Don’t waste time chasing a shiny new thing if your customers don’t hang out there, too. Today, 40% of college admissions offices use Twitter…but only 15% of prospective students want to use Twitter to connect with recruiters. That’s a huge mismatch!
Abe Gruber of Bloomfield College in New Jersey
Bloomfield College marketer Abe Gruber conducted the recent survey, as reported in the Chronicle of Higher Education:
He calls this disparity “the Twitter anomaly.” Most high-school students are not active on Twitter, he says, but college admissions officers typically fall into the 30-to-40 age demographic that Twitter attracts.
“They just hear this as a buzz word,” said Mr. Gruber. “They keep hearing more and more and thinking it’s the next big thing, when their prospective students aren’t really as involved as they think they are.”
My brother’s alma mater recently hired him as an admissions recruiter. He explained to me that high school students don’t use Twitter — they see it as something “old people” use (“old” being age 20+, apparently).
Consider 3 Things Before Using Social Media for Your Business
An interviewer recently asked me to summarize my thoughts about Twitter. Off the top of my head, I highlighted three key B2B/B2C points (note: as a marketing decision-making framework, substitute any social networking site for “Twitter”):
- If your customers or prospects are on [Twitter], you need to be talking and listening on [Twitter]. Otherwise, you can’t address criticism and respond to opportunities. As Phil Buckley says, don’t let others define you online. But if you’re a ball bearing manufacturer, maybe you don’t need to be on [Twitter].
- Make [Twitter] part of your overall marketing strategy, not a one-off. Social media isn’t a cure-all panacea. A friend recently launched a Facebook page for her small business. As I gave her after-the-fact advice, I realized that without a larger marketing strategy, saying “I have a Facebook page!” is like saying “I have a brochure!” or “I have business cards!”
- Understand the time commitment of using [Twitter] actively. Social media marketing is about time, not money. Social analytics provider Argyle Social has a terrific report showing how companies they surveyed tend to spend limited money on social media…but often devote a lot of valuable staff time.
Clearly, social media marketing isn’t a one-size-fits-all. What would you add to that list?
Photo credit: Abe Gruber via Twitter
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Well said Karl. I post blogs and articles all day and ask our customers to comment on them… they comment on our Facebook page but never leave a comment at the blog. I may get 15 comments on a blog, but none of them are where I want them, so I have to devote more time to keeping up with Facebook as a 2 way communication platform.
Thanks, Phil! There also may be a psychological hurdle to submitting comments. I’ll write articles that don’t get any comments online, but then people will come up to me in real life and say, “I liked your blog post about such-and-such.”
Blogger and entrepreneur Ben Casnocha reports that when he added a Facebook “Like” button, overall engagement went up (more people commented or clicked “Like”) BUT that the quality of engagement went down — he received fewer substantive comments.
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