Tag Archives: millennials

Oct
12
2012

My Abstract: Exploration of New Media in College Recruitment, A look at current usage and future potential

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In today’s society, colleges and universities are utilizing the digital world to send out their message. As many platforms of social media come without financial cost on the institution and have easily quantifiable results in reach, it makes fiscal sense for institutions to take advantage of these platforms. In doing so they not only push out information about themselves to a wider audience, but also to have an increasingly interactive exchange with students researching options for continuing education. This is significant because 68% of college bound students are using social media as a resource for information about higher education institutions (Inigrals & Zinch, 2012).

 In “Social Media in Higher Education: A literature review and research directions”, the authors give a comprehensive review of student and institutional usage of social media technology within higher education. Interestingly, the authors point out that today’s traditional age college bound students, born in the mid nineteen nineties, have never known a world in which they did not have access to high speed internet at home or school (Nyangau& Bado, 2012, 6). It would never occur to these millennials to research their options in any other way than through the internet first. In addition to being internet natives, this age group expects a communicative interaction online, not simply a display of information as has previously been provided on university websites. It becomes important then for those in higher education to understand the attitudes of this group of potential students towards new media platforms and online interaction.These can lead institutions to ask relevant questions about their audience and how to address the needs of that audience online.

 By understanding how this group of students is using new media, institutions can develop the type of online presence that is attractive to this population of prospects and fills their needs. As Alexandra Tilsley reports in her piece for Inside Higher Ed., “the way to get a high return on investment is to focus on engagement”(2012). Her article includes results of a survey titled “2012 Social Admissions Report” which surveyed more than 7000 students. A look at how students are using the social media in their college search, the survey provides concrete evidence that needs vary from one demographic group to another (Inigral & Zinch, 2012). Through application of this audience awareness, these institutions can increase not only their enrollment figures but can even capitalize on the specific demographic groups their institutions have missed reaching in their prior recruitment initiatives.

 One of the largest influences in today’s digital world has been brought on by mobility. Mobility has brought with it the ultimate facilitator of convenient interaction, those that can happen at any moment the student chooses. Smartphones have brought internet usage to a new level, and prospect to institute interaction is no exception. “Mobile 101 for Higher Ed”, another study by Inigral, Inc., looks at the current mobile market and how higher education is adapting (2012). It goes as far as to provide a “cheat sheet” for how institutions can be successful with a mobile plan (Inigral, 2012). Using this type of mobile plan, institutions can be at the fingertips of its desired audience at any time they or the student chooses.

 Unfortunately, simply providing more interaction online and stopping the practice of providing hard copies of materials does not mean that institutions have reached their audience. The article “Social Media and Marketing of Higher Education: A Review of the Literature” reviews sources looking at the usage of social media by higher education institutions for recruitment, and if students are using social media in their college research. Evidence showed that college bound students were still using traditional sources such as university printed material and college visits before they were consulting online interaction(Canche, Davis, Charles, Deil-Amen, Rios-Aguilar, 2012). Additionally, the article cites the need for institutions to have a plan in place for using social media, which they don’t always have (Canche et al., 2012). In an article on return of investment through social media in higher education, 78% of the institutions it surveyed said that social media had changed the way it recruited but 29% had no social media plan (Barnes & Lescault, 2012). The message taken from this is to develop a strategy, not simply a social media presence.

 As previously mentioned, many of these new media platforms can provide actual reporting on an institution’s reach through that specific outlet. For example, when using Facebook pages or Twitter’s Tweet Deck, administrators receive back data on exactly how much exposure was created as a result of a posting. These features take the guess work out of what is and is not working as a result of online presence utilizing those platforms. Using this data, institutions can tailor the version of themselves to present on each platform that will garner them the most beneficial interaction and exposure to prospective students. Without understanding how to utilize the voice that these forms of new media facilitate, institutions run the risk of being silent and invisible to their prospects.

