Entries Tagged 'Social Media' ↓

We saw a comment on our Al Jamiat site regarding the Iraq Education Initiative asking if the scholarship had been “canceled” due to the current economic climate…

Our initial instinct was to quickly respond with a resounding NO! That’s completely incorrect! However, in the interest of backing up our response, we sent an email to the Director of the program, to which he responded:

“This is absolutely not true. We are moving forward and the announcement to the students to submit their application is scheduled for July 15.”

So there you go folks, its time to start seriously thinking about how you’re going to recruit these Iraqi students. We suspect the in-country recruitment fairs are going to be few and far between at first.  Online recruiting will be the best way to reach these “unreachables” .

A Facebook Fan page may sound overly simple, but its a great place to start – along with a localized page in Arabic aimed specifically at the Iraqi students. A very minor marketing investment that can reward your campus with incredible new students that will truly diversify the school.

Hope you’re already a fan of our Facebook page, if not – what are you waiting for?!

Twitter today added Verified Accounts to reduce the chances of fake Twitter accounts being mistaken as real ones. The badge

will appear on any account that has already been vetted by Twitter and shown to be owned by the correct person. The badge will appear in the user profile page above the name, location and bio.

Why does this matter to a higher ed institution? Well, as this Chronicle of Higher Education article “When A Twittering College President is Not Who He Seems” (needs a subscription)

“The Twitter account identified as belonging to Georgetown University’s president, John J. DeGioia, features frank admissions about the mundane details of running a modern academic institution. Last week, for instance, the microblogger wrote that his face was tired from all the “fake-smiling” during graduation events. ”

The problem? It wasn’t the president, but an undergraduate student who edits a student-run magazine. The president of the University of Texas at Austin, William C. Powers Jr., had a fake account as well, which Twitter has now removed.

The point is that the students are looking for a personal connection to the Dean of Admissions, to the President, or to the International Student Advisor, and a blog and twitter are an excellent way of informally communicating with the students and potential students looking at your college or university.

Has your school already requested and received your Facebook vanity url? This Saturday morning at 12.01am anyone will be able to choose their own URL for your social profile on Facebook, so instead of the current long URLs we all have,you will be able to choose your school’s name (facebook.com/usegtours) to make all your marketing material look pretty and allowing you to easily direct people to your facebook site.

By Saturday we’ll go from

http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=46885563326

to

http://www.facebook.com/usegtours

There are also a few US Universities and Colleges who have requested their new Facebook vanity URL

http://www.facebook.com/stanford

nice and clean, isn’t it?

Of course, some other social media sites, such as Myspace and Twitter have always used vanity urls but its best to make sure your University’s brand is safe in your marketing hands. Fill out this form with Facebook TODAY to ensure no one squats on your facebook URL until you get to it.

And while you’re at it, you should check and see where else you should be signing up your school’s name.

We’re setting our alarms for 12.01 on Saturday – just to make sure to snag our vanity urls!