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This last week was a busy one at the Council. We hosted nearly 150 college presidents here in DC from all over the world to talk about the critical issues their campuses are facing.

I had an opportunity to lead a panel discussion on using social media to recruit students and strengthen campus community. One of the distinctives of a private college is the emphasis on community – among students and between students and faculty. This factor uniquely positions Christian institutions to take advantage of social media. It only makes sense for a campus that values relationship-building to provide a tool-set that strengthens these relationships online.

Overall, I was pleased with the conversations that took place in our breakout session. The presidents quickly saw the relevancy of social media for their own institutions, and were asking the right kind of questions to either implement or further their online efforts.

Gary Colen of Amp, is presenting his work with introducing Helio to college students.

No surprise here, but WOM is the most trusted form of marketing on campus, with 57% reporting it as being most influential to their purchase decisions.

Amp introduced Helio by developing a WOM campus influencer program by deploying brand experts on 21 campuses, who had received extensive training about Helio and the wireless industry.

The program utilized four components: product seeding, product events, grassroots mareketing and product modeling. Nothing outside the ordinary here, but I like how they weaved it into music and “memory making” events.

Colen’s suggestions for campus campaigns:

1. Identify highly-targeted consumer base
2. Accessible information
3. Easy pass-along mechanism
4. Relevant messaging
   1. Emotional, Topical, Entertaining, Accessible, Authentic
5. Use the right tools:
   1. Give freedom to the influencers, once engaged, to propagate the message through their social network
   2. Online/Wireless/Offline: enable for customization
   3. Rewards: make immediately accessible and of true value
   4. Measurement: track activities and feedback through surveys and online communications