Social Media in the Marketing Mix

Social Media in the Marketing Communications Mix ACT Michigan 2010 Annual Conference East Lansing, MI 2 February 2010

Who is Bob Johnson, Ph.D.?
Higher education marketing… since 1980s
Bob Johnson Consulting, LLC… since 2004
Partner w/Gerry McGovern at Customer Carewords, Ltd (Ireland)… since 2005
“ Your Higher Education Marketing Newsletter” (email)… since 1995
“ Bob Johnson’s Blog on Higher Education Marketing”
Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook user

What does this mean?
25% of 2009 freshmen report using Facebook to help make their college choice

YouTube, Flickr, Twitter for Ford… http://fiestamovement.com/

New prominence in higher ed… http://www.connectionsforlife.ubc.ca/community-tools.html http://home.bates.edu/views/social/

► Critical point to remember…
The website is your most important online marketing tool…
Fixing broken links and dated content is more important than social media

Social Media “Groundswell”…
“ A social trend in which people use technology to get the things they need from each other , ◄ rather than from traditional institutions like corporations.”
Groundswell, Harvard Business Press, 2008
What’s in the Groundswell now…
Facebook and MySpace
Wikipedia
YouTube
Rate My Professor
Twitter and LinkedIn

Social Media site traffic… Jan 16, 2010 http://www.hitwise.com/resources/data-center.php
1. Facebook 47.68%
2. MySpace 17.62%
3. YouTube 14.55%
4. Tagged 1.34%
5. Twitter 1.14%
6. Yahoo! Answers 0.96%
7. Yahoo! Profiles 0.86%
8. myYearbook 0.63%
9. Meebo 0.60%
10. Windows Live Home 0.54%

► Most people are “spectators”… http://www.forrester.com/Groundswell/profile_tool.html
Re active participation… control expectations
How people 18 to 55+ use social media
Creators…. 24%
Critics……… 37%
Collectors… 21%
Joiners…… 51%
Spectators… 73% ◄
Inactives…… 18%
Groups overlap… thus the high total percent

Is “Social Media” a marketing tool?
Yes, but…
Not a direct sales/recruitment tool
Social media allow potential students to listen to people talk about their experience with you
Social media allows people to ask questions about the value of your education and to get “experience answers” from your students and alumni
You can’t control social media discussions
You can monitor and influence them

Three levels of marketing… Alex Brown at http://www.zehno.com/news-resources/?p=2532 Free Marketing Social media discussions, word-of-mouth, etc. Engagement Marketing Web 2.0, Facebook fan page, Twitter, YouTube, etc. Traditional Marketing Website 1.0, Advertising, PR, Special Events

Two examples from Michigan…
Michigan State University
Calvin College

Facebook… MSU Spartans w/38,894 fans…… Calvin w/4,604 fans

Facebook specialist pages… MSU College of Music w/687 fans….. Calvin Careers w/275 fans

YouTube results… MSU w/38,700............ Calvin w/1,610

Twitter… Michigan State w/3,187 followers….. Calvin w/2,017 followers

Facebook…
If you build it…
How many people will notice?

► Increase Facebook audiences…
Prominent link to Facebook from the entry page to your website section… don’t make them hunt
Include your Facebook link at end of individual email you send from your division
Add a FB icon to email newsletters
Get current students to talk about their experiences, w/ links to videos, photos
Select as you would student bloggers
Viral marketing ◄
Goal: Fans of your fans will see the link on their FB pages and join as a result

Encourage Facebook fans…
Give your fans permission to…
Post videos
Post photographs
Link from their updates
If fans say something critical of you…
Remember, this is “reality” marketing
In most cases, don’t remove the comment
Don’t answer right away… watch how other community members react ◄
The best response comes from your supporters

Case Review: University of Phoenix Facebook… 27,040 fans Twitter… 2,085 followers LinkedIn… 3,459 alumni in 7 groups

From an obscure home page link… http://www.phoenix.edu/students/online_communities.html

Start people at the “Wall”… 8,678 fans on 21 May 2009… 27,040+ in January 2010

► No fear of “Discussions”… Where is my Pell Grant money ?

Getting personal on Twitter… @danportnoy has 1,375 followers

Building Brand on MySpace… http://www.myspace.com/universityofphoenix

Building Brand on YouTube… http://www.youtube.com/universityofphoenix

Building brand on LinkedIn… 1,926 alumni in May 2009… 3,459 in January 2010

The summary… 6 points
People turn to social media for “real” information based on actual experience…
Promote your social media sites every day…
Social media won’t go away, individual sites may change in importance…
You can’t control social media content…
Social media will become more integrated…
Experiment, then change

Keeping up to date…

Groundswell blog… http://blogs.forrester.com/groundswell/

Especially for Facebook… http://www.insidefacebook.com/

Mashable http://mashable.com/

Pew Internet research reports… http://www.pewinternet.org/Presentations/2009/41--The-Democratization-of-Online-Social-Networks.aspx

ROI is an emerging skill… http://smroi.net/

Shameless self-promotion… http://twitter.com/HighEdMarketing... http://www.bobjohnsonblog.com/

Thank You! Bob Johnson, Ph.D. President Bob Johnson Consulting, LLC Marshall, MI 49068 248.766.6425 [email_address] Customer Carewords Research for Online Marketing Success: http://www.bobjohnsonconsulting.com/customercarewords.html

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Social Media in the Marketing Mix

by Bob Johnson on Feb 02, 2010

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Social Media in the Marketing Mix — Presentation Transcript