海外社媒｜高校如何提高账户粉丝参与度，吸引更多潜在的学生
Today, social media channels have blown up with unprecedented levels of content. Educational institutions around the world now rely on frequented platforms like Instagram, TikTok and Facebook to give prospective students a better idea of their brand and its offerings. With the competition for attention so great, it’s not enough to get your content out there. You need to focus on boosting the impressions, reactions and engagement that you’re looking for.
现在，社交媒体平台有着空前的用户量，内容也达到了前所未有的水平。世界各地的教育机构现在依靠Instagram、TikTok和Facebook等用户经常光顾现的平台，让潜在的学生更好地了解他们的品牌和项目。在竞争如此激烈的情况下，仅仅把您的内容传播出去是不够的。您需要专注于提高您正在寻找的印象、反馈和参与度。
Your social media accounts are a chance to go beyond informational content and encourage prospects to make a meaningful connection with your school. From student videos and campus tours to opinion polls and Q&As, social media offers unique and interactive ways for prospects to get to know life at your school. If you’re looking to maximize your reach on social media, read on to learn how you can optimize these channels to engage prospective students.
您的社交媒体帐户是一个超越信息内容并鼓励潜在学生与您的学校建立有意义联系的机会。从学生视频和校园参观到民意调查和问答，社交媒体为潜在学生提供了独特的互动方式，以了解您的学校生活。如果您想最大限度地扩大您在社交媒体上的影响力，请继续阅读，了解您如何优化这些渠道来吸引潜在的学生。
If you want to increase social media engagement across your school’s accounts, you need to start by creating content that prospects can engage with. Writing engaging content is about knowing your audience and what they want to see. Generally speaking, prospective students will be looking to a school’s social media pages for important updates and to get a better impression of what life on their campus is like.
如果您想提高学校帐户的社交媒体参与度，则需要从创建潜在学生可以参与的内容开始。撰写引人入胜的内容是了解您的受众以及他们想要看到的内容。目前看来，潜在的学生会关注学校的社交媒体页面，以获取重要的更新，并更好地了解他们在学校校园里的生活。
Valentin Wimel, shared some of the ways in which our social media team helps schools to ensure they are engaging prospects in the right conversations. According to Valentin, checking academic calendars is a great way to make sure we are sharing relevant content. When exams are coming up, consider sharing study tips or advice on managing the work-study balance to give prospects a useful guide to success at school. Likewise, interview tips or job advice is a good option to engage the career ambitions of those who are graduating.
Valentin Wimel分享了我们的社交媒体团队帮助学校确保他们与潜在学生进行正确对话的一些方式。根据Valentin的说法，检查学术日历是确保我们分享相关内容的好方法。当考试即将来临时，考虑分享学习技巧或关于勤工俭学的建议，为潜在学生在学校取得成功提供有用的指导。同样，面试技巧或工作建议是吸引即将毕业的人的职业抱负的好选择。
Example: A tweet from the Academy of Learning Career College shared some practical tips for job applicants. This kind of content is well-suited to their target audience of career seekers looking for industry-relevant training.
案例：Learning Career College的一条推文分享了一些给求职者的实用技巧。这种内容很适合他们的目标受众，即寻找行业相关培训的求职者。
Posts such as these drive an emotional response by engaging the personal interests or concerns of prospects today. Users come to associate your school’s values and missions with their own. Applying trending hashtags to your posts (such as #InternationalWomensDay) will also increase the visibility of your brand and its content in online discussions.
通过此类的帖子，学校可以吸引住当今潜在学生的个人兴趣或关注点来推动他们的情感反应。用户会开始将您学校的价值观和原则与他们自己的价值观和原则联系起来。另外，将热门话题标签应用于您的帖子（例如#InternationalWomensDay）也将提高您的品牌及其内容在在线讨论中的知名度。
Once you have an idea of the kind of content you want to create, you can play around with the format. Social media platforms are well suited to visual content in the form of memes, videos and images. In particular, video content should also be a top priority for your school, as the amount of online videos people are watching has almost doubled since 2018. The best thing about video is that it can serve multiple purposes, from academic discussions to campus tours.
一旦您了解了要创建的内容类型，就可以尝试使用该格式。社交媒体平台很适合以备忘录、视频和图片形式出现的视觉内容。当然，视频内容宣传也应该是您学校的首要任务，因为自2018年以来，人们正在观看的在线视频数量几乎翻了一番。关于视频的最好的事情是它可以用于多种目的，从学术讨论到校园参观。
Example: A Facebook post from Duke University featured a video that gives users a sneak peek of one of its courses. The video features valuable information about the academic program in the form of student testimonials and an explanation of the program’s aims.
案例：杜克大学在Facebook上发布了一个视频，让用户免费观看了杜克大学的一门课程。该视频中以学生对该学术课程的评价和解释的形式介绍了该课程的价值。
By bringing their academic experience to life, schools can engage prospects in a more authentic understanding of their institution. Not to mention, users are twice as likely to share video content with friends than any other type of content, giving your school a better chance of engaging new followers.
通过将学校的学术经验搬到公开的线上平台，学校可以让潜在学生对他们的院校机构有一个更真实的了解。而且，用户与朋友分享这种视频内容的可能性是其他类型内容的两倍，这会使您的学校有更好的机会吸引新的关注者。
Each social media platform offers a number of popular features that encourage direct engagement from users. From Twitter polls and Q&As to Live Stories, these features give prospects new and exciting ways to participate in your school’s community.
