Are students running into you while surfing the Internet?
In the midst of hopping back and forth between Facebook and Twitter, texting and blogging, most students are happy to encounter prospective colleges on the web.
“The latest research shows 51% of colleges and universities have an admissions blog for their school.” Most institutions, in addition, continue to utilize social media sites at levels surpassing Fortune 500 and Inc. 500 companies.
While social media continues to inform potential students about college and admissions information, many applicants don’t take note of the relationship’s two-way nature: “it is clear that online behavior can have important consequences for young people and that social networking sites can, and will, be utilized by others to make decisions about them.”
This perspective emphasizes how important of a tool these websites can be.
Schools, in addition to students, should be held responsible for routinely ‘cleaning’ and updating their social profiles to maintain a fresh, desirable image in the marketplace. Social media’s aforementioned binary essence suggests that colleges should be doing everything in their power to make sure they are not the one’s being cut from the students’ lists.
Continue reading Nora Barnes’ article.