Interesting article published yesterday (9/24/12) at Inside Higher Ed. The article references several studies conducted on how students use social media both in general and, more specifically, how they use it to help make their college decision. One study examined the social media habits of 7,000 students and found that almost 75% check Facebook every day while less than 50% ever use Twitter. The article make the point that too many institutions focus on having multiple social medial accounts rather than developing ways to engage with students through social media. Additionally, not all prospective students are interested in the same social media connections. Some prospective students are interested in connecting with current students while other prospects prefer to connect with an admissions counselor who can answer specific questions about the process.
Did you use social media as a method to help you make your college choice? If so, which social media too(s) did you use and how helpful was it?
Social Media did not help me in deciding which Colleges ( juco and 4 year) to attend but it did help me to learn more about student activities, school history etc. Twitter was the most used by myself.
ReplyDeleteI agree with John. I didn't use a lot of social media to make my college decision. I have never been very active on social media, except for personal usage. I rarely look at companies and their social media presences. If I do take the time to look at company pages, it is usually because of boredom and I look for cool videos. I will look at car companies, clothing companies or sports companies and look for inspiring and adrenaline deriving videos.
ReplyDeleteI think it's important to have a solid social media presence for companies. If their presence is non-existent or poorly presented, it effects the company and will hurt them for those who do choose to find them through social media channels.
I also did not use social media to make my college decision. I did a lot of online research though. I had a 3 ring binder with information from all of the different schools I visited. One question I did ask when I visited schools was, "What is the community like?" (I usually visited in the summer) I think that the MNU Blogs would have been a really cool aspect to utilize in order to make my decision though. I would suggest to my brother (junior in high school) that he look for sites similar to the MNU blogs in order to make his college decision. The only problem I really have is that the social media will probably be incredibly biased.
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