每个社交媒体平台都提供了一些鼓励用户直接参与的功能，比如推特投票，问答，现场故事。这些功能为潜在学生提供了一个参与您的学校社区的新且有趣的方式。
For example, University College Dublin created a poll on LinkedIn that encourages users to actively engage with the school’s academic research. Users have the chance to express their own views while familiarizing themselves with hot topics at the university.
例如，都柏林大学学院在LinkedIn上创建了一个投票，鼓励每一个用户都能参加学校的学术研究。在此，用户有机会表达自己的观点，同时熟悉该大学的热点话题。
Another way to create an interactive experience on your accounts is to ask questions in a creative way to the audience. “We often create some posts to help potential students choose the right program (like quizzes or questions that could guide them), and ask alumni to share their advice with new students,” explains HEM’s Senior Social Media Specialist, Natalia Espinel-Quintero.
在帐户上创建交互式体验的另一种方法是以创造性的方式向受众提问。“我们经常创建一些帖子来帮助潜在的学生选择正确的课程（例如可以指导他们的测验或问题），并要求校友与新生分享他们的建议，”HEM的高级社交媒体专家Natalia Espinel-Quintero解释说。
In the example below, Discovery Community College created an Instagram post asking its recent graduates to share their experiences with new students. This not only generates useful discussion in the comments section but also helps to engage both alumni and prospects in an active school community.
在下面的示例中，Discovery Community College创建了一个Instagram帖子，要求其应届毕业生与新生分享他们的经验。这不仅在评论部分产生了有用的讨论，而且还有助于在活跃的学校社区中吸引校友和潜在学生。
Live features take the level of engagement one step further by creating real-time interaction between your school and its audience. In particular, live video is a great way to take prospects on tours of your school, introduce them to members of the community and open a dialogue with them.
直播功能通过在学校与其受众之间建立实时互动，能将参与度进一步提高。尤其是，实时视频可以带潜在学生参观学校，将他们介绍给社区成员并与他们进行对话的好方法。
To maximize this effect, take the time to promote live videos across your social accounts first. That way, you not only attract more viewers but also build anticipation around the video as if it were a real-world event.
为了最大限度地提高这种效果，请先花点时间尝试在您的社交帐户中推广直播视频。这样，您不仅可以吸引更多观众，还可以通过视频提出新的展望，就好像它是现实世界的事件一样。
Example: Cambridge University created this Instagram post to advertise its upcoming Live Q&A. The post encourages viewers to come prepared with questions that they can ask during the live session.
示例：剑桥大学创建了此Instagram帖子来宣传其即将推出的Live Q&A。该帖子鼓励观众准备好他们可以在现场会话中提出的问题。
Remember, effective social media engagement posts should lead prospects to take the next step in their journey with your school. Whether you’re aiming to give prospects a glimpse of life on campus, encourage them to sign up for more information or lead them to fill out an application, a specified call-to-action (CTA) is the best way to achieve this. If the goal is to boost engagement across your social media accounts, you can achieve this by encouraging users to drop a comment, vote on a poll or tune into live sessions.
请记住，有效的社交媒体参与帖子应该引导潜在学生在与学校的旅程中迈出下一步。无论您是想让潜在学生一瞥校园生活，鼓励他们注册以获取更多信息还是引导他们直接填写申请，特定的号召性用语（CTA；call-to-action）是实现这一目标的最佳方式。如果目标是提高社交媒体帐户的参与度，您可以通过鼓励用户发表评论，对民意调查进行投票或收听实时会话来实现此目的。
Users are more likely to engage with content from those they can relate to – those who share their goals and interests. That being said, who would prospective students most likely relate best to? Your current students, of course.
用户更有可能与他们的同好（那些与他们有着共同目标和兴趣的人）的内容互动。话虽如此，那么潜在的学生最有可能与谁最相关？当然是您现在的学生。
Student-generated content is a great way to improve social media in higher education because it encourages people to post about your institution, leading to even greater exposure. One of the easiest ways to set this in motion is to create a hashtag for your school and encourage students to tag your accounts on their personal social media. Your school can then locate student content by searching for the hashtag, and re-post relevant content on its social media accounts.
鼓励学生创造内容是改善高等教育中社交媒体的好方法，因为它鼓励在校学生们发布有关您学校的真实情况，从而带来更大的曝光率。实现这一点的最简单方法之一是为您的学校创建一个主题标签，并鼓励学生在他们的个人社交媒体上标记您的帐户。然后，您的学校可以通过搜索 # 标签来查找学生内容，然后转发或推广以得到更大曝光。
For example, The University of Manchester created the hashtag #UoMGraduation to promote its graduation ceremony and showcase student experiences of the event. Retweeting those experiences is an easy way to generate more activity on your accounts.
例如，曼彻斯特大学创建了主题标签#UoMGraduation，以宣传其毕业典礼并展示学生对该活动的体验。转发这些学生发表的体验是在您的帐户上生成更多内容的简便方法。
Developing a strong student presence across your school’s social media accounts will also help to create a more authentic community experience. Users can see that your school has an active student body, one that they want to get involved in themselves. According to Valentin, student testimonials are a great way to share some real success stories with your audience and a simple way to motivate new applicants.
