Brain Waves Blog

Harvard and Yale. Ohio State and Michigan. UNC and Duke. Competition within higher ed exists on several different playing fields. Some campuses compete for a coveted top spot in academic rankings. Others exist in close geographical proximity, competing with each other for local and regional students. Others compete primarily on the turf or hardwood, but substantially differ academically. 

Why followers and engagement rate don't matter and how marketers should measure social media to better reflect campus priorities.

“Getting more followers” or “going viral” isn’t why campuses invest in social media. They invest because it’s a primary communication channel used to increase brand awareness and equity, build alumni affinity, recruit students by increasing applications or yield, or any other number of objectives found in a campus strategic plan. The metrics we use to measure it should assess those goals. Yet many social media managers and their CMOs are tied to vanity metrics like followers or engagement rate without a clear path to change. That’s one reason “Goals and Purpose” is the first chapter of my new book, Fundamentals of Social Media Strategy: A Guide for College Campuses. When campus social media efforts align with campus priorities, the way we measure social media changes.

What comes to your mind when you hear the words measurement or metrics? I've actually asked a lot of people that question and go into some of their answers in our new book. As a community, we need to get serious about measurement. If campus leaders aren't requesting metrics that accurately assess the results of your work, it's up to you to help them understand what metrics actually matter. They likely aren't easy metrics to measure—but they should help us make important decisions. 

We’re sharing a sneak peek into the types of insights our client partners get by digging into some aspects from our report, Social Listening Benchmarks for Higher Education: January 2021. If you caught our last blog post, we explored social media as a conversation source and how you can analyze your campus’s online conversation against a comparable sample. Now we’re looking into news as a content source and how sites labeled or promoted as news sources can inform your content strategy. The posts should give you an idea of the depth of analysis and insight you can get as a partner.

We’re sharing a sneak peek into the types of insights our client partners get by digging into some aspects from our report, Social Listening Benchmarks for Higher Education: January 2021. It’s intended to support you in analyzing your campus’s online conversation behavior against a comparable sample. The report covers online conversation trends in higher education and institutional benchmarks by enrollment size and type. But we also looked at where these conversations were happening—what were the sources of the conversations? It’s important to understand where your annual conversation occurs. It informs where to invest your time and effort, and guides your overall content strategy. 

Why do campuses and their partners put so much effort into “brand”? Because good brand building leads to enhanced perception. It's good to start with perception because it's a metric that's measurable and can be applied to multiple target audiences. Perhaps more importantly, increased perception leads to increases in revenue generating metrics—enrollment, fundraising, auxiliary income, etc.