Getting the Word Out: Using Student Marketing Projects to Promote Departments and Special Certificates

Colleges and universities are looking for new ways to publicize their schools programs, departments and special certificates. Student creativity and their social media connectivity are potential ways to get the word out, both on campus and online.

A growing approach to promoting a school’s offerings is with social media tools such as Facebook, Instagram, Pinterest, Twitter and others. To effectively use social media the school representatives must be on the platforms where the target audience—prospective students—are most active, not necessarily where the faculty is most active.

Students from two online hospice courses were assigned a marketing project to promote the department and the special certificate as part of a unit on community, public and caregivers engagement. Example ideas included: designing a poster, flyer, brochure or infographic for a website or a social media platform; creating a short presentation (PowerPoint, Google Slide) for a group talk, or producing a video for a website, YouTube or social media. They were also instructed to identify which social media tools are most used by their peers to determine how to reach current and future students.

Through their projects the students provided invaluable feedback on their views of the program as well as how they access the University and social media. The final projects were passed on to the department committee for review and potential marketing campaigns.

In this general session presentation participants will be invited to share their own experiences with social media tools and explore how ideas from student marketing projects could be utilized to promote other departments, programs and special certificates.