 

Barnes, Nora Ganim. & Lescault, Ava M. (2012) Higher Ed Documents Social Media ROI: New Communications Tools Are a Game Changer. University of Massachusetts Dartmouth Center for Marketing Research. Retrieved from http://www.umassd.edu/cmr/socialmedia/socialmediagamechanger/

 Canche, Manuel Sacramento Gonzalez., Davis III, Charles H.F., Deil-Amen, Regina., Rios-Aguilar, Cecilia.(2012).Social Media in Higher Education: A literature review and research directions. The center for the Study of Higher Education at The University of Arizona and Claremont Graduate University. Retrieved from http://works.bepress.com/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1003&context=hfdavis

 Inigral, Inc. (2012) Mobile 101 for Higher Ed. Inigral Insights. Retrieved from http://www.inigral.com/research/mobile-101-for-higher-ed/

 Inigral, Inc. & Zinch, Inc. (2012). 2012 Social Admissions Report. Slide Share. Retrieved from http://www.slideshare.net/inigral

 Nyangau, Josiah. & Bado, Niamboue. (2012). Social Media and Marketing of Higher Education: A Review of the Literature. Journal of The Research Center for Educational Technology. Volume 8, Number 1. Pages 38-51. Retrieved from http://rcetj.org/index.php/rcetj/article/view/180/264

 Tilsley, Alexandra. (2012). Social Networks and College Choices. Inside Higher Ed. Retrieved from http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2012/09/24/survey-examines-how-prospective-students-use-social-media-research-colleges

Oct
11
2012

a life in photos and logging off

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I’ve been waiting to read more about what our classmate Kevin so eloquently described as “collapse of context” in our social media identities. I think for the majority of us that joined Facebook in the .edu era, this is especially true. There were already two or three years’ worth of college photos of us on our Facebook profiles when we entered the job market and worse, our mothers joined the network. Gilpin hits the nail on the head in the first two pages when she describes us having to construct an identity on these sites that is appropriate for a variety of groups (2012). I’m an integrated (work me, school me, family me, professional me) personification of myself online that has evolved over time into less of a true representation of myself than any real interaction with me in person. However, that is not to say that anything I put up is insincere. Just as those who participated in the Twitter study from this article, the social media content I produce is not “wholly representative” of me (Gilpin, 2012).

Interestingly enough, the photos of me on Facebook could tell a fairly accurate chronological story of the highlights of my life over the last six to seven years. I’ve always been someone that keeps a lot of pictures, but the widespread acquisition of point and shoot photos via the mobile phone have taken it to a new level. As Mendelson and Papcharissi bring up in their article, taking pictures of an event has been integrated in the experience of the actual event (2012). They also state via Barthes and Jacobs (1981) that photos provide proof of an experience (Mendelson and Papcharissi , 2012). I wonder if this will have a long term effect on the way millennials and the generations after recall memories. Will they be able to recall events as clearly as older generations without the cue of photos? The other element mentioned in the article that really struck me was the “moving map” concept. Our lives are somewhat documented through these public and shared photos so for ourselves and for others it become an ever growing representation of chronological events of our lives. Mine only moves forward from age 20 or so. What ramifications, if any, will this have for those that have been logged in since adolescence? Or worse, those whose parents have been posting pictures online of them since birth. Will their bosses eventually have access to middle school dance photographs due to the magic of “tagging”? Talk about collapse of context.

I really think Danah Boyd and I could be friends, at least until we had argument that could only be settled by Wikipedia. In her article Participating in the Always-On Lifestyle, she often dismisses the assumptions of social media skeptics. She argues that those who take advantage of the platform of social media are not are not the exhibitionists that some assume them to be, but are in fact simply “taking advantage of the affordances of these technologies to connect with others in a way that they feel is appropriate” (Boyd, 2012). However, I do think that social media has given an outlet those who were either already predisposed for exhibition or has awaken a latent need in others. I would say that only about 10% of my online network take advantage of the share button more than once a month, but those 10% seem deafening at times. Admittedly, I have complete control over what I’m exposed to online, and I choose not to “un-follow” those who post more than I want to know or are posting opinions I don’t share. That says more about me than anything, and I suspect others currently using their Facebook account to watch more than post are the same. They may be sharing in a way “they feel is appropriate” as Boyd states, but not everyone is going to share that opinion (2012). However, those who disapprove are largely going to be those not in the millennial generation, and older generations thinking everything is going to you-know-where because of the kids is nothing new. Boyd is correct that we all need to find a balance in this new world of 24 hour connectedness, which is why I’m turning my phone off during dinner.