"Hey, what college are you going to next year?"

"I don't know man, I haven't even thought about it."

If you're involved in student recruitment in any way shape or form, that's the exact moment you need to be present.

And according to Chegg.com and Uversity.com now more than ever, that exact conversation is happening on social media.

Nearly 70% of the time.

So the challenge for you as a college recruiter and marketing professional is how do you reach those undecided students at this extremely critical moment?

The answer is pretty straight-forward: by leveraging the assets you have at hand.

The average College or University has 4,224 students not including alumni, faculty or staff.

Imagine for a minute that you could reach those students on Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn using a voice they know and trust, at the exact moment when they were considering their scholastic future.

With a Student Advocacy program, you can.

What is a Student Advocacy Program?

“Student Advocacy” is a term used to describe the exposure that students generate for their school using their own online assets. While social media is often the main medium for Student Advocacy, these “online assets” can also include email, chat, forums, discussion boards and more.

Why Would Students Participate?

Quite simply, they want to. A recent Uversity.com and Chegg.com report showed that 60% of students surveyed would join a social media initiative to help get the word out about their school.

The average person has 338 Facebook friends, 208 Twitter followers and 393 LinkedIn connections.

Student Advocacy – What does it Look Like?

The answer is Inbound Marketing.

What is Inbound Marketing? Wikipedia defines it as promoting yourself through blogs, podcasts, video, eBooks, e-newsletters, whitepapers, SEO, social media marketing, and other forms of content marketing which serve to attract customers.

According to HubSpot (the company that basically invented this technique), Inbound Marketing is especially effective for businesses that deal with high dollar values, long research cycles and knowledge-based products.

Hmmm... an expensive, knowledge based product with a long research cycle. Sounds super familiar. If I could just think of a product that fits that description. ;)

It Starts With Great Content

So no surprise, it starts with great content. I've gone ahead and sprinkled some examples throughout this article to give you an idea of exactly what I'm talking about.

Are you a student recruiter who's wondering if a Student Advocacy program is right for you?

Feel free to drop me a line and let's chat!