19 February 2014
While online university marketing is rapidly gaining momentum and a growing number of universities worldwide are going online, CIS universities are also trying not to lag behind their foreign peers in their effort to attract a larger number of international students.
At the same time many Russian universities are still using only their official website as the main means of informing foreign students about university life and events, and are not too eager to step on the untrodden path of social networks and online marketing tools.
It is for this reason that EEUA has decided to conduct a practical Seminar on Online int’l student recruitment technologies and Online university promotion. We believe that to stay competitive the universities need to be flexible and timely adjust to students’ needs and demands.
Moreover, a very interesting ICEF Monitor study, entitled 2013 E-Expectations Report: The impact of mobile browsing on the college search process, found that:
- 78% of students had regular access to a mobile device;
- 43% reported using their mobile devices for all their web browsing;
- 68% said they had viewed college websites on a mobile device;
- 73% of students expressed interest in downloading campus-specific applications for schools on their target list;
- 47% checked email on their mobile devices daily; 67% checked at least once per week.
This proves that “modern” students are mostly expecting to receive information about university and programs in an easy and time-efficient manner, which of course implies using social networks.
Russian universities may find it quite confusing which network they should be using, for instance LinkedIn, Twitter or Facebook. These networks are significantly different and have their specific purposes and targeting options.
To eliminate any misconceptions in this matter EEUA has separated each network in a different module and thus formed a comprehensive seminar program covering all aspects of online university marketing and student recruitment tools in the three major social networks - LinkedIn, Twitter and Facebook. The seminar program also included advertising techniques in Google Adwords Campaigns.
EEUA speakers shared their experience on building a successful advertising campaign, choosing the appropriate keywords and targeting of the campaign, free and paid advertising options, using Google Analytics to get feedback and many more.
The participating universities had the chance to apply the newly-acquired knowledge on practice on the 2nd day by creating their university profiles in social networks and making their first online advertising campaigns under the guidance of EEUA representatives.
All in all, the seminar has proved to be of great value to the participating Russian universities who were thrilled to discover the many ways of increasing foreign student enrollment and are now ready to take confident steps into the future of online int’l student recruitment!
