Social Media Marketing for Universities: Top 10 Strategies in 2024

Published April 4 2024 Written by Payal Gusain

Higher education social media marketing is a simple yet effective way of attracting and engaging prospective students (and their parents). It can work as a communication and recruitment tool, highlighting university culture and campus life to foster a sense of community and improve enrollment.

Sounds simple, right?

But working with the same set of algorithms as every other institute, the toughest challenge is reaching students and parents authentically and meaningfully. As the rules of engagement change, how can universities successfully engage students (prospective and existing) on social media and boost enrollment?

Publishing relevant, valuable, and student-centric content is the only way to successfully engage students, parents, and other university stakeholders. Here are the most effective social media strategies for universities and colleges.

Social media marketing for universities has become diverse, ranging from showcasing alumni success stories and campus tours to faculty interviews and extracurriculars.

Let’s explore the strategies and how to implement them with examples.

1. Create audience-specific content for students, parents, and alumni

As a higher education marketer, you’re not only targeting potential students with social media strategies. You’re also reaching out to parents, alumni, staff, and other collaborators, which can be challenging.

For example, while Instagram and TikTok are more popular among prospective students, they’re not the best social networks to reach parents or faculty members, who are more active on LinkedIn and Facebook.

So, identify your target audience for each channel, whether it’s students, alumni, or someone else. Focus on only one audience at a time. Then, create and publish content specific to their pain points on the platform they frequent.

Here are some platform-specific content ideas to try.

Instagram: Share photos highlighting university culture and diversity. You can post pictures of your scenic campus, school events, and other extracurriculars.
X (formerly Twitter): Invite alumni or enrolled students to do #AMA (ask me anything) for interested students
YouTube: Organize virtual tours for students and their parents, share student testimonials for social proof, or give a glimpse of how classes are taught.
LinkedIn: Promote the achievements of students, alumni, and faculty members.
TikTok: Create short, informative videos about high-value topics like the admission process, financial aid, university culture, and more.

2. Showcase the university’s social media feeds to engage website visitors

When you're building a plan to address social media marketing for universities or colleges, you have to think of all stakeholder involves in the process and how they behave. Prospective students and university partners (faculty, staff) begin their college research, your website is the first thing they check. This is especially true for international students. But students are not just looking for program-related information.

They’re also keen on knowing what goes on behind the carefully sponsored content: Campus life, university culture, sporting events, clubs, campus traditions, and other extracurriculars students can look forward to.

To engage the curious 18-year-olds, you can embed live social media feeds on your website. Display your institute’s latest posts, offer a glimpse of university life, and improve your university’s brand perception.

At the same time, you can also direct website traffic to your social media channels, where students can explore student-generated posts and engage authentically to build a sense of belonging.

Example

Harvard Kennedy School uses a four-grid layout to highlight its Instagram feed on its website.

Students visiting their website can interact with the content as they scroll the page, improving engagement.

This is made possible with Flockler, a social media integration tool that allows you to curate and display social media walls across digital screens.

3. Captivate students with short-form video storytelling

While most social media platforms are somewhat visual-oriented—the most popular among college-bound students (based on usage)—are specifically video-driven: YouTube, TikTok, Snapchat, and Instagram.

Students may not always read a detailed email, but they’re likely to watch a 60-second short. This is why video content, specifically short-form video formats, should be a part of your higher education marketing strategy.

Since they’re snackable, they also appeal to shorter attention spans and social media algorithms.

Videos featuring students, testimonials from enrolled students and alumni, behind-the-scenes of classrooms or simply a teaser-like film of university life is enough to captivate the audience and build emotional appeal.

Below are some video ideas for universities and colleges

You can go for a mix of authentic, raw, emotional, promotional, and informative video content.

Explainers on the application process, financial aid,
Acceptance videos recorded by students
Testimonials and success stories from alumni
A day in the life of a [program name] student
Live virtual campus tours
A glimpse into university culture: events, sports, traditions

Example: Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) has a ‘The World at MIT’ video series on YouTube where they do 3-5 minute interviews with the professors to highlight the expertise and diversity of their teaching faculty.

This tried-and-true video storytelling method for institutes to build curiosity and connect with students.

4. Boost student participation through hashtag contests

At a young age, students naturally have a competitive spirit. So, why not run hashtag contests on social media and drive student engagement?

This is a simple way of boosting engagement and gathering a variety of student-generated content. As Harry Asche, Marketing Manager of howtostream.co.nz, explains:

“This user-generated content (UGC) on social media can help you showcase the university's accomplishments, community, and culture. It will make the brand more relatable to prospective students and strike a chord with them.”

Not to mention, you can reshare the UGC by students on other social networks and promotional channels.

Below are a few hashtag contest ideas to try.

#Bestcampusmoment
#[University name]shots
#Best[University name]spot
#[University name]departmentwars

Example: The University of California, Irvine, ran a #UCIResearch contest on LinkedIn, allowing students to share their research projects.

As evident above, the contest was a huge success—earning traction and attracting interest from students, alumni, and fellow researchers.

5. Inspire prospective students with impactful alumni narratives

When prospective students research and choose a college, they’re most apprehensive about their future.

Am I choosing the right school? Will I be able to achieve my dream career?