在学校的社交媒体帐户中建立活跃的学生形象也将有助于创造更真实的社区体验。用户可以看到您的学校拥有一个活跃的学生团体，他们希望自己参与其中。根据Valentin的说法，学生对学校的推荐是与观众分享一些真正成功故事的好方法，也是获得更多新申请人的简单方法。
For example, Oxford College created the Instagram series “Happy Students” to celebrate the successes of its student body. This is a chance to engage prospects with more personal accounts that inspire them to follow suit.
例如，牛津大学创建了Instagram系列推文“快乐学生”，以庆祝其学生团体的成功。这是一个与潜在学生接触更多学生个人帐户的机会，这些学生个人帐户可以激励潜在学生们去效仿。
To take some of the work off, consider incorporating social media takeovers. These are a chance for students to take the stage on your social media accounts and boost your school’s online presence. Social media takeovers can be used to share the experiences of individual students, clubs, campus events and more. Each post can help to engage users in an authentic first-person narrative of life at your school. TikTok is particularly well-suited to student takeovers and a valuable platform for engaging Gen Z prospects.
为了减少一些工作，请考虑与学生的社交媒体账户的合作。这些是学生在您的社交媒体帐户上登台的机会，并提升您学校的线上形象。社交媒体合作可以是分享个别学生，俱乐部，校园活动等的经历。每篇帖子都有助于让用户参与到学校生活的真实第一人称叙述中。TikTok特别适合学生发挥，也是吸引Z世代潜在学生的宝贵平台。
For example, the TikTok below is led by a University of Melbourne student and takes users through a typical day on campus. After capturing interest with a quick virtual tour, the post encourages users to take the next step in registering for the university’s upcoming Open Day.
例如，下面的TikTok由墨尔本大学的学生领导，带领用户在校园里度过常规的一天。在通过快速虚拟游览引起兴趣后，该帖子鼓励用户采取下一步措施——注册即将到来的大学开放日。
Posts like these help to boost your school’s social media accounts with unique and personalized content. Through compelling narratives, you can build your brand identity while giving prospective students the chance to make that initial connection with your school community.
像这样的帖子有助于以独特和个性化的内容改善您的学校的社交媒体账户。通过引人注目的叙述，您可以建立您的品牌形象，同时让潜在的学生有机会与您的学校社区建立初步联系。
Engagement doesn’t end with content creation. In fact, many schools make the mistake of posting content and leaving it at that. To boost your social media presence, you need to meet users halfway and take every opportunity to open a dialogue with them. Remember, communication is a two-way street, so take the time to listen and respond to your audiences.
参与并不以内容创作为终点。事实上，许多学校都犯了一个错误，即发布内容后就不了了之。为了提高您的社交媒体影响力，您需要满足用户的需求，并利用一切机会与他们展开对话。记住，沟通是双向的，所以要花时间倾听和回应您的受众。
When you post content on your social media accounts, monitor the comments and respond to them in a timely manner. Whether it’s a question from a prospect or a concern from a parent, by interacting with each comment, you nurture that organic engagement.
当您在您的社交媒体账户上发布内容时，监测评论并及时回应他们。无论是来自潜在学生的问题还是来自家长的担忧，通过与每条评论互动，您可以培养这种有机的参与。
Direct responses also help users to feel that your school is invested in the comments and concerns of its student body. If they see that you’re listening, they’re more likely to engage.
直接回复也有助于用户感受到您的学校对其学生群体的评论和关注的重视。如果他们看到您在倾听，他们就更有可能参与进来。
Timing plays a key role in social media engagement. A good social media strategy for schools requires an understanding of user behaviour – and not just what they want to see but when they are most likely to see it. Take into consideration your target audience. How old are they? Are you trying to attract local or international applicants? By paying attention to factors like time zones and peak social media hours for different age groups, you can create a posting schedule that will deliver content to the right users at the right time.
时机在社交媒体参与中起着关键作用。一个好的学校社交媒体战略需要了解用户行为--不仅是他们想看“什么”，而且是他们最可能看到的“时间”。要考虑到您的目标受众：他们的年龄有多大？您是想吸引本地还是国际申请人？通过关注时区和不同年龄段的社交媒体高峰期等因素，您可以创建一个发布时间表，在正确的时间向正确的用户提供内容。
As the data below shows, each audience and each platform are different.
如下图所示，每个平台的受众群体习惯都是不同的。
Above all, consistency is key. While you don’t want to make the mistake of bombarding your followers with new content, frequent posting is an essential practice to keep social media accounts active and maintain a strong following. Nowadays, users see tons of content on their social media feeds. By making a regular appearance, you create more opportunities for people to notice your content and engage with it.
最重要、最关键的是持续性。您应该不想不断地用新内容轰炸关注者首页的，但频繁发贴实际是保持社交媒体帐户活跃并保证充足关注者的必要做法。如今，用户需要在他们的社交媒体首页上看到大量内容。通过定期更新，您可以为人们创造更多机会来注意到您的内容并与之互动。
Developing a schedule for your social media accounts is a practical way to ensure consistency. To make this process even easier, take advantage of scheduling tools to plan and prep posts in advance. Marketing automation tools such as HubSpot or HootSuite allow you to schedule posts in bulk across platforms like Facebook, Twitter and Instagram. You can use one system to distribute content according to the best practices of each site. With these scheduling tools, your school can organize its social media campaigns and stay on track to better engagement across each account.
