LinkedIn for Colleges and Universities
On September 12, 2012 LinkedIn will be opening its doors to a whole new market, high school students. This new venture gives all colleges and universities a unique opportunity to target and engage with prospective students in a very different and much more personal way.
Currently, many colleges and universities have not claimed the LinkedIn page for the recruitment purpose. Is your admission staff ready?
If students are searching for your college or university and the page is not set-up, a message appears that your institution “isn’t quite ready” and the student is given a group of other schools to search. Having a well optimized page for your institution is critical. I can help you set-up, optimize your page, and train your staff so when the students start searching you are ready to connect.
Call me today for set-up and training to maximize this opportunity and start connecting with students.
As a social media consultant and college professor, I have worked with colleges and university officials developing strategies to expand their internet presence. Most of the time I hear of two important goals for student recruitment: a strong desire to attract top quality students and recruit students from out-of-state and abroad. Using the new LinkedIn page, your admissions office counselors will have the ability to strategically work towards meeting this goal.
Through your LinkedIn University recruitment page you have the unique opportunity to showcase pictures, provide overviews of your institution and details about your programs and share news on a regular basis. Additionally you will have the ability to search for students to meet your recruitment goals such as demographics, certain extracurricular activities, standardized testing results, GPA, and more.
You will be able to customize the information you share with certain target groups. For instance, do you know how to target a post to students who live out of state or need financial aid? If you have a merit based scholarship program you can target National Honor Society students. Based on students interests you can send them tailored on special programs at your school that may interest them.
LinkedIn has already set-up a page for your school. Go in and claim it today. If you need help setting it up, please reach out so we can get you started immediately.
