Abstract:

Two years ago, social networking was a brave new world. Full of bewildering, cutting-edge nouns like widgets, wikis, blogs, and web 2.0, the fast-growing beast of online marketing would become a phenomenon (or epidemic, depending on the user’s opinion) on which to base all future marketing efforts. Even though there still lurks around the edges some sluggish enthusiasm about social marketing’s effectiveness, the question in 2010 isn’t “Is social marketing effective?”; it’s “How can we apply social marketing to higher education to maximize its effectiveness?”.

There are millions of uses and ways of injecting a bit of social marketing into a comprehensive campaign, but it’s all too easy to get caught up in the general idea of social marketing and miss its point. By using a methodological approach, you can ensure that you are using this tool to the fullest of its abilities. Establish the market of students for which you want to target, and infiltrate the online community that potential recruits frequent. Use cost effective tools like blogging on common research interests to your online community, and utilize paid, targeted, online marketing. Stretch beyond the limitations of traditional marketing to national and international domains in order to attract a larger and more qualified recruit base. Link your social marketing together so each component is not working against the others but is melded in a synchronistic marriage of powerful marketing strategy.

Social marketing doesn’t have to be a scary or overwhelming option; in fact, the more entwined this concept becomes with everyday life of Generation X, Generation Y, and most likely every other emerging generation, the harder it will be to deny its essential co-habitation among the more traditional advertising vehicles.

Keywords:

Social media, marketing, web 2.0, target marketing, advertising, maximizing.