为您的社交媒体账户制定一个时间表是确保持续性的一个实用方法。为了使这一过程更加容易，利用调度工具来提前计划和准备帖子。营销自动化工具，如HubSpot或HootSuite，允许您在Facebook、Twitter和Instagram等平台上批量安排帖子。您可以使用一个系统，根据每个网站的最佳时间来发布内容。有了这些调度工具，您的学校可以组织它的社交媒体活动，并在每个账户上保持良好的活跃度。
If you want to know how to promote a school on social media effectively, you need to know how your current efforts are performing. After all, social media engagement revolves around measurable interactions on a post or page, such as the likes, shares or comments it receives. So start by running a social media audit and tracking your school’s social performance across each account.
如果您想知道如何在社交媒体上有效地推广一所学校，您需要知道您目前的努力表现如何。毕竟，社交媒体的参与是围绕着一个帖子或页面上可衡量的互动，比如它收到的点赞、分享或评论。因此，首先要进行社交媒体审计，跟踪您的学校在每个账户上的社交表现。
There are numerous tools your school can use to evaluate its social media campaigns. Social media platforms like Facebook have their own built-in analytics tools which offer insights into how your posts are performing. This allows you to measure your social media engagement in terms of likes, comments, reactions, shares, retweets, click-through rates and more.
您的学校可以使用许多工具来评估其社交媒体活动。像Facebook这样的社交媒体平台有自己的内置分析工具，可以深入了解您的帖子是如何表现的。这使您能够在点赞、评论、触达、分享、转发、点击率等方面衡量您的社交媒体参与度。
You can also opt to go with a third-party tool that is designed specifically for social media management. If you already use HubSpot or HootSuite for social media scheduling, consider making full use of these tools by using them to monitor social performance as well. For example, HubSpot allows you to track engagement and compare results across social media channels.
您也可以选择使用专门为社交媒体管理设计的第三方工具。如果您已经使用HubSpot或HootSuite进行社交媒体调度，可以考虑充分利用这些工具，把它们也用来监测社交表现。例如，HubSpot允许您跟踪参与，并比较各社交媒体渠道的结果。
When you can see what kind of content is generating high levels of engagement, you can adapt your social media strategy for the future. If you’re seeing low engagement, reconsider the kind of content you’re putting out.
当您能看到什么样的内容能够带来高活跃的参与度，您就可以为未来调整您的社交媒体战略。如果您看到参与度低，请重新考虑您推出的内容种类。
For example, the University of Bristol created a series of tweets to promote their support for the new Climate Action campaign. The post on the right offers a link to a blog post and received only 3 Retweets and 10 Likes. On the other hand, the post on the left features a short video with strong graphics that resulted in much higher levels of engagement.
例如，布里斯托尔大学创建了一系列的推特，以促进他们对新的气候行动运动的支持。右边的帖子提供了一个博客文章的链接，只收到3个转发和10个赞。另一方面，左边的帖子以一个短视频为特色，配以强烈的图形，导致了更高的参与水平。
If you’re seeing that one form of content performs much better than the other, your social media strategy should reflect that moving forward.
如果您看到一种形式的内容比另一种形式的表现好得多，您的社交媒体战略就应该反映出这一点，继续朝这个方向前进。
In a context where social media are saturated with content from all over, paid advertising is an effective way to reach a target audience quickly. Boosting a blog, for example, increases the chances that it will be read and that the audience will leave comments. Boosting a post you create on Instagram or Facebook is a great way to reach a broader audience. When you boost a post on social media, you pay the platform to amplify your post so it shows up as a sponsored post on your audience’s feed.
在社交媒体被来自各处的内容所饱和的情况下，付费广告是快速接触目标受众的有效方式。例如，推广一个博客的关注度，可以增加它被阅读的机会，而且让受众留下评论。推广您在Instagram或Facebook上创建的帖子是接触更多受众的好方法。当您在社交媒体上发表一个帖子时，您付钱给平台来放大您的帖子，这样它就会在您的受众的反馈中显示为一个赞助帖子。
You can choose whether your advertising goal is more profile visits, website traffic or messages. You can also choose which platforms to invest in depending on your target audience. If you’re trying to reach prospective university students, TikTok is where to place your ads. Parents, on the other hand, are most likely to engage with content on Facebook.
您可以选择您的广告目标是更多的资料访问、网站流量还是信息传播。您还可以根据您的目标受众，选择投资哪些平台。如果您想接触潜在的大学生，TikTok就是您投放广告的最佳场合。另一方面，父母最有可能参与Facebook上的内容。
Ultimately, social media platforms have huge potential to pique the interest of prospective students and drive conversions. Once you focus on maximizing their features and delivering content that generates a reaction, your school will be on its way to building a more active and engaging social media presence.
最后，社交媒体平台有巨大的潜力来激发潜在学生的兴趣并推动转化。一旦您专注于最大限度地利用它们的功能，并提供能产生反应的内容，您的学校就会在建立一个更积极、更有吸引力的社会媒体存在的道路上前进。
现在，社交媒体平台有着空前的用户量，内容也达到了前所未有的水平。世界各地的教育机构现在依靠Instagram、TikTok和Facebook等用户经常光顾现的平台，让潜在的学生更好地了解他们的品牌和项目。在竞争如此激烈的情况下，仅仅把您的内容传播出去是不够的。您需要专注于提高您正在寻找的印象、反馈和参与度。
Your social media accounts are a chance to go beyond informational content and encourage prospects to make a meaningful connection with your school. From student videos and campus tours to opinion polls and Q&As, social media offers unique and interactive ways for prospects to get to know life at your school. If you’re looking to maximize your reach on social media, read on to learn how you can optimize these channels to engage prospective students.
