There are endless discussions about Colleges and Universities reaching out to prospective students through existing social networks, but I haven’t found much on Colleges and Universities that create their own social networks for students that are already accepted. Sure it’s one thing to create a college MySpace page and hope students find you, but what if you create a network where students can create an account to see who else is coming, get more insights on the institution, join discussions and share experiences?
The University of Nebraska-Lincoln is doing just that with a network called ClubRed. I found this post by Seth Meranda of Nebraska-Lincoln that talks about ClubRed, which recently launched and is already showing the benefits.
According to Meranda, within the first 48 hours of the site going live over 450 students registered. Today there are nearly 1,300 registered students. What else was important to note is the fact that nearly 200 students login each day. That implicates that not only are they attracting students to register, but they are keeping them enthused with fresh content and discussions.
What a positive experience this is for newly accepted students. You could throw out those silly preview or orientation ice-breakers because the students will already have met up with new friends and have an idea of what to expect.
I’m sure this is a powerful recruiting tool for admissions representatives at Nebraska-Lincoln. Instead of handing out countless brochures and publications about the college, they can simply direct them to the site to find out for themselves. Today’s students are already more interested in the online experience versus printed material. Once students are online they don’t need much direction either.
It will be interesting to see how fast this catches on at other institutions. For most it will be the dollar $ that holds up the idea.
Hey Mike, enjoying your blog very much. This post is ringing so true to me.
I’ve just started a social network specifically for PR students, faculty & practitioners. It is at propenmic.org. Just sent you an invite. Hope you’ll check it out.
Thanks!
By: Robert on April 1, 2008
at 6:54 am
I really think that this is an interesting idea. I would defiantly want to go online before I would want to read a brochure. Students are much more into the online stuff. It’s also a great way to reach more students and get out more material. Thanks for sharing!
Megan Miles
By: mmiles1 on April 24, 2008
at 11:14 am
I think this is a great way to take the craze and popularity for the social networks, like myspace and facebook, and utilizing it for more educational and productive measures. I think we all know from personal experience, that the number of pamphlets and brochures that a new student receives upon applying for college can be overwhelming. This is a great way to compact it in to one easy to access resource. This is a generation that depends greatly upon the ever evolving technology so it just makes sense that how colleges reach out to these new/prospective students should evolve along with it. However I do feel that despite the effectiveness of communities such as ClubRed, it is still crucial that students actually get out of cyberspace and interact one-on-one with each other. As much as I love seeing how communicating can reach new heights through the web, it’s also very easy to lose integrity or to misinterpret. I’d hate to see the basis of people’s relationships and communications be through staring at a computer screen rather than connecting with real people. A tool like this should definitely be used as a stepping stone to meeting others and gaining information.
Leslie Haugen
By: lhaugen on April 24, 2008
at 1:24 pm
I think a social networking site for a college or university is a great idea. Not only will it get students and prospective students together thinking about the school, it will get them interacting and potentially convincing more people to attend that school.
With the Internet and other social networking sites being so prominent in the lives of students today, this is really a great way for schools to ensure they have an audience to share their messages with. I agree with you, money will be a big factor in seeing how much this idea spreads, but I think it could really take off.
Thank you!
Marissa Mendel
By: mmendel1 on April 24, 2008
at 5:01 pm