Here’s a good piece on social media in admissions. While the article focuses largely on how schools use social media to ‘background check’ prospective students (and how applicants should mind their online manners), it also touches on how academic institutions market their programs via social media.
Of course, most business school admissions offices engage in some degree of social media for the purposes of marketing their programs, but only a handful are successful at building durable communities via these channels and then measuring the conversion rate of prospects to applicants.
Increasingly, schools are using their own social media accounts to connect with future applicants in a positive and informative way. A recent piece in Dartmouth’s student paper highlighted how the Ivy League university is just one of many schools using social media to conveniently connect with future, current and prospective students.
For admissions offices, social media allows them to reach applicants in a familiar way, allowing for more opportunities to address questions and concerns that students may bring up on Twitter, Facebook or Tumblr.
