Recruiting with Social Media: Using Social Networks to Drive College Admissions

Social media is the most powerful communication and marketing tool since the television. It has completely revolutionized the way organizations and consumers interact. It has also created new expectations in those consumers. While many organizations, brands and businesses have been quick to integrate social media into their marketing strategies, universities—and especially university admission recruiters—have had few resources specific to them, their mission or their unique circumstances. Drawn from the author’s experience as the director of social media for a research university, this book supports college admission recruiting officials as they try to understand how to apply new methods of communication and marketing (specifically, social media platforms) to very old and traditional methods of recruiting. The author first introduces basic and then more advanced concepts of social media marketing, defines and describes the various social media platforms, and then takes readers through step-by-step in setting up and using the most important platforms to social media marketing efforts supporting college recruiting. The author also discusses the importance of social media, and provides information about where to find potential students online, what they are talking about, and how the recruiting counselor can help those students make the best choices when picking a college. Finally, the author walks the readers through the important steps in creating a full strategy to support their recruiting efforts.