Creating Online College Communities Using Social Media
It is safe to assume the average person knows that social media is about building a community. But what does that really mean? Sure you can build one Facebook page for your school and call that your “community,” but there is so much more potential to expand. The answer is not one size fits all and the fact that every school is different must to be taken into consideration when breaking down the different communities within schools and colleges.
Since Effective Student Marketing works with career schools and colleges, I am going to focus on this sector of higher education. Many career schools and colleges have multiple campuses which are spread out geographically. For the purpose of this post, I am going to use an example of a career college that has 10 different campuses spread out along the west coast. This college has campuses in California, Washington, Alaska, and an online campus. The school or college is its own community in itself. However, there are hundreds of other communities embedded within! Other communities include:
- -Day students and night students
- -Different campuses
- -Creating different communities based on important college departments
- -Students and graduates
- -Leadership (student ambassadors, student activities, student government)
- -Social communities
The options are endless. As I stated earlier though, you must keep in mind that one size does not fit all. In order for certain strategies to work, you must get a feel for your Facebook fan base. You need to know how people react. For some colleges, one Facebook page is all that will work, regardless of how many campuses there are.
