Social media marketing of Australia’s G8 universities

A few days ago I accidentally clicked into the homepages of University of New Sales Wales for an offer extension. What appealed me was to find that there is some social media linkage on UNSW’s homepage, one is Twitter and the other is RSS feed. 

Out of curiosity, I searched all the homepage of Australia’s G8 universities. Very interestingly, there are great differences in social media marketing among the eight universities. Here is a comparative table I have made.

G8 universities	SMM links on home page	SMM links descriptions	SM No.	SMM types	Score (1-5) on SMM
Adelaide	√	1.      large icons 2.      distinct at a glance 3.      double hints with both big and small icons 4.      show followers of its Facebook and Twitter in detail	9	Facebook, LinkedIn, Youtube, Twitter, RSS, Flickr, Blogs, FourSquare, Vime,	5
Monash	√	1.      large icons 2.      distinct at a glance 3.      show followers of its Facebook a little bit in detail	5	Facebook, Twitter, Flickr, Youtube, LinkedIn	4
ANU	√	1.      relatively small icons 2.      not obvious because in the corner of the page	4	Twitter, Facebook, Youtube, iTunes U	3
UNSW	√	1.      relatively small icoms 2.      relatively obvious because  color contrast and in the middle of the page	2	Twitter, RSS	2
Mel U	√	1.      extremely small icons 2.      extremely unobvious because color in black	1	/	1
USYD	×	/	/	/	0
UQ	×	/	/	/	0
UWA	×	/	/	/	0

(Although the last three universities may have some social media for marketing themselves, but there are no links in their university-homepages. You can see all of G8 universities' homepages and compare them.)

In my opinion, we have already stepped into an era for universities to marketing with social media. Universities are constantly exploring new ways to use social media to fulfill their missions of engaging and sharing knowledge with their constituents. It is obvious that this new trend brings a new competition for brand building and reputation gaining among G8 universities in Australia. There is no doubt that social media brings a new platform for universities’ marketing. Instead of focusing their attention on promoting information to mainstream media, the public affairs offices of some universities are using the power of social media to engage the community directly. In many cases, social media tools like Facebook Pages have given universities an opportunity to speak to audiences on their own, reaching thousands of people interested in keeping up with news at the school and connecting with others on the social network.

There are 8 highlights of how universities are using social media for marketing, although some are not conducted by these social media pioneers of G8 universities in Australia.

1.      Gathering and sharing information

2.      Showcasing student and faculty work

3.      Providing a platform to broadcast event

4.      Connecting people

5.      Producing, not just promoting

6.      Creating a dialogue and communicating to students

7.      Coaching for the spotlight

8.      Emergency notification

The above table proves once again that Monash is exactly good at Marketing, I am so proud of our university. But from my view, there is still some further enhancement need to be developed by our university’s Marketing Department, comparing with Adelaide’s homepage and other world famous universities’ in the social media marketing area.

What do you think about it? Agree with me?