TAG - social media

Social media is central to the way in which young people engage with the world around us. It is essential for your institution to establish, of course, brand awareness and brand loyalty, but one that is of significant importance, is the connection with students. With so many people already active on social media platforms, you need to meet your prospective students, current students, and alumni where they are. An effective social media marketing strategy can be a great recruitment tool, a convenient way to quickly share announcements, an effective way to build a community, and so much more. The possibilities are endless!

While many business schools and universities are excelling with their institutional social media accounts, often the Dean or President focuses on this success, meaning their own individual social media can sometimes be forgotten. Yet, a Dean or a President utilising their social media can be incredibly important for visibility and connection to a wider community.

How we cater to our insatiable appetite for instant information is constantly in flux, and technology is forever transforming how we consume news. The Reuters Institute Digital News Report, based on a YouGov poll of 93,000 people, provides a spread of insights into the habits, preferences, and behaviours of news consumers across different platforms and countries. As any good public relations professional will know, understanding a journalist’s or publication’s audience and medium is vital for cooking up that perfect pitch and getting your school into the news…

As an academic at a university or business school, you may spend countless hours researching, analysing data, and writing papers. Is this effort only worthwhile if your work is promoted and distributed to the audience to who it is aimed at? I imagine you’d answer yes to this. Well, social media is an amazing way for academics to publicise their research, the media coverage it gets, and engage with people beyond their institutions and peers.

Did you know YouTube is the second largest search engine next to Google? People upload more than 100 hours of video per minute to YouTube! It’s one of the best ways to communicate to a wide audience, whether you’re promoting programmes or providing information to current students. It is an amazing tool for both your school and your students.

Hashtags are a feature of social media that can be difficult to understand, use, and keep up with. But, once you get the hang of them, the results are clear to see.

To the Gen Z community, the world of social media and online engagement is part of everyday life and has been for their entire teenage and adult years. It is something that, to a large extent, is their primary form of communicating with each other.

Social media has now become one of the main platforms for people to not only interact with each other, but with brands as well – this includes universities and business schools! However, this comes with increasing pressure for brands to compete with one another. Here are a few ways marketers can successfully use social media, with insights from Meltwater’s State of Social Media 2023 EMEA report. This report shares findings from 750 marketing and communications professionals located in the EMEA region.

The concept of ‘word of mouth’ reviews has changed dramatically now that the internet and social media is an integral part of our lives. Years ago, disgruntled students and applicants would express their dissatisfaction by telling their friends and family. Now, they tell the world via a frustrated tweet, withering LinkedIn comment or damning Google review. The speed at which these comments can be shared means that your institution can suffer reputational damage, even though we know these complaints are usually rare, which is why it is important to manage them with care. So, what can you do? Well, firstly, social media makes it harder to distinguish genuine reviews as some networks like Twitter make it easy for people to set up fake profiles, and the anonymity that people can achieve on the internet makes some more comfortable with losing their sense of decency, respect, and good manners. So what's the best way for universities and business schools to overcome these hurdles when dealing with negative reviews and comments?

LinkedIn is the place where business gets done online. For your business school, your LinkedIn Page could really be the hub of your institution’s online presence. Of any social media platform, it has the most relevant demographics in terms of users and, being focussed on the world of work and careers, it’s therefore a great platform for schools to engage with target audiences. It’s where you can amplify your brand and culture, carve out thought leadership, stay in touch with alumni, and make meaningful connections with target audiences such as potential students and corporate partners.

Has your institution tried using Instagram Reels?

Is it time for your institution to get on the TikTok bandwagon? TikTok witnessed incredible growth in during the pandemic, as people sign up to the app to join in with challenges, learn dance routines and be entertained in what was a challenging time for us all. So, should your institution get in on the trend and start using TikTok? Here's what you need to know about one of the most popular platforms today.

Social media is an effective tool. Not only can you engage instantly and directly with a large amount of your customer base, but you can also shape the narrative and key messaging around your brand and have control over what is posted.

LinkedIn boasts an impressive 830 million members in more than 200 countries worldwide. So surely it presents an opportunity for the savvy PR? However, like most social networking sites it’s overcrowded and noisy, making it difficult for anyone to make a real impact.

When launched in 2001, Thinkers50 was the first-ever global ranking of management thinkers. Since then, it has published a new list every two years, and remains the premier ranking of its kind.

The use of social media has grown rapidly over the last decade, and even more so in the last year alone. In a time where we were unable to interact face-to-face, technology and social media platforms have been key, not only for keeping in touch with family and friends, but also to help keep businesses afloat.

With season two of the BlueSky Education Thinking Podcast firmly underway, and Sarah Seedsman from Media Minds Global back as a returning guest, here's a recap from season one's episode on business school social media:

As the head of a business school or other higher education institution, a Dean is in a position of leadership with their profile inextricably linked to that of the institution – think of the Dean as the face of the school’s brand, possibly even their secret weapon.

Within the last 15 years, social media has completely infiltrated our lives – both personally and professionally. From a business perspective, it could be argued that Twitter is the most effective platform to engage with.

So, you secured a fantastic media opportunity for your institution and it has just resulted in a great piece of coverage, whether that’s print, online, or broadcast. How do you ensure that this coverage is generating the readership and getting the attention it deserves? Well, this is where social media comes in.

This post was originally published 23/01/2014 but after revamping the images we share via social media alongside our content this week, it occurred to me that it's perhaps even more relevant today.

You might not answer work calls or respond to emails after 5pm, but you are probably unable to escape the presence of social media. Even after clocking off from work, most of us will spend some time in the evening scrolling through the multitude of platforms available. And that’s not the only time we’ll find ourselves scrolling throughout the day.