Digital marketing for colleges is crucial. Almost all of your target audience is on social media regularly, and colleges should be too, to effectively reach prospective students. Colleges need to think like their audience does, and keeping up with the trends and hobbies that are important to your recruiting targets is a great way to do so.

Here are four non-traditional ways to enhance your college’s digital marketing. 

Start Discussions

Social media accounts that interact with their followers are always more fun than those that don’t. It’s also a great way to generate earned media, because other people can follow the conversations and are then exposed to that brand. Conversations between brands and consumers that have a large enough following have been featured on TV news before, which is great publicity for the brand. Being clever with discussions and answering questions are great ways to reach more than just prospective students. 

GIVE Virtual Tours

Prospective students can feel overwhelmed by the thought of a busy college campus - no matter its size. Providing a virtual tour of your campus can ease the nerves of prospective students. Pictures, location descriptions and some fun facts about each building on social media gives students an idea of what to expect for their first days of college.

Gamify Hashtags

Hashtag games are live events that take place on social platforms, mainly Twitter, created by an account. Think of the hashtag as a topic with a call to action and a creative challenge to add your own idea via a reply post or image using the hashtag. For example, using #moveinweekend would allow people to share their crazy stories or photos about the first weekend of moving to college.

Live stream

The most common events to live stream are sporting events. However, not all college students, both prospective and current, are interested in sports. Live stream various events on campus like concerts, homecoming events, speakers or cookouts - social events like these will attract attention from more than simply sports fans. Also, creating a hashtag would take it a step further. People can then follow the event on social media without having to tune into the live stream.