Margie Barkley: South West College Transforms Its Marketing for Higher Education Using Agorapulse

South West College is an educational institution that caters to students of all ages. The college has a wide range of students from young vocational students to GCSE/A-level students. It offers a large selection of courses, including professional certificates and higher education programs. South West College, with a mission to create a strong community and stay in touch with students as well as support major marketing campaigns, recognized the need for robust social media management.

This case study examines how Agorapulse – an award winning social media management tool – helped South West College overcome its challenges. Agorapulse helps South West College reach its marketing goals for higher education while offering exceptional value in comparison to other college social media tools.

Social Media and Higher Education Marketing: A Challenge for Higher Education Marketing

South West College encountered several challenges in managing its social media presence. South West College’s small team was responsible for managing multiple social media accounts. Maintaining an efficient workflow became increasingly difficult.

The college also wanted to ensure that their limited resources are optimized by finding a platform for social media management that was the most cost-effective. The platform selected would also need to integrate into South West College’s social media strategy, and help them achieve their overall marketing goals for higher education.

Social Media Marketing for Higher Education: Goals

South West College, an educational institution which uses social media to support their digital marketing strategy deemed it essential to find a tool that could help them achieve these goals.

1. Building community. South West College wanted to create a community on their four campuses, while also keeping students, faculty, and alumni engaged through meaningful and relevant content. 2. Stay in touch. The college wanted to keep their audience up-to-date on important events, such as open days, updates to courses, and success stories. 3. Supporting bigger marketing campaigns. South West College uses the social media to support and promote its marketing strategy.

Troy Prenter is the Marketing Manager of South West College. He recalled the evolution of the college’s social media efforts and their other marketing efforts in higher education over the years. The college’s marketing strategy was initially centered on local press and newspapers, but gradually moved to Facebook and other channels.

Troy started working with interns as the social media demands grew. Troy realized that the team needed a more robust system to manage the growing number of social media channels.

Troy says, “As social networks took hold and college requirements and audience reach changed, I began to realize I needed additional assistance. I began to research other solutions.” “I came across Agorapulse at that time.”

Searching for Social Media Management Tools in Higher Education Marketing

South West College chose Agorapulse after evaluating other options, such as Hootsuite or Sprout Social. Agorapulse was chosen because of its reputation as a tool that offers a wide range of features in an intuitive and user-friendly interface at a reasonable cost.

Troy also values the support offered by Agorapulse. They can be relied on to assist him if any issues arise.

Troy noticed that Agorapulse has been adding new features to their product and continuously improving it over the years. They have also continued to evolve to meet changing user needs. This shows Agorapulse’s commitment to customer service and innovation.

Troy says, “It is the rate that Agorapulse constantly tweaks the software. It almost feels like it’s every day or every other day.”

“You’re not satisfied with your work, you are always looking for ways to improve it.” SaaS software has that advantage, I think. But I also have other accounts, and I don’t just use the software for marketing. “Agorapulse is the only one that seems to have been updated regularly.”

Troy was looking for a tool that would allow him to manage his social media accounts in college. He also had a few other requirements.

Social media management tool requirements

1. Best value for money. South West College wanted a tool for managing social media that was cost-effective, but also offered the best value. Agorapulse was a better value than other tools initially because it offered a user-friendly platform and many features to manage multiple social media accounts.

2. Onboarding is seamless. South West College needed a tool that was intuitive and easy to use, as some users had no experience with social media management software. Agorapulse’s simple interface and design helped new team members to easily onboard, even if they were unfamiliar with social media tools.

3. Productivity increased. South West College searched for a solution to help their social media team work more effectively and efficiently. Agorapulse simplified the social media management by allowing all accounts to be in one place, saving time and increasing productivity.

Effective College Social Media Management

The college’s social media management improved significantly after Agorapulse was implemented.

South West College used Agorapulse to streamline their workflow.

Social Media Publishing

They can plan and schedule their content in advance. This ensures a consistent presence online across all platforms. This also allows them to experiment with different content formats such as video, which they could use in their marketing strategy for higher education.

This feature is especially useful during periods of high activity, like recruitment and admission campaigns. This allows the team to publish engaging content on their social media channels even when they need to focus on another marketing activity.

Agorapulse is perfect for marketing teams in higher education, as there are no limits to how many posts can be published or scheduled.

Social Media Inbox

Inbox became a central hub to manage incoming messages, questions, and comments from various social media channels. The team can quickly and efficiently respond to social media communications by consolidating them in one location. The Social Media Inbox allows the team to increase engagement with college students, and ensure that nothing is missed.

The team also sped up the response time to students’ frequently asked questions, especially during times of high demand, like the first week of class.

Social Media Inbox lets you see all of your social media messages in one place. This improves workflow and allows for quicker responses.

Social Media Reporting

The reporting features of Agorapulse proved to be invaluable for South West College in measuring the success and effectiveness of their social media campaigns. The detailed reports gave insights into key metrics like reach, engagement and click-through rate. Troy and his team could then evaluate their performance, make data-driven marketing decisions for the future and prove ROI of their social marketing efforts.

Read this article: Social Media Reporting – What you need to know right now

If I’m trying to convince the management which posts aren’t working…I can use data from Agorapulse and it gives me this backup when I go in to a meeting. Without the data provided by Agorapulse, I wouldn’t be able to have that confidence in knowing that I can change people’s perceptions and how we do things.

pproval workflows

South West College was able to maintain quality control of their social media content with the approval workflows. The approval workflow ensured the content was approved by the college before it went live.

Screenshot of Agorapulse Approval Workflows for Higher Education Marketing

Agorapulse allows you to assign a review of a post to one or more users. You can also leave comments to discuss any changes you need to make.

Labels

Agorapulse’s labeling system allowed the team members to organize and categorize content by campaigns or themes. This feature simplified content management, and allowed the team to easily track and analyze different campaigns.

Seamless social media management for higher education marketing

The user-friendly interface of Agorapulse and the seamless onboarding made it easy for the team to adopt the platform and begin using it effectively.

The value offered by Agorapulse was also above expectations. South West College, despite the availability of cheaper alternatives, realized that Agorapulse was the best solution for the long-term due to its comprehensive features, time saving capabilities and overall usability.

In conclusion

South West College was able to reach their strategic goals for social media marketing by implementing Agorapulse. The college was able to create a strong sense of community with their students, teachers, and local residents. They communicated effectively important information about events and open days.

Agorapulse also continues to play an important role in supporting marketing campaigns including recruitment and admissions marketing, as well as building the curriculum for colleges each year.

South West College’s overall experience with Agorapulse showed how the right social-media management tool can revolutionize digital marketing strategies for higher education. Social media efforts of educational institutions. The college used Agorapulse to meet their goals, overcome challenges, and improve their workflow.

It sounds good, right?

Why not try it out? To learn more about how Agorapulse will help you to create social content that resonates with both students and alumni, book a demo today.