The Best and Most Innovative Ways to Onboard Students Using Social Media. Holly Rich Higher Education Client Net Natives

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1 The Best and Most Innovative Ways to Onboard Students Using Social Media Holly Rich Higher Education Client Net Natives

2 Contents Why is it important? The Loyalty Loop Content Types Social Media Listening and the most engaging content types Instagram Snapchat Student Vlogs Competitions Top Lists Using existing data Content Plans Key Takeaways

3 Why is it important? By onboarding, we mean enrolling students, whether that s university Postgraduates, or college Adult Learners, at the start of the student cycle. At this stage, you ve clearly promoted your institution s core selling points, so it s now time to promote extra supplementary content to ensure that students who have applied actually turn up to your institution and remain enrolled. It is crucial to onboard students to hit targets, but also to ensure they continue to be ambassadors for your institution. Read on for Net Natives top tips on how to achieve this

4 The Loyalty Loop You should create loyalty and advocacy with your students so that they become ambassadors of your institution; this process begins at the point of onboarding. Likewise, it is important that you capture onboarding data to build lookalike audiences later down the line. This in turn, ensures the loyalty loop is never ending. Consider Evaluate Bond Loyalty Loop Advocate Enjoy Buy Harvard Business Review Dec 2010 David Edelman- McKinsey + Co. McKinsey & Co s Loyalty Loop creating strategies to engage and encourage advocacy

5 Content Types The following slide outlines some example content types. You should employ both rational and emotional content throughout the year. Rational content appeals to the prospect s logic whilst emotional does the opposite, appealing to their ambition, happiness and so on. Different content types work at different times in the cycle, so make sure you re using the right kind with a purpose, not just pushing out content for contents sake. During onboarding, checklists, features and guides work particularly well.

6 What Content

7 Social Media Listening First things first, you should carry out research into the students that you re onboarding. Who are you onboarding? International or domestic students? Adult learners or undergraduate? What are these student s challenges and interests? Different audiences require different content so it s worth investing some time into distinguishing what these students concerns and interests are and ensuring that you re addressing them in your content. Net Natives use multiple world leading social media tools to analyse the most engaged with types of content across platforms. The following slides outline examples of the most engaging content types from August 2014 to October 2014.

8 Top Engaging Posts in 2014 Top Tip: Take advantage of Instagram s new targeting capabilities to boost engagement with students.

9 Top Engaging Posts in 2014 Top Tip: Use hashtags to create a buzz around your institution and get students excited to enrol. This in turn will help boost followers, especially if you promote across platforms.

10 Length of Post vs. Engagement Top Tip: Keep Facebook posts short and sweet. This graph highlights the shorter the post the higher the engagement. Links and photos work particularly well Post Engagement Links Photos Status Video Post Length (characters)

11 Instagram During Clearing 2015, Twitter and Instagram saw the highest levels of engagement over any other digital platform, including Google Search. The platform has now opened its advertising API and Net Natives were the first education agency in the UK to run a sponsored Instagram campaign for Lewisham Southwark College (image below). Here are some reasons why Instagram is the best platform to use during onboarding: 73% of all Instagram users are between the ages of 15 and 35 so it s the perfect platform to target generation Z Great for generating brand awareness Provides the opportunity to be innovative and quirky abstract images generate more engagement Targeting works in the same way as Facebook meaning you can use existing data to target students

12 Snapchat Snapchat is a platform in its targeting infancy and if used organically, should be used to run student brand campaigns. It s a tricky platform to master, that s why Net Natives recommend promoting your Snapchat username across all social media channels during onboarding to increase your followers. During onboarding, think about innovative ways to use the platform, like creating a series of snappy videos relating to student life hacks. Having said that, advertising capabilities are being developed slowly but surely, so watch this space

13 Content: Blogs vs Vlogs The rise of the vlogger has boomed over the past few years, and video consumption is equally on the rise. By 2018, it will make up 70% of all website traffic. A vlogger is someone who offers advice/top tips/stories via a personal video. You should find or even employ student vloggers during onboarding and encourage them to talk about what it was like to study at your institution. You could use them as part of a Q&A too, asking prospects to pose questions about getting the student vlogger to answer them in video form. This not only provides you with an invaluable student testimonial, but will seem so much more authentic coming directly from the student s mouth. Often, if your social media channels are saturated with corporate messaging, students will be deterred. The video stats speak for themselves, so take advantage and promote student vlogs across all of your social media channels during onboarding.

