What if … Taking a cue from college admissions
Posted on : 12-02-2009 | By : Shannon Otto | In : communications, marketing, member relations, membership models, membership recruitment
Tags: ASAE, association management, engagement, MemberClicks, recruiting members, recruitment, social media
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What if associations started looking at what college admissions offices are doing to recruit students these days, using some of these techniques as models for recruiting young members?
Can I please take a moment to explain how psyched I am about Acronym’s “What if” concept they’ve got going on right now? Well, I am. The comments on the original post were great, and I love the compiled list so much I’m using it as inspiration for today’s post.
My youngest sister will be applying to college next year, and even though I applied years ago, I have a sneaking suspicion the process has changed immensely.
True, my own process was centered on the Internet – I never experienced the thrill of running to the mailbox after school, excited to find a fat envelope or dismayed to see a thin one. I found about my acceptance to UGA online, and it included animated fireworks and a big “Congratulations!” banner.
Facebook certainly wasn’t around when I applied to college, but the majority of the process did take place via the Internet. Hard copies of my transcript and recommendation letters were mailed, but everything else was digital.
Now, students are presented with links to universities’ Facebook and Twitter pages before they apply. High schoolers are even “friending” college admissions officers on Facebook! (I’m sure there are tons of ethical implications there, but associations likely wouldn’t have that problem.) Many admissions offices created Facebook pages in recent years because the economy made it difficult for prospective students and their families to visit schools.
According to the First Longitudinal Study of Social Media and College Admissions (conducted by the University of Massachusetts Dartmouth Center for Marketing Research), 41 percent of admissions offices at four-year colleges and universities have blogs, which is ahead of every other industry. Additionally, the study found that colleges and universities are using social media to recruit and research potential students.
College admissions offices deal with young people every day, and as young people are consistently plugged in (one billion text messages are sent per day in the U.S.), admissions officers have had to step up their game when it comes to recruitment.
As 2009 comes to a close, I strongly urge association professionals to take a look at this survey (available here as a PDF). In order to continue recruiting members in the future, associations must be able to relate to younger generations. Many young people think direct mail is a waste of paper and harmful to the environment, and will often respond better to a follow on Twitter. Future members are growing up with these new technologies. Associations would be wise to take a look at their recruiting processes and decide whether young people will respond or not.
(Photo by Glen Cooper/Getty Images)
With all of their digital expertise, I hope colleges start posting more useful web sites. Many are exceedingly difficult to navigate, hide important data (like tuition and fees), and post conflicting information and various pages.
My college and soon-to-be college kids have applied (online) and, despite their comfort with all things electronic, can’t always locate the info allegedly available on college web sites.
I just noticed that your blog comments page uses European dating style but your posts use American.
GREAT post–times have sure changed since the dark ages when I went to college! We didn’t even have phones in our rooms, cell phones didn’t exist, etc.
My fear is associations whose member demographic skews older have their heads in the sand–and the wakeup call will be when their current leadership retires and suddenly they’re faced with an entirely new member culture who have a very different set of expectations. It’s all well and good now for association leaders to sit with their boards and pooh-pooh new technologies–but what happens in 5 years when suddenly they realize they’ve alienated what would have been their new generation of members, who have organized themselves online and don’t need to pay dues to an outmoded association?
David – Thanks for your comment, and for bringing the dates to my attention. You’re right that many college Web sites aren’t very user-friendly, but that’s true for many organizations, including associations. No system is perfect.
Maggie – I completely agree with you, thanks for chiming in! Young people are growing up with these technologies, and they won’t be as inclined to join associations if the organizations don’t understand how to communicate with them.
Hi Shannon-
So glad you posted this, as this was one of the “What If’s” that I posted in the comments on the Acronym post.
I think you hit the nail on the head here, as admissions offices are on the leading edge of utilizing social media to engage with their new potential students. I think there are a number of things that we as association professionals can learn from their efforts at engaging with the younger demographic. What made a student attend one school over another (i.e. what did they value)? Was there a specific outreach that really resonated (i.e. what medium was most effective)? What are the most effective ways that these offices are engaging with their recruits (i.e. are they utilizing any specific campaigns like student get a student or something that really worked)?
As someone who works for an organization with our most active members being undergraduates on college campuses, I can see the shift in how they’re interacting not only with each other, but also with our organization. They are many associations’ up and coming members, so understanding what made them attend a college might be an interesting way to understand what might make them join your association when they leave…
Thanks again for running with that “What If”…
-Bruce Hammond