您的社交媒体帐户是一个超越信息内容并鼓励潜在学生与您的学校建立有意义联系的机会。从学生视频和校园参观到民意调查和问答，社交媒体为潜在学生提供了独特的互动方式，以了解您的学校生活。如果您想最大限度地扩大您在社交媒体上的影响力，请继续阅读，了解您如何优化这些渠道来吸引潜在的学生。
Engagement Begins with Content Creation
参与度从内容创作开始
If you want to increase social media engagement across your school’s accounts, you need to start by creating content that prospects can engage with. Writing engaging content is about knowing your audience and what they want to see. Generally speaking, prospective students will be looking to a school’s social media pages for important updates and to get a better impression of what life on their campus is like.
如果您想提高学校帐户的社交媒体参与度，则需要从创建潜在学生可以参与的内容开始。撰写引人入胜的内容是了解您的受众以及他们想要看到的内容。目前看来，潜在的学生会关注学校的社交媒体页面，以获取重要的更新，并更好地了解他们在学校校园里的生活。
Valentin Wimel, shared some of the ways in which our social media team helps schools to ensure they are engaging prospects in the right conversations. According to Valentin, checking academic calendars is a great way to make sure we are sharing relevant content. When exams are coming up, consider sharing study tips or advice on managing the work-study balance to give prospects a useful guide to success at school. Likewise, interview tips or job advice is a good option to engage the career ambitions of those who are graduating.
Valentin Wimel分享了我们的社交媒体团队帮助学校确保他们与潜在学生进行正确对话的一些方式。根据Valentin的说法，检查学术日历是确保我们分享相关内容的好方法。当考试即将来临时，考虑分享学习技巧或关于勤工俭学的建议，为潜在学生在学校取得成功提供有用的指导。同样，面试技巧或工作建议是吸引即将毕业的人的职业抱负的好选择。
Example: A tweet from the Academy of Learning Career College shared some practical tips for job applicants. This kind of content is well-suited to their target audience of career seekers looking for industry-relevant training.
案例：Learning Career College的一条推文分享了一些给求职者的实用技巧。这种内容很适合他们的目标受众，即寻找行业相关培训的求职者。
Beyond sharing academic content, remember, social media platforms are a chance to get creative with your school’s unique selling points and develop a personalized voice for your brand. You want to encourage prospective students to connect with your school and its values as more than just a business. A good way to do this is by engaging in popular dialogues around current events. This could include content on school sporting events, social movements or academic discussions.
除了分享学术内容和工作建议之外，请记住，社交媒体平台还提供了一个机会，可以通过学校的独特卖点获得创意，并为您的品牌开发个性化的声音。您希望鼓励潜在的学生与您的学校及其价值观建立联系，而不仅仅是一项业务。一个好的方法是围绕时事进行流行的对话。这可能包括有关学校体育赛事、社会活动或学术讨论的内容。
Example: Yale University created this Instagram post to celebrate International Women’s Day. The post gives users a chance to learn more about Yale’s history and its association with the movement as one of the first universities to admit women.
案例：耶鲁大学创建了这个Instagram帖子来庆祝国际妇女节。该帖子让用户有机会了解耶鲁大学的历史，以及它作为首批录取女性的大学之一与该运动的关系。
Posts such as these drive an emotional response by engaging the personal interests or concerns of prospects today. Users come to associate your school’s values and missions with their own. Applying trending hashtags to your posts (such as #InternationalWomensDay) will also increase the visibility of your brand and its content in online discussions.
通过此类的帖子，学校可以吸引住当今潜在学生的个人兴趣或关注点来推动他们的情感反应。用户会开始将您学校的价值观和原则与他们自己的价值观和原则联系起来。另外，将热门话题标签应用于您的帖子（例如#InternationalWomensDay）也将提高您的品牌及其内容在在线讨论中的知名度。
Prioritize Visual Content
确定视觉内容的优先级
Once you have an idea of the kind of content you want to create, you can play around with the format. Social media platforms are well suited to visual content in the form of memes, videos and images. In particular, video content should also be a top priority for your school, as the amount of online videos people are watching has almost doubled since 2018. The best thing about video is that it can serve multiple purposes, from academic discussions to campus tours.
一旦您了解了要创建的内容类型，就可以尝试使用该格式。社交媒体平台很适合以备忘录、视频和图片形式出现的视觉内容。当然，视频内容宣传也应该是您学校的首要任务，因为自2018年以来，人们正在观看的在线视频数量几乎翻了一番。关于视频的最好的事情是它可以用于多种目的，从学术讨论到校园参观。
Example: A Facebook post from Duke University featured a video that gives users a sneak peek of one of its courses. The video features valuable information about the academic program in the form of student testimonials and an explanation of the program’s aims.
案例：杜克大学在Facebook上发布了一个视频，让用户免费观看了杜克大学的一门课程。该视频中以学生对该学术课程的评价和解释的形式介绍了该课程的价值。
By bringing their academic experience to life, schools can engage prospects in a more authentic understanding of their institution. Not to mention, users are twice as likely to share video content with friends than any other type of content, giving your school a better chance of engaging new followers.
通过将学校的学术经验搬到公开的线上平台，学校可以让潜在学生对他们的院校机构有一个更真实的了解。而且，用户与朋友分享这种视频内容的可能性是其他类型内容的两倍，这会使您的学校有更好的机会吸引新的关注者。
Make Use of Interactive Features
利用互动功能
Each social media platform offers a number of popular features that encourage direct engagement from users. From Twitter polls and Q&As to Live Stories, these features give prospects new and exciting ways to participate in your school’s community.