14 Content: Competitions Competitions are a great way to get prospects excited about the start of term. Net Natives used our free software, Big Top, to create these competition landing pages. Big Top enables you to build mobile optimised landing pages, capture data from the point of enquiry, and track ROI. They key when running competitions is to use data of applicants and target them using custom audiences to encourage them to enter the competition and enroll. Net Natives can take this data (that s addresses), match it to Facebook and promote relevant Enrol with us messages to ensure you are only reaching the most committed of prospects. If you do run a competition, think about the hook or the prize as it will differ dependant on who you are targeting. International students for example love branded memorobilia, whilst domestic students are more likely to be engaged by some form of activity (like Thorpe Park tickets). Not only will competitions encourage prospects to enrol, but they will also help build relationships and advocacy with your new students from the very start.

15 Content: Top Lists In the months leading up to onboarding you should create content which draws on the extra curricular activities and events that are going on around your institution. Obviously students are interested in course content and employment opportunities, but at this stage, they ve already chosen your institution and it s important you create a buzz and sense of community around the location and institution itself; top lists are perfect for this. Think outside the box; what s going on in terms of culture, nightlife, food or societies? Bring all of this together in the form of short and snappy top lists promoted across your social media channels. For example, Top 5 places to eat Mexican. A simple and great way to build a sense of community and get students excited.

16 Use Existing Data To create the loyalty loop, you should collect first party data during onboarding and create lookalike audiences of these students to target later in the cycle. The logic is that the digital footprint of students you are going to onboard will be similar to those new audiences you are looking to attract. This in turn will improve your targeting later in the year, ensuring you are reaching only the highest quality of student. The following slides outline how Net Native s new audience segmentation and advertising engine (working title ) works. Something we ve been working on for the past 18 months, its an extremely intelligent way to improve your targeting by capturing invaluable data. We ll let the next two slides speak for themselves

17 Sneak Preview Net Natives BRAND NEW Audience Segmentation, Data Management & Advertising Platform (working title) The platform is like an intelligent machine that sits invisibly in your website powering the next generation of targeted online advertising. It looks at every single person that visits your website. It intelligently groups these visitors into audiences or personas based on over 100 different factors including digital behaviours, age, location, gender and more. It takes these audiences and creates look-a-like audiences (people who may have never been to your site and aren t necessarily aware of your brand) and based on their similarity to your existing audiences they (as well as your current audiences) will be targeted with your advertising. It targets members of these audiences on an individual 1-to-1 level and actively chooses how to communicate most effectively with them.

18 It identifies where that person is in the student journey, dependant on what interaction they have had with your brand e.g. have they enquired or applied? - the message they see will be the most appropriate according to their stage in the journey as well as for their profile. The chosen message can be shown across almost any digital channel - paid social, paid search and programmatic media. It will select the most appropriate device or devices and will adapt the message to best suit. It measures all this activity against goals and conversions that we will set with you and will show you the effect any given advert or message has had on the outcome (including ones the audience didn t click). All the campaign and audience information that the tool tracks, analyses and compiles is available to you in real-time via a super-accessible online platform. This is the future of digital advertising. All you have to do is embed one line of code on your website (we ll show you how) and tell us what you want to achieve - we ll handle the rest.

19 Create a content plan Though onboarding content is key, it s equally important to have a plan for the content you are promoting throughout the entire recruitment year. Create an annual content plan to ensure every bit of content has a purpose, and doesn t just saturate your social media profiles. The purpose of an annual content plan is to help outline the most engaging types of content at the right times to support all over digital activity in the most strategic way possible

20 Key Takeaways Use social media listening tools to highlight your student s concerns and address these in your content accordingly Be creative and quirky on Instagram to boost engagement Use video and student vlogs to answers prospect s questions and remain authentic Run competitions as an incentive and to help get students excited for the start of term Promote short and snappy top lists to share information on the social side of your institution Collect data during this stage to build advocacy and use in your targeting later on in the year

21 Contact Holly Rich holly.rich.com