Showcasing alumni success stories is like showing worrisome students a glimpse of the future. Hearing alums talk about their college journeys and spotlighting their career highs can inspire and assure them, aiding your enrollment marketing efforts.

Spotlight alumni achievements

Something as simple as a video testimonial or a blog post documenting their time at the university works well. Highlight their achievements, time spent in college or programs they studied to build a sense of connection.

But if you want to play the long game, you can mimic what the Alumni Association of the University of Michigan is doing and build a community space specifically for alums.

They have a dedicated account on X (formerly Twitter) @michiganalumni, where they regularly post alumni achievements to foster a community of “Wolverines.”

Best of all, the feeling goes both ways, as the graduated students feel better connected to their alma mater. Ultimately, your school benefits from increased enrollments and alumni donations if not presenting

6. Invest in social media SEO to boost visibility

Most college-bound students, instead of typing keywords in a search engine, use hashtags on social media to research colleges.

They’re often looking for authentic stories and experiences of enrolled students around the academic programs, campus culture, extracurriculars, and more. With social media, they want to see unfiltered, non-sponsored content about the university. If you want to reach and impress prospective students and parents through social media and search engines, investing in social media SEO should be a no-brainer.

But what even is social media SEO? It’s the practice of optimizing social media profiles with relevant keywords, hashtags, and engaging content to boost visibility and discoverability across social and search engines.

Tips to improve social media SEO

Some quick tips to optimize your school’s social media pages.

Add keywords to your school’s social profiles. Mention keywords and hashtags related to your university, programs, and others in the bio, handle, stories, captions, and more.
Post consistently and engage to boost visibility. Have a manager schedule content and respond to questions, reviews, and concerns left by students to strengthen your online presence and reputation.
Use high-resolution images and videos with descriptive captions and proper alt texts. This is especially helpful in boosting searchability across search engines.
Reshare user-generated content from students, alumni, and faculty. It will save you time and resources on content creation whilst widening your reach.
Curate and add top social media content to the website. It can effectively improve dwell time and redirect traffic to your social pages. This is easily doable with Flockler, which lets you curate, design, and embed social media feeds on the website in less than a minute.

7. Organize student-led social media takeovers for authentic engagement

Student-generated content is widely effective in social media marketing for universities. As Tristan Harris, Sr. Marketing Manager at Thrive Agency, explains about student-led narratives:

“As far as social media marketing for universities goes, there’s a unique advantage you can use. Higher education institutes already have a built-in audience, i.e., their students. By tapping into this demographic, universities can create content that resonates with them and encourages them to engage and share.”

This is precisely what social media takeovers offer.

When students take charge (partially, since you guide them), they can capture day-to-day student life and share unique experiences. This provides a refreshing break from the university's usual posts, improving student engagement.

You can present authentic, student-led narratives centered around the academic programs, departments, dorm life, club activities, and extracurriculars.

Example: The University of Colorado Denver hosts #TakeoverTuesday, where a chosen student takes over the university's social media accounts for the day and shares their day’s activities, such as classes or fun events they’re attending.

UC Denver also has a page dedicated to student takeover guidelines, which lists some do’s and don’ts for a safe takeover.

This works well in encouraging student participation while ensuring the content stays on-brand. It gives you authentic student voices to amplify and build a solid presence.

8. Run social media ads to achieve enrollment goals

Social media Ads, although costly, are a quick and powerful tool to attract students and increase enrollment numbers.

That’s why well-known universities like New York University, Columbia, and John Hopkins are spending $1-2 million per month on digital advertising campaigns.

You can hyper-target prospective students and parents evaluating colleges as they’re scrolling through social media feeds. And since the ads are broadcast across feeds, stories, DMs, etc., you can micro-target potential students and their parents within the platform, encouraging quick action.

How to create high-converting social media Ads for higher education?

Below are three factors to consider when designing social media Ads to attract prospective students.

Target audience: Identify your ideal-fit student profiles. Learn about the types of content they prefer and the information they’re searching for to write a persuasive ad copy.
Platform: Understand the advertising guidelines of your chosen social media platform. Each has different rules for length, copy, image, and more.
Metrics to track: Decide on the ad campaign's key performance indicators (KPIs). You can track performance using impressions, clicks, or engagement to track performance.

Let’s take Facebook as an example.

Kamel Ben Yacoub, Co-Founder at Getuplead, who has managed social Ad campaigns for some important European universities, suggests the following two tactics for running Facebook ads:

Facebook Ads Audience targeting. Aim your social media efforts at 18 to 24-year-olds interested in higher education, focusing on keywords like "Bachelor's degree," "College," or "University.”
Facebook Ads creative. Offer a virtual open day to attract students' curiosity. Use images of real students, as your audience will readily identify and relate to them.

9. Keep students informed with timely news and updates

Nearly 87% of all college students access social media platforms daily to create, share, and engage with content from friends and influencers they follow.

Whether for fun or information-seeking, one thing is clear: social media will always play a decisive role in shaping the student’s academic experience. So, take advantage and turn your social accounts into information hubs (or message boards) for prospective and enrolled students.

All social media marketing for universities should touch all bases of covering uni updates and happenings, almost like a bulletin board. Share updates about the latest University happenings. Keep students posted about deadlines and major announcements, especially during the admission season. Make sure to clearly communicate the message and provide relevant links to follow through.