每个社交媒体平台都提供了一些鼓励用户直接参与的功能，比如推特投票，问答，现场故事。这些功能为潜在学生提供了一个参与您的学校社区的新且有趣的方式。
For example, University College Dublin created a poll on LinkedIn that encourages users to actively engage with the school’s academic research. Users have the chance to express their own views while familiarizing themselves with hot topics at the university.
例如，都柏林大学学院在LinkedIn上创建了一个投票，鼓励每一个用户都能参加学校的学术研究。在此，用户有机会表达自己的观点，同时熟悉该大学的热点话题。
Another way to create an interactive experience on your accounts is to ask questions in a creative way to the audience. “We often create some posts to help potential students choose the right program (like quizzes or questions that could guide them), and ask alumni to share their advice with new students,” explains HEM’s Senior Social Media Specialist, Natalia Espinel-Quintero.
在帐户上创建交互式体验的另一种方法是以创造性的方式向受众提问。“我们经常创建一些帖子来帮助潜在的学生选择正确的课程（例如可以指导他们的测验或问题），并要求校友与新生分享他们的建议，”HEM的高级社交媒体专家Natalia Espinel-Quintero解释说。
In the example below, Discovery Community College created an Instagram post asking its recent graduates to share their experiences with new students. This not only generates useful discussion in the comments section but also helps to engage both alumni and prospects in an active school community.
在下面的示例中，Discovery Community College创建了一个Instagram帖子，要求其应届毕业生与新生分享他们的经验。这不仅在评论部分产生了有用的讨论，而且还有助于在活跃的学校社区中吸引校友和潜在学生。
Live features take the level of engagement one step further by creating real-time interaction between your school and its audience. In particular, live video is a great way to take prospects on tours of your school, introduce them to members of the community and open a dialogue with them.
直播功能通过在学校与其受众之间建立实时互动，能将参与度进一步提高。尤其是，实时视频可以带潜在学生参观学校，将他们介绍给社区成员并与他们进行对话的好方法。
To maximize this effect, take the time to promote live videos across your social accounts first. That way, you not only attract more viewers but also build anticipation around the video as if it were a real-world event.
为了最大限度地提高这种效果，请先花点时间尝试在您的社交帐户中推广直播视频。这样，您不仅可以吸引更多观众，还可以通过视频提出新的展望，就好像它是现实世界的事件一样。
Example: Cambridge University created this Instagram post to advertise its upcoming Live Q&A. The post encourages viewers to come prepared with questions that they can ask during the live session.
示例：剑桥大学创建了此Instagram帖子来宣传其即将推出的Live Q&A。该帖子鼓励观众准备好他们可以在现场会话中提出的问题。
Remember, effective social media engagement posts should lead prospects to take the next step in their journey with your school. Whether you’re aiming to give prospects a glimpse of life on campus, encourage them to sign up for more information or lead them to fill out an application, a specified call-to-action (CTA) is the best way to achieve this. If the goal is to boost engagement across your social media accounts, you can achieve this by encouraging users to drop a comment, vote on a poll or tune into live sessions.
请记住，有效的社交媒体参与帖子应该引导潜在学生在与学校的旅程中迈出下一步。无论您是想让潜在学生一瞥校园生活，鼓励他们注册以获取更多信息还是引导他们直接填写申请，特定的号召性用语（CTA；call-to-action）是实现这一目标的最佳方式。如果目标是提高社交媒体帐户的参与度，您可以通过鼓励用户发表评论，对民意调查进行投票或收听实时会话来实现此目的。
Collaborate With Your Students on Social Media in Higher Education
在高等教育的社交媒体上与学生合作
Users are more likely to engage with content from those they can relate to – those who share their goals and interests. That being said, who would prospective students most likely relate best to? Your current students, of course.
用户更有可能与他们的同好（那些与他们有着共同目标和兴趣的人）的内容互动。话虽如此，那么潜在的学生最有可能与谁最相关？当然是您现在的学生。
Student-generated content is a great way to improve social media in higher education because it encourages people to post about your institution, leading to even greater exposure. One of the easiest ways to set this in motion is to create a hashtag for your school and encourage students to tag your accounts on their personal social media. Your school can then locate student content by searching for the hashtag, and re-post relevant content on its social media accounts.
鼓励学生创造内容是改善高等教育中社交媒体的好方法，因为它鼓励在校学生们发布有关您学校的真实情况，从而带来更大的曝光率。实现这一点的最简单方法之一是为您的学校创建一个主题标签，并鼓励学生在他们的个人社交媒体上标记您的帐户。然后，您的学校可以通过搜索 # 标签来查找学生内容，然后转发或推广以得到更大曝光。
For example, The University of Manchester created the hashtag #UoMGraduation to promote its graduation ceremony and showcase student experiences of the event. Retweeting those experiences is an easy way to generate more activity on your accounts.
例如，曼彻斯特大学创建了主题标签#UoMGraduation，以宣传其毕业典礼并展示学生对该活动的体验。转发这些学生发表的体验是在您的帐户上生成更多内容的简便方法。
Developing a strong student presence across your school’s social media accounts will also help to create a more authentic community experience. Users can see that your school has an active student body, one that they want to get involved in themselves. According to Valentin, student testimonials are a great way to share some real success stories with your audience and a simple way to motivate new applicants.
