Brain Waves Blog

By now you’ve probably heard about TikTok, the short-form video app with more than a billion downloads worldwide and over 500 million active users. Launched in China in 2016, it entered the U.K. and U.S. markets in 2018. Currently it supports 15 languages and users in at least 75 countries. According to Google Trends, interest in TikTok as a search term peaked this summer in both the United States and the U.K., and worldwide in April 2019.

Regardless of having the word social in the name, social listening is not something you do just to get better at social media. Let’s repeat that—social listening is not just about social media! Social listening is an investment in strategic intelligence (across various channels), that gets you closer to what is being said to and about your institution with implications across almost every area of campus. Listening to your online conversation builds trust, which is arguably the most valuable commodity today.

When I founded Campus Sonar, I wrote a blog post about the need for data-informed marketing in higher education. It’s been almost two years now and the industry has made progress, but I feel like we still have a ways to go. Recently, I contributed to a blog series for Adapt about data-driven marketing and current trends—and I realized I had a lot more to say (most of you won’t be surprised about that). So here’s part two of my thoughts on data-driven marketing, marketing trends, and the impact on higher ed.

Social listening is changing the way economists talk about sexism and gender bias in the profession, illustrating how insights from online conversations can have massive offline impacts. Similarly, understanding conversations from audiences that your institution serves (e.g., professionals working in the field you’re preparing students for, alumni, or prospective students) can transform your marketing, program development, recruitment, or fundraising strategy.

In light of shifting demographics in higher education, marketers are increasingly asked to reach and influence new types of prospective students—students difficult to reach using traditional higher education marketing tactics *cough* list buying *cough.*

Y'all, it's been a year.

You could read that sentence in a variety of ways. Literally, it's been one year since we launched Campus Sonar, and 371 days since Emily and Amber joined me on this wild ride.