student experience

University taps students for online brand building success


A North Carolina school is using an online promotional tool to tout its students’ successes to family, news outlets, and potential employers. Brand building is an added benefit.

No one calls. No one writes. Mercifully, only a few still send holiday letters. Instead, digital natives and immigrants alike now head online to share the news of their lives. Fayetteville State University is hoping to capitalize on this reality with an online promotional tool that extolls its students to family, potential employers, and media outlets—and burnishes the university’s brand at the same time.

Part of the North Carolina state college system, NCFSU soft-launched Merit Pages little over a year ago. Developed by a company of the same name based in Albany, NY, the tool creates online student profiles that are optimized for social media and automated distribution. Each student at the school receives his or her own Merit Page, which is populated by the university with information about that student’s achievements.

“It’s a very innovative tool—simple to use—that enables us to recognize and celebrate our students’ accomplishments,” said Dr. Jon Young, provost and senior vice chancellor for academic affairs at NCFSU. “It gives students something to share through their social media and allows us to push these achievements out to the press in a really automated way.”

How It Works

Each Merit Page is divided into two sections. The first is controlled entirely by the university and contains official information such as Dean’s List awards, Chancellor’s List honors, and scholarships. The student controls the other portion and can populate it with whatever he or she wishes. “There is a distinction on the page so a viewer can see what the university has put there and what a student has also added,” said Young, who initially worried—erroneously, it turns out—that students would embellish their records.

(Next page: Brand building success in targeting community, employers)

One of the primary targets for this information is family and friends. A large number of NCFSU’s students come from low-income families and many others are returning adults. “Many of these students may not be accustomed to getting a lot of academic accolades,” said Young. “To be able to celebrate these sorts of things with their families is good for them.”

Students receive a similar boost from seeing their names in local newspapers. Utilizing Merit Pages, the school has the ability to send a press release to the newspaper associated with each student’s zip code. “We have a standard press release that is populated with the names of the students appropriate to that particular newspaper,” said Young. “We include only what we consider to be the most significant achievements, such as graduation. Otherwise, media outlets will begin to ignore us.”

Building student self-esteem is a primary objective, but NCFSU also sees an opportunity to polish its own name by developing broader regional awareness of the school’s impact and offerings. “Every time a student pushes something on social media from Merit Pages, it gets the university’s name out there—it helps build our brand,” said Young. “Merit Pages help us build goodwill, first with our students and then with their family and friends. Over time, I hope it helps build fundraising.”

This brand-building strategy extends beyond students’ family and friends. Guidance counselors at area high schools, for instance, also receive updates about their alumni at NCFSU, which in turn keeps the university’s name in their minds as they advise the next crop of college-bound graduates.

Targeting Potential Employers

Young is also optimistic that Merit Pages will have a positive impact helping students find jobs. For starters, he notes, the achievements listed on the Merit Pages come with the school’s seal of authenticity, unlike the information on a traditional resume. Second, increasing numbers of employers are using the Internet as part of their hiring procedures.

“I see Merit Pages as a social media version of a resume that will get more visibility for a student and is easier for an employer to find,” said Young. “That connectivity to social media makes it more attractive than a regular resume, although I don’t think it necessarily replaces it. I would always advise students to have a link on their resumes to their Merit Pages.”

As part of a revamp of the school’s Career Services Office, NCFSU plans to roll out a more employment-oriented version of Merit Pages soon. The university is working on a grant project that would use the tool to document student work experiences. “We know that employers really like to hire students who’ve had some sort of internship, for example, so we want to make sure we document those in Merit Pages—likewise for study-abroad programs and research projects with faculty,” said Young. “It gives employers a more complete view of the student than a resume.”

Students are free to keep their personal Merit Pages as long as they like after graduation. As far as Young is concerned, this is a good thing. “One of the big challenges universities face is how to keep up with students after they’ve graduated,” he said.” We’ve tried to do it a number of ways, so it will be a real benefit if the majority of graduates keep their Merit Pages up.”

Such an attitude would be less understandable if Merit Pages consumed a lot of staff time and IT resources, but Young says that implementation was fairly straightforward and the pages are all hosted by Merit Pages. The school paid extra for technical support for the first year, but Young feels continuing support is unnecessary once the system is up and running. “As an administrator, how much time your staff will spend on a project is always a concern, but this is really just an Excel spreadsheet,” he said. “We’re taking an existing staff person and building [the management of Merit Pages] into her regular responsibilities.”

While it’s too soon to determine whether NCFSU’s investment will show a return in terms of greater media coverage, higher enrollments, and more successful fund-raising, Young knows that students are taking advantage of the new tool. “The fact that two-thirds of students are already using their Merit Pages to push information via social media suggests they are finding it helpful,” he said.

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