在学校的社交媒体帐户中建立活跃的学生形象也将有助于创造更真实的社区体验。用户可以看到您的学校拥有一个活跃的学生团体，他们希望自己参与其中。根据Valentin的说法，学生对学校的推荐是与观众分享一些真正成功故事的好方法，也是获得更多新申请人的简单方法。
For example, Oxford College created the Instagram series “Happy Students” to celebrate the successes of its student body. This is a chance to engage prospects with more personal accounts that inspire them to follow suit.
例如，牛津大学创建了Instagram系列推文“快乐学生”，以庆祝其学生团体的成功。这是一个与潜在学生接触更多学生个人帐户的机会，这些学生个人帐户可以激励潜在学生们去效仿。
To take some of the work off, consider incorporating social media takeovers. These are a chance for students to take the stage on your social media accounts and boost your school’s online presence. Social media takeovers can be used to share the experiences of individual students, clubs, campus events and more. Each post can help to engage users in an authentic first-person narrative of life at your school. TikTok is particularly well-suited to student takeovers and a valuable platform for engaging Gen Z prospects.
为了减少一些工作，请考虑与学生的社交媒体账户的合作。这些是学生在您的社交媒体帐户上登台的机会，并提升您学校的线上形象。社交媒体合作可以是分享个别学生，俱乐部，校园活动等的经历。每篇帖子都有助于让用户参与到学校生活的真实第一人称叙述中。TikTok特别适合学生发挥，也是吸引Z世代潜在学生的宝贵平台。
For example, the TikTok below is led by a University of Melbourne student and takes users through a typical day on campus. After capturing interest with a quick virtual tour, the post encourages users to take the next step in registering for the university’s upcoming Open Day.
例如，下面的TikTok由墨尔本大学的学生领导，带领用户在校园里度过常规的一天。在通过快速虚拟游览引起兴趣后，该帖子鼓励用户采取下一步措施——注册即将到来的大学开放日。
Posts like these help to boost your school’s social media accounts with unique and personalized content. Through compelling narratives, you can build your brand identity while giving prospective students the chance to make that initial connection with your school community.
像这样的帖子有助于以独特和个性化的内容改善您的学校的社交媒体账户。通过引人注目的叙述，您可以建立您的品牌形象，同时让潜在的学生有机会与您的学校社区建立初步联系。
Monitor Accounts for Comments and Feedback
监测账户的评论和反馈
Engagement doesn’t end with content creation. In fact, many schools make the mistake of posting content and leaving it at that. To boost your social media presence, you need to meet users halfway and take every opportunity to open a dialogue with them. Remember, communication is a two-way street, so take the time to listen and respond to your audiences.
参与并不以内容创作为终点。事实上，许多学校都犯了一个错误，即发布内容后就不了了之。为了提高您的社交媒体影响力，您需要满足用户的需求，并利用一切机会与他们展开对话。记住，沟通是双向的，所以要花时间倾听和回应您的受众。
When you post content on your social media accounts, monitor the comments and respond to them in a timely manner. Whether it’s a question from a prospect or a concern from a parent, by interacting with each comment, you nurture that organic engagement.
当您在您的社交媒体账户上发布内容时，监测评论并及时回应他们。无论是来自潜在学生的问题还是来自家长的担忧，通过与每条评论互动，您可以培养这种有机的参与。
Direct responses also help users to feel that your school is invested in the comments and concerns of its student body. If they see that you’re listening, they’re more likely to engage.
直接回复也有助于用户感受到您的学校对其学生群体的评论和关注的重视。如果他们看到您在倾听，他们就更有可能参与进来。
Schedule Posts to Engage Prospects at the Right Time
计划帖子，在正确的时间吸引潜在学生
Timing plays a key role in social media engagement. A good social media strategy for schools requires an understanding of user behaviour – and not just what they want to see but when they are most likely to see it. Take into consideration your target audience. How old are they? Are you trying to attract local or international applicants? By paying attention to factors like time zones and peak social media hours for different age groups, you can create a posting schedule that will deliver content to the right users at the right time.
时机在社交媒体参与中起着关键作用。一个好的学校社交媒体战略需要了解用户行为--不仅是他们想看“什么”，而且是他们最可能看到的“时间”。要考虑到您的目标受众：他们的年龄有多大？您是想吸引本地还是国际申请人？通过关注时区和不同年龄段的社交媒体高峰期等因素，您可以创建一个发布时间表，在正确的时间向正确的用户提供内容。
As the data below shows, each audience and each platform are different.
如下图所示，每个平台的受众群体习惯都是不同的。
Above all, consistency is key. While you don’t want to make the mistake of bombarding your followers with new content, frequent posting is an essential practice to keep social media accounts active and maintain a strong following. Nowadays, users see tons of content on their social media feeds. By making a regular appearance, you create more opportunities for people to notice your content and engage with it.
最重要、最关键的是持续性。您应该不想不断地用新内容轰炸关注者首页的，但频繁发贴实际是保持社交媒体帐户活跃并保证充足关注者的必要做法。如今，用户需要在他们的社交媒体首页上看到大量内容。通过定期更新，您可以为人们创造更多机会来注意到您的内容并与之互动。
Developing a schedule for your social media accounts is a practical way to ensure consistency. To make this process even easier, take advantage of scheduling tools to plan and prep posts in advance. Marketing automation tools such as HubSpot or HootSuite allow you to schedule posts in bulk across platforms like Facebook, Twitter and Instagram. You can use one system to distribute content according to the best practices of each site. With these scheduling tools, your school can organize its social media campaigns and stay on track to better engagement across each account.
