Stamats Insights

 Social media remains an important engagement tool for your audience. Mariah Obiedzinski speaks with Top 100 Digital Health Influencer Jared Johnson about some best practices when utilizing live media channels. Included is the Social Media Live Checklist to download to make sure you don't miss any steps. 

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Crisis communication in the digital age is complex. In this podcast, Christoph Trappe, Sandra Fancher, and Andrew Rohlf from Stamats discuss tips for higher ed organizations to ensure sensitivity to crisis events and turn potentially negative industry news into positive, trustworthy digital and real-world experiences.

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Find out how demand generation can take your institution’s lead generation program several steps further with a more holistic approach that improves yield. Stamats’ vice president Randy Burge speaks with Mariah Obiedzinski, director of content services, about this important process.

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Find out how demand generation can take your institution’s lead generation program several steps further with a more holistic approach that improves yield. Stamats’ vice president Randy Burge speaks with Mariah Obiedzinski, director of content services, about this important process.

With over 260 million active users every month, brands of all shapes and sizes have no excuse for ignoring the professional social platform LinkedIn. That being said, it's important to understand the different means of engagement that LinkedIn offers. Whether just starting out or a power-user, one key area seems to mystify many on LinkedIn; pages versus groups. Choosing the right one for your brand can mean all the difference for growing followers.

I'm Michael Leonard. This is Stamats Insights.

LinkedIn currently hosts over 26 million companies, and many of them no doubt asked the same question we're about to when first creating their company presence. "Should we choose a page or set up a group?" This might sound easy but I've spent enough time and seen enough examples during my stay on LinkedIn to know that it's not.

So, which is it?

It's important to understand the purpose of each choice.

Groups are meant to serve as a public forum. Anyone can request to join a group and, once approved, can post anything they want. You might see the problem with this right away. While groups provide a vital space for open discussion, that's not always the healthiest option for a brand. Limited moderation tools mean that steering the content is nearly impossible. There's nothing stopping these groups from snowballing into thousands of users; some of which are well-disguised bots that, once approved, can post anything just like anyone else.

A good example of this was on a group I moderated with a niche following. The same issue developed every day. A brand new article published on the company's site and, upon preparing an announcement for the group, I would notice dozens of spam posts that had accumulated the day before.

On the other side of the spectrum, pages serve as an official brand platform within LinkedIn. Only those that are granted permission can post new content, while maintaining the ability for followers to engage through commenting, liking, and sharing. Pages provide analytics for new visitors, post impressions, follower growth, and even analytics for each individual post. 

The networking capabilities shine on a company page, and that's what social is all about after all. The ability to tag individuals as well as other company pages opens up a realm of new possibilities. With groups, only individuals can be tagged, meaning that collaboration or sharing with other companies is limited.

Pages also offer a wide variety of customization, ranging from small to vital. Custom banners appear at the top of the page. Admins can assign hashtags for the page that help potential followers discover the brand. And you can change the image, title, or description of links that you share.

Unless there is a security breach, logging on for the day will never result in precious time being wasted on moderation.

The correct answer to our question is that any respectable brand will have a company page. Brands with time and resources will then find a way to incorporate groups as a secondary means of growing their following.

Once again, I'm Michael Leonard and this has been Stamats Insights. Make sure to read our guide 'How to Build Your Higher Ed Social Media Brand' on stamats.com. Let us know what you think about LinkedIn on Twitter or LinkedIn @stamats, or Facebook @stamatsinc.

 On March 12, prosecutors from the Department of Justice charged 50 people with crimes ranging from fraud to racketeering as part of a larger conspiracy to cheat and bribe their children into elite colleges across the country.

According to an article in the New York Times, the massive investigation involved over 200 Department of Justice agents in 6 states. Many of the defendants are celebrities who are accused of plotting to buy college admissions for undeserving students.

Admissions staff in higher education can expect a wave of concerns and questions from parents and current and prospective students. Becky Morehouse, Senior Vice President for Client Services at Stamats, has been working with college and university admissions offices for more than 25 years. Becky says having a crisis communication plan is crucial for college and university admissions teams to answer these questions and instill trust in their institutions. She shares strategic recommendations for admissions teams in this week’s Higher Ed Voices podcast. Listen now.

It’s yield season! For many in higher education, this is the time when you shift focus from generating and reading applications to convincing admitted students to enroll. It’s a time filled with events, direct outreach to admitted students, and the all-important enrollment deposit reports.

Yield is a complicated animal; the factors that influence a student to choose College A over College B are as varied as the students themselves. It is essential, therefore, for admissions professionals to know why admitted students chose to go somewhere else. In our experience, surveying these students with a non-matriculant study is one of the most – if not THE most – valuable research projects a college can do every year or two.

Digital analyst Andrew Rohlf and chief content director Christoph Trappe review research in this podcast that evaluates 1 million ad impressions on Facebook. Andrew reports that Facebook Messenger ads are currently performing extremely well, with a higher click-through rate and at a lower cost.

In this episode, you’ll hear Christoph and Andrew discuss ways you can maximize this strategy now.

A 2018 report from the Jack Kent Cook Foundation explored the number of transfer students enrolling at 4-year colleges and universities in the US. The researchers found that just 5% of new students at colleges considered to be “most competitive” transfer in from community colleges.

Colleges are missing out on an opportunity to not only increase their graduation rates, but also the diversity of their programs. Grant De Roo joins Mariah Obiedzinski to discuss.

Medical schools can join forces with active social media leaders from within their organizations to grow the school’s brand and encourage more active, relevant engagement across multiple audiences. Jared Johnson, a top 100 digital health influencer, podcaster and keynote speaker who spent his entire 16-year career in healthcare and education joins us to discuss the benefits, when to centralize the brand message, and managing expectations.