Brain Waves Blog

Giving Early Milestones New Meaning

In the world of enrollment marketing, there tends to be one dominant query; how do we get X number of students to enroll at Y campus by Z date? Clearly articulated enrollment goals are essential as individuals transition from vaguely interested to “enrolled.” However, many campuses are so highly focused on yield strategies and fanfare in the final stretch of decision-making that they often overlook the more subtle opportunities around earlier milestones in the enrollment funnel. 

Sonarian capabilities differ based on historical and ongoing social listening. That doesn’t necessarily make one approach better than the other. 

Leading the marketing communications efforts for West Virginia University’s largest academic unit, effective media relations was paramount in every aspect of our content strategy. As a Research 1 university, our faculty were frequently contacted by local, regional, and national media to share their expertise, whether it was on the environment, racial justice, labor movements, or more. 

So you want to increase your social media engagement? I’ve got a hot tip that will outlast any algorithm change, meme trend, or “when to post” advice.

From publicly-available social media posts to blogs to news to forums and more, there is an incredible amount of conversation happening online each day. While there are ways to monitor and measure some of this conversation manually (think, Google Alerts, social media analytics, some social media software), truly strategic social listening not only captures more conversations of interest to you, but does so more consistently over time—ensuring that you’re not only capturing the conversations that matter, but also that you’re able to analyze larger trends in conversation over time.

Over the last few years, social listening software has become increasingly popular for higher ed martech stacks. But something we hear often from our clients is that marketing teams struggle to get the full value from expensive software. Lack of time, training, and ability to pull readily usable data are common struggles.