According to a 2013 article from the Wall Street Journal, only 29% of all students are traditional students, i.e. they are attending a four-year university full time right after high school and are living on campus. So, we can only assume as tuitions have continued to rise that percentage may be even lower today. Many colleges are finding that having more non-traditional students is helping them battle rising enrollment fees. And in the years to come, catering to these students will likely be the difference between staying open and shutting your doors.

So, how do you reach the new majority of college students? Are there different tactics you need to use to be most effective in boosting adult student enrollment?

Do you ever feel like you are doing everything right in your inbound marketing campaign but you’re just not seeing the results you’d expected?

Your higher education institution is hip to the content marketing game. You know how to build a winning website and blog and how to capture attention via social media channels like Facebook, Twitter and Snapchat. You may have a million unique visitors a month, but definitely not a million prospective applicants a month.

Fall is a magical time on a college campus. Students are excited to be back and eager to start a new school year, and students and faculty alike have a fresh slate. As the heat of summer weather gives way to crisp fall temperatures, there is just a fresh sense of renewal in the air.

And with all new beginnings, fall is also a great time to take a look at your current marketing strategy, to make sure you are staying relevant. The world of inbound marketing is constantly evolving so you need to be constantly accessing and analyzing your plans just to stay current with your competitors.

Welcome back to our 2017 Social Media Blog Essentials. If you’ve been reading along with us, you’ve gained insight and knowledge into how to best use the most popular social media sites to increase engagement, build your brand and sell your products and services.

Today we turn our focus to Pinterest, an online bulletin board where people can search and discover new ideas and “pin” them to their boards to look at later. And here’s a fun fact—according to SocialMediaToday, Pinterest users spend 100% more money than average internet users.

Interested yet?

At this point in the game, we all know about search engine optimization (SEO). But you may to may not know about social media optimization (SMO). As we have moved from the world-wide-web to the Internet to the internet, the amount of websites is so prolific that search engine results are just not as reliable as they used to be. Many companies are now moving towards optimizing their social media sites because many consumers find it easier to find reliable search results on Facebook, Snap Chat, Pinterest or Twitter vs. a search engine.

SMO particularly lends itself to the world of higher education, where many prospective students prefer to learn about colleges in first-hand accounts rather than from traditional advertisements.

There is an old saying that a picture is worth a thousand words. And in today’s world of nonstop photos and content being delivered every second, it rings even more true. While many social media networks these days deliver visual content and videos, Instagram cuts through the clutter and focuses solely on high quality pictures and videos.

There is some method to the madness. Our brains love images. SearchEngineJournal reports 90% of information transmitted to the brain is visual and those visuals are processed 60,000 times faster than text.

In our last post, 5 Reasons to Love A/B Testing, we looked at five compelling reasons why A/B testing, or split testing as it is also known, can definitely help you convert your website visitors. But if you aren’t familiar with the process, it might be a little intimidating to you.

Do you remember when sending someone a video meant you downloaded it to a CD and popped it in the mailbox? Or worse, maybe you sent a VHS? YouTube changed all that about twelve years ago. Now we take for granted that anyone with a smartphone can share a video instantaneously with the click of a button.

The capabilities are incredible. An average Joe in Chicago can share a video that can go viral and be viewed millions of times by people around the world. A teenager in a small town can become famous overnight from posting videos of themselves singing or doing makeup tutorials. Your company could be reaching thousands of new consumers or clients by creating a free YouTube Channel.

A/B testing will help you convert your visitors into bona fide leads.

LinkedIn is the business professionals’ networking social media platform. It’s a great place to build your personal network, reconnect with colleagues and classmates, find and build relationships with influencers in your industry and discover companies and search for new career opportunities. The interface is similar to Facebook, and easy to use.

Lifewire says LinkedIn is like a traditional networking situation where you meet people and pass out business cards, except you are making “connections” with others and you all have your professional accomplishments laid out on your personal page. So less small talk, more business.