I love regional public universities—I’m the product of one (Go Pointers!) and an incoming alumni board member. During my 20+ years in higher education I’ve worked with many regional publics and understand the outsized role they play in the industry.
Regional Public Universities (RPU) are the backbone of American higher education—70% of undergraduates attend a RPU and 97% of the public universities achieving the new Opportunity Colleges and Universities status in the Carnegie Classifications are RPUs. While playing such an outsized role, they often do so with tighter budgets and fewer staff resources than other institution types—especially in the areas of advancement, marketing and communications, and enrollment.
At Campus Sonar, 18% of the clients we’ve worked with are RPUs and they represent some of our most successful use cases of social intelligence. We’ve noticed some commonalities to help RPUs understand their market position and differentiate their campus.
Four success factors of RPUs
Cross-campus collaborators
Regional public universities tend to collaborate across multiple departments more often than flagship public or private universities. This gives us (and them) a 10,000 foot view of the brand footprint to regularly identify synergies or opportunities for cross-campus collaboration.
We start with a roadmap to build more brand cohesion and proactive communication strategy across all social media properties with a social media audit. At one time this was an administrative aspect of building a query, but now it’s the bedrock of the first year of many strategic partnerships.
Both Georgia Southern University and the University of Arkansas–Fort Smith spent months engaging across campus units based on our audit (which identified hundreds of accounts, many lacking strategy or connection to the university brand). Georgia Southern literally brought everyone in a room together so we could lead them through a strategy workshop.
In our work with RPUs, we’ll often have a conversation with athletics or we'll talk with admissions, enrollment, or advancement if we’re working with the marketing team. These collaborations happen more often at regional public universities than other institution types.
Operate with a “do more with less” mentality
Staff at RPUs often have a “do more with less” mentality, which can lead to burnout—particularly in today’s higher education environment. It’s important to shift to a “work smarter, not harder” mindset and lean into the strength of RPUs. They don’t need to do everything state flagships or well-funded private universities are. Instead, they should double down on the work aligned with strategic goals that will drive success for RPUs.
We see this reflected in the support RPUs need. In addition to the ongoing insight infrastructure and strategic work, we serve as an extension of their team, providing an extra set of hands to help in time-sensitive, or high-pressure situations. Now in our third year of working with Rachel Putman, the Director of Strategic Communications in Advancement at UAFS, we’re a deep bench of both analyst and strategist talent aligned with strategic priorities enabling her to keep a lean team (whereas other parts of the university have added FTE staff to support their analysis needs).
The do more with less mentality also means you’re firefighting and getting through a very long to-do list before you can really focus on the tasks at hand. When we settle into our strategic work with all levels of the team to provide insights and action ideas aligned with their goals, the value of social intelligence work truly shines. Social intelligence insights drove outcomes at the University of Montana, University of Arkansas Fort Smith, and Utah Valley University where its supporting goal and mission-aligned decisions at the president, cabinet, and board level.
Value relationships and community
The regional nature of RPUs makes them highly relationship- and community-driven. Leveraging these strengths allows them to tap into people and networks rather than high-priced ad spend. It also makes them ideal for social intelligence-based audience insights because of the ability to highlight network connections. A great example is our work with Utah Valley University supporting marketing and advancement.
- Supplemented a multi-county brand awareness survey with social intelligence to provide an always-on measure of brand health, which allowed them to grow positive sentiment in their region (and have data to prove it)—doubling positive sentiment after a year. One of the ways they increased positive sentiment was identifying community partnerships that were discussed in their earned conversation and turning them into university-wide storytelling opportunities. For them, it was like taking a magnifying glass to the community and finding things in line with their work that should truly be magnified, and making them bigger for their audience.
- Supported their first-ever campaign by discovering leadership level donors (those who could give $25K+). Social intelligence identified people with networks and affinities aligned with the campaign and the university, and in six months greatly exceeded expectations—a $30M proposal was prepared for a prospective donor identified via social intelligence.
Cultivate long-term staff
Staff at RPUs tend to stick around longer. Perhaps because they're embedded in and devoted to their communities? Staff turnover presents a challenge for partners to keep momentum and progress towards strategic goals. At least in the last five years, we see less of this at regional publics. It’s an exciting opportunity to continue building on the good things they do and have a lasting strategy rather than always orienting new staff.
Keep the momentum going
A key differentiator for regional public universities is their commitment to workplace learning and community connections. Our latest social intelligence research reveals the importance of career readiness and ROI in the college search process. For regional public universities, meeting the education and workforce needs of the region is a core pillar. It’s critical to understand what students want to know so you can tell them the right stories in ways and places that resonate.
RPUs are uniquely positioned to give students and employers what they want, raising their profile as an institution that provides work-based learning and supports economic growth and innovation.