为您的社交媒体账户制定一个时间表是确保持续性的一个实用方法。为了使这一过程更加容易，利用调度工具来提前计划和准备帖子。营销自动化工具，如HubSpot或HootSuite，允许您在Facebook、Twitter和Instagram等平台上批量安排帖子。您可以使用一个系统，根据每个网站的最佳时间来发布内容。有了这些调度工具，您的学校可以组织它的社交媒体活动，并在每个账户上保持良好的活跃度。
Track Engagement Across Your School’s Accounts
跟踪学校帐户的用户参与度
If you want to know how to promote a school on social media effectively, you need to know how your current efforts are performing. After all, social media engagement revolves around measurable interactions on a post or page, such as the likes, shares or comments it receives. So start by running a social media audit and tracking your school’s social performance across each account.
如果您想知道如何在社交媒体上有效地推广一所学校，您需要知道您目前的努力表现如何。毕竟，社交媒体的参与是围绕着一个帖子或页面上可衡量的互动，比如它收到的点赞、分享或评论。因此，首先要进行社交媒体审计，跟踪您的学校在每个账户上的社交表现。
There are numerous tools your school can use to evaluate its social media campaigns. Social media platforms like Facebook have their own built-in analytics tools which offer insights into how your posts are performing. This allows you to measure your social media engagement in terms of likes, comments, reactions, shares, retweets, click-through rates and more.
您的学校可以使用许多工具来评估其社交媒体活动。像Facebook这样的社交媒体平台有自己的内置分析工具，可以深入了解您的帖子是如何表现的。这使您能够在点赞、评论、触达、分享、转发、点击率等方面衡量您的社交媒体参与度。
You can also opt to go with a third-party tool that is designed specifically for social media management. If you already use HubSpot or HootSuite for social media scheduling, consider making full use of these tools by using them to monitor social performance as well. For example, HubSpot allows you to track engagement and compare results across social media channels.
您也可以选择使用专门为社交媒体管理设计的第三方工具。如果您已经使用HubSpot或HootSuite进行社交媒体调度，可以考虑充分利用这些工具，把它们也用来监测社交表现。例如，HubSpot允许您跟踪参与，并比较各社交媒体渠道的结果。
When you can see what kind of content is generating high levels of engagement, you can adapt your social media strategy for the future. If you’re seeing low engagement, reconsider the kind of content you’re putting out.
当您能看到什么样的内容能够带来高活跃的参与度，您就可以为未来调整您的社交媒体战略。如果您看到参与度低，请重新考虑您推出的内容种类。
For example, the University of Bristol created a series of tweets to promote their support for the new Climate Action campaign. The post on the right offers a link to a blog post and received only 3 Retweets and 10 Likes. On the other hand, the post on the left features a short video with strong graphics that resulted in much higher levels of engagement.
例如，布里斯托尔大学创建了一系列的推特，以促进他们对新的气候行动运动的支持。右边的帖子提供了一个博客文章的链接，只收到3个转发和10个赞。另一方面，左边的帖子以一个短视频为特色，配以强烈的图形，导致了更高的参与水平。
If you’re seeing that one form of content performs much better than the other, your social media strategy should reflect that moving forward.
如果您看到一种形式的内容比另一种形式的表现好得多，您的社交媒体战略就应该反映出这一点，继续朝这个方向前进。
Boost Your Posts With Paid Ads
用付费广告推广您的帖子
In a context where social media are saturated with content from all over, paid advertising is an effective way to reach a target audience quickly. Boosting a blog, for example, increases the chances that it will be read and that the audience will leave comments. Boosting a post you create on Instagram or Facebook is a great way to reach a broader audience. When you boost a post on social media, you pay the platform to amplify your post so it shows up as a sponsored post on your audience’s feed.
在社交媒体被来自各处的内容所饱和的情况下，付费广告是快速接触目标受众的有效方式。例如，推广一个博客的关注度，可以增加它被阅读的机会，而且让受众留下评论。推广您在Instagram或Facebook上创建的帖子是接触更多受众的好方法。当您在社交媒体上发表一个帖子时，您付钱给平台来放大您的帖子，这样它就会在您的受众的反馈中显示为一个赞助帖子。
You can choose whether your advertising goal is more profile visits, website traffic or messages. You can also choose which platforms to invest in depending on your target audience. If you’re trying to reach prospective university students, TikTok is where to place your ads. Parents, on the other hand, are most likely to engage with content on Facebook.
您可以选择您的广告目标是更多的资料访问、网站流量还是信息传播。您还可以根据您的目标受众，选择投资哪些平台。如果您想接触潜在的大学生，TikTok就是您投放广告的最佳场合。另一方面，父母最有可能参与Facebook上的内容。
Ultimately, social media platforms have huge potential to pique the interest of prospective students and drive conversions. Once you focus on maximizing their features and delivering content that generates a reaction, your school will be on its way to building a more active and engaging social media presence.
最后，社交媒体平台有巨大的潜力来激发潜在学生的兴趣并推动转化。一旦您专注于最大限度地利用它们的功能，并提供能产生反应的内容，您的学校就会在建立一个更积极、更有吸引力的社会媒体存在的道路上前进。