics tool. There are several platforms at your disposal, so we’ll present the facts and let you choose which one is best for your situation.
Google Analytics
Google Analytics offers a free version, as well as a premium version that costs $150,000 a year. That yearly cost may not be in your budget, and if it isn’t, it’s OK. The free version still provides plenty of data and tracking capabilities. With Google Analytics you get real-time data, tracking APIs, campaign measurement, Adwords integration, multi-channel reporting, mobile tracking, video measurement, custom reporting and more. With the premium version, you of course get more bells and whistles, such as more support services and integration options.
Kissmetrics
Another analytics option is Kissmetrics. This web tool offers people tracking, unlimited reports, user segmentation, a mobile app and a dedicated learning center. With Kissmetrics, which gives you four pricing options, you’re able to properly engage with your audience and accurately analyze which of your goals and actions are working and not working from the beginning across all devices.
In order to efficiently reach your goals, you need to the right tools to help you do so—we know from personal experience. The return on investment is high when you leverage these platforms, so use them and look to see a happy and productive year of attaining all your digital marketing goals.
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