Zoe Fox's Mashable article, "4 Ways Non-Profits Can Jump Into Google+" and my growing Google+ experiences helped me consider three ways colleges and universities may consider using Google+ when group pages are enabled:
1. Engage and Convert with a Hangout
Create a Hangout that features a superstar faculty member, distinguished alumnus, financial aid officer or industry expert. Invite a group of prospects, applied/not registered adult students, or stakeholder groups like parents to attend.
Make sure the content is valuable and relevant to your audience and that your featured VIP is an engaging draw. You or one of your recruiters may want to host and moderate the Hangout. Make sure there are ample opportunities for participants to ask questions. And follow up with Hangout attendees and those who can't attend by sharing slides, an executive summary or a white paper on the Hangout topic.
2. Use a Hangout and Circles to Organize and Motivate “Deputized” Recruiters
Two things most colleges have in common -- recruiting offices are understaffed and their campuses are filled with potential ad hoc recruiters, if they could only be effectively organized.
Program coordinators, faculty members, and academic division front-line staff all play an important role in recruiting students. Hangouts and Circles can keep these folks informed, organized and motivated. Different from just emailing updates out to a group list, Google+ encourages dialogue and information sharing. And often it's as important to get information and updates from your "volunteer" recruiters as it is to push it out to them.
Consider a twice-monthly coffee-talk Hangout with faculty and staff who have the potential to impact recruitment. Seed the first Hangout by visiting each office a few days in advance with an invitation and a bag of gourmet coffee or a Starbucks gift card.
These tactics would also work for recruitment teams that have offices at satellite campuses or even for tight-knit, co-located recruiters who are too busy for a traditional status meeting.
3. Replace or Augment High-Demand Information Sessions with a Tightly Focused Hangout
Our college routinely draws 200-300 people to its health care information sessions. Add another 100-200 RSVP no-shows and it's clear we need additional experiences to keep prospects motivated and engaged.
Invite no-shows to a Hangout hosted by program coordinators, current students, employers and alumni. Use Hangout events as a follow up for prospects on a waiting list for a popular program. Create Circles for each program to share trend information, program news, coming events and to field questions.
It Starts with the Circle
Of course, institutions will need to build their Google+ presence before they can accomplish any of these goals. If Google+ becomes a part of your recruitment strategy, then active communication and promotion that your college delivers great content and valuable experiences via Google+ is vital. Seed invitations for prospects and other key audiences to engage with you on Google+ in all your recruitment communication.
4 Things To Do While You Wait
1. If you're not already active, get on Google+ and encourage your recruitment team members to do the same. Build your Circles and host a Hangout, even if it's around a topic of personal interest, so you become comfortable in the Google+ space.
2. Use your institution's existing social media channels, like Facebook to find out how students and prospects are using Google+ or if they plan to start.
3. Begin to map out your phase-one Google+ strategy. Start by imaging how Google+ can add value to something you already do -- in our case how it may advance our health care info sessions.
4. And as Fox points out in her article, you don't have to wait for Google+ to enable group and institutional pages to launch these strategies. If you or one of your recruiters is active on Google+, you may host these types of experiences through a personal account. While you may be uncomfortable with this approach, Circles makes it more viable to use Google+ in a less messy, more focused way from a personal account, when compared to Facebook.
I'm confident Google will present organizations with opportunities to engage prospects and customers via Google+. Unlike Facebook and Twitter that caught many colleges and universities in a reactive mode, you have the opportunity with Google+ to think and plan proactively about ways this channel might have relevance for your recruitment initiatives, and most importantly, your critical audiences.
What do you think? How are you currently using Google+? When you think about opportunities for institutional pages, how do you see your college using Google+ for student recruitment? Share your thoughts, ideas and questions.
