“Students are great at blogging, posting on Facebook and Twitter, etc., but less likely to bother with things like measuring, tracking, and monitoring. Those organizations with full-time or dedicated social media employees do those things better,” she said.
The study cautioned against the decline of schools “monitoring online conversations about their school outside of their own portals,” saying that this practice “puts schools at risk of not being able to respond in a timely fashion to negative buzz, or inaccurate information.”
It stated: “Colleges and universities are active participants in social media, but need to listen as well.”
Fuller cautioned that while social media “should be one tool used in connecting with students … it should not be the only tool used in communicating with students.”
May explained the pros and cons of social media-based recruiting: “Social media is transparent and brings a ‘human’ element to an otherwise cold and intimidating process. The millennial generation … dislike being marketed to, and if they feel as though they are getting the ‘inside scoop,’ they are more likely to respond to the messages.”
Social media marketing shouldn’t replace traditional methods of recruitment, he said.
May cited data from his school, Chapman University, which suggest undergraduates still respond well to campus visits and live interactions with their admission counselors, and parents still like printed materials.
“Perhaps social media is not intended to replace college fairs, high school visits, and printed materials. Instead, perhaps it’s supposed to replace eMails and telephone calls,” he said.
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