The Important of a Solid Social Media Strategy for Colleges

Social media strategy for colleges is clearly the latest craze in internet marketing. New and shiny related products are coming out every day and the big-name online marketers are all participating. It’s always good to keep up with the trend. So I have studied up on this a bit as I am a master of the obvious at times and thought that I could make sense of this phenomenon for you. I am by no means an expert at digital marketing strategy for colleges, but this may help.

What are the fundamental components of a sound social media strategy?

Forums and online communitiesBlogsSocial Networks (Facebook, MySpace, Instagram...)Multimedia sharing (YouTube, Viddler, Flickr...)Social Bookmarking (Delicious, Pinterest, Mix, ,...)Microblogging (Twitter)Social media management tools

What are the advantages of having a social media strategy?

First and foremost it's potentially viral advertising. If your content is good and interesting, even fascinating, then your following or your "tribe" can grow fast.

Then there is influence. You have a built-in ability to influence your audience by participating in discussions. Responding intelligently to negative criticism and expressing appreciation for the positive stuff. This has a powerful relationship-building potential.

Having a social media strategy for colleges allows you to comment and share information with whomever you choose immediately- students, customers, partners, competitors, or vendors, to name a few. Social media creates a smarter and more informed consumer which forces the quality curve up and increases the requirement for absolute accountability. It weeds out the idiots.

All of this exposure can be both good and bad.

If you don't participate you can't control your brand and you leave your reputation up to the whims of the social networks. On the other hand, if you do participate and participate regularly, you can take relationship building to a whole other level and potentially reach customers previously out of reach to you.

With a solid digital marketing strategy for colleges, you can continue to keep repositioning your brand, based on real-time substantive information and generate more quality customer traffic than ever before.

The most important term in "digital marketing strategy for colleges" is the term ‘strategy’. Without a true strategy with processes and systems in place, you can do far more damage than good. I say jump into the world of social media, just make sure you have a plan.