EduMusings

While most of my friends are pretty technology savvy, they’ve been slow to jump onto the Twitter bandwagon. There may be several reasons why, but the overarching reason is that Twitter isn’t as popular with Millennials/Gen Y as it is with Gen X. Over the last few weeks, I have noticed more and more of my friends signing up for the services, and I wonder how long they’ll last on it.

Apparently, the “orphan tweet” is rampant throughout Twitter. It’s not uncommon for someone to sign up, post one Tweet (my favorite: This technology is awesome. If you haven’t signed up already, do it now so we can all stay connected. Its much easier than email or phone.) and then forget about it. But we’ve been hearing for a while that Twitter has low retention rates- it’s not new news. We’ve seen from Forrester’sSocial Technographics ladder that although many people don’t participate, they’re still involved by consuming blogs and other media.

One blogger at .edustir sites the 90-9-1 rule which states that 90% of online communities are non-contributors, 9% contribute some, and 1% contributes most, which he calls the “free rider problem.” While the precision of the 90-9-1 rule is obviously up for debate, the bigger point is that most people don’t participate.

This can be especially tricky for marketers trying to decide what information is most relevant for their audience. After all, the Twitter example shows that the demographics of participators can be much different than that of non-participators. In some ways, your non-participators are more important than participators because there are more of them and you won’t know when you lose any. Your goal should be to work with non-participators, not against them. Coaxing participation out of people who don’t want to will only alienate them from your brand. So how can you create content to attract both audiences?

• Know your “actives.” These are the people who are eager to engage with your institution and share their stories with their peers. Look at who’s responding on your sites and encourage them to be vocal. Even though observers won’t contribute, they still read what others write.

• Make sure you know the demographics of the social media sites you’re using. Your blog, Facebook account and YouTube channel all require different strategies for attracting an audience. Choose your outlets based on your marketing strategies.

• Establish your expertise.  Become a trusted advisor to your constituents.  Help them through the college search and application process using your own knowledge and experience and citing the experience of others.