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News Release
Google and UCAS Media present educational credentials
On the afternoon of Tuesday 24 November, representatives of Google and UCAS Media joined forces at Google's London offices to deliver an online marketing briefing to a packed (and extremely punctual) audience of HE marketers.
Luke Mckend, Google's industry head, education & careers, got the session under way by looking at 'Universities in a digital world'. Focusing on the profound generational shift in media behaviour and consumption, he stressed the need to understand today's student audience (i.e. online multi-taskers), and find effective ways to interact and engage with them - which means doing a lot more than just posting ads, of course. He also provided an insight into search, and how all the available online tools can effectively make it a 'customer relations device'. Finally, as ever, he emphasised the importance of measuring all online activity to find out what works best and delivers the best ROI.
This was followed by a demonstration of some of the online tools available to universities, delivered by Google's Neisha Santamaria and Stefan Cataldo. These can help with everything from identifying trends (in turn, supporting budget planning) to preparing ad campaigns and even anticipating potential demand for new courses.
Then Samantha Peters outlined the capabilities of Google Enterprise, the Google division that enables organisations to collaborate online. It makes a number of tools available to educational institutions, helping them to save time, cost and improve efficiencies. Based on cloud computing, Google Applications Education Edition - which is available free for staff, students and alumni - facilitates real-time collaboration, increases productivity and helps to build community. Just as importantly, it also familiarises students with a toolset that they're likely to encounter beyond the world of study.
The UCAS Media contribution, presented by commercial manager Emerson Osmond, centred on a case-study of how the organisation has used social media to engage its core audience of potential university applicants. With over three-quarters of its market aged under 20 - a notoriously difficult demographic to market to effectively - UCAS Media launched their yougofurther site back in 2007 as a safe, secure, student-only online environment. Running in tandem with the main UCAS site (in effect, "the colour supplement that sits inside the broadsheet," as Emerson described it), it now has almost half a million members. The site also provides opportunities for universities to "dip into" social media by taking profile pages under the UCAS 'umbrella brand'.
Feedback from members has resulted in improvements to the site's functionality, content and engagement, while UCAS has also developed a presence on other social sites such as Facebook, Twitter and Bebo. As Emerson pointed out, social media offer new opportunities to create brand enthusiasm. At the same time, there's no 'silver bullet' as the terrain is always evolving. As ever, though, engagement is key and content is king. Closing with a bit of future-gazing, Emerson's final exhortation was "Ignore mobile at your peril!"