Using Social Network Sites for Higher Education Marketing and Recruitment

Natalia Rekhter* Lincoln College, USA

ABSTRACT This papers objective is to research how the rapid penetration of Social Network Sites (SNSs) into everyday life affects higher education marketing. Among unique features offered by SNSs are unprecedented trackability of students interests, immediacy in responses, targeted personalization of marketing efforts, and low institutional financial obligations. Growth in Internet Penetration Rates and strong international SNSs membership suggests further globalization of marketing strategies and inclusion of lower income countries into targeted markets. Concerns associated with the use of SNSs include dearth of fluency in the sites content and operation among admission personnel, lack in users privacy and absence of control over the content. The skyrocketing evolution of SNSs surpasses the corresponding research as does application of SNSs for higher education marketing. As the result, this qualitative study had to draw information from the variety of secondary sources including blogs, web reports, group discussions, comments, forums, videos, etc. Keywords: Social Networks, Social Media, Internet Penetration Rate, Higher Education, Marketing, Recruitment, Internationals Students INTRODUCTION During the first decade of the 21 century social media or social networking -the terms are often used interchangeably- which is, in crude summary, a socializing and networking online through words, pictures, and videos (Reuben, 2008, p.1) or a mass democratization of information (Bennett, 2011, slide 13) became an integral part of many peoples daily routine. Nielsen Online, an analytics firm that tracks social network activities, estimates the reach of social media to be over 700 million active users from all over the world with 212,001,960 users being between ages of 16 and 25 (Bennett, 2011). Availability of hyper-connections and constant communications have been fast and furiously changing the way all population groups, but particularly teenagers and young adults are acquiring, processing, analyzing, and reacting on information. The 16-24 year olds of today are constantly connected-plugged into digital music devices, cell phones, the Internet, instant messengers and social networks, perhaps all in the same device (Barnes & Mattson, 2010, p.1). Colleges and universities are quickly recognizing the
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growing power of social networks and seem to change their marketing strategies to response to the needs of their audience. The above observation determines the goal of this paper which is to investigate the role of technology in the form of Social Networks or Social Media as part the new trends in marketing higher education domestically and internationally. First, Ill explore definition, historic development, and the use of Social Networks and Social Media for marketing of higher education. Second, Ill examine how the use of Social Network Sites is being influenced by the different world regions and countries Internet Penetration Rates and these countries Gross Domestic Products. Third, Ill investigate concerns and barriers associated with the use Social Networks and Social Media. Finally, the evaluation of how these complex variables can be used, and are being used, to support the access of international students to the HIEs in the U.S. will take placed. USE OF SOCIAL NETWROKS Expansion of Social Networks into Higher Education In the years 2007 and 2008 there were two nationwide comprehensive studies conducted analyzing responses of representatives from 453 and 536 admission offices respectively from all the four-year accredited HEIs in the United States regarding this professionals use of social networks for recruitment of domestic and international students (Barnes & Mattson, 2010). The first study revealed that HEIs are surpassing Fortune 500 companies as well as Inc.500 companies in their use of social media to communicate with their customers (i.e. students) (Barnes & Mattson, 2010, p.2). This observation seemed logical taking into account the audience HEIs serve. The study taken in 2008 confirmed this finding and also emphasized growing familiarity of admission officers with social networking: 63% of admission officers were very familiar with social media in 2008, 8% increase compare to 55% a year before. Also, from 26% to 47% of these professionals were familiar with specific forms of social networking, such as videoblogging, blogging, podcasting, message boards, and Wiki. Additionally, 85% of respondents of the survey administered in 2008 admitted using at least one form of social media, a 24% increase compare to the year 2007. Barnes and Mattson (2010) insisted that the adoption of social media by admission departments is being driven by familiarity and their recognition of the increasingly important role of social media in todays world. In July 2008, Rachel Reuben (2008) sent surveys to higher education professionals who subscribed to the uweb, HighEdWeb and SUNY CUADnet listservs regarding their universitys use of social media (p.4). Once researchers removed duplicate answers, they found that there were 148 unique schools responding to the survey (p. 4). Of those responded, 53.79% reported having a Facebook page and 21.9% a MySpace page, just over half have an official presence on YouTube and nearly 60% have some forms of blogs on their sites (p.5). Most of the respondents reported that they
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use social media for marketing, for communicating with current students, to reach out to alumni, and for recruitment (p.6). National Association of International Educators (NAFSA) during its recent collegiate conversation Using Social Media for International Recruitment that was conducted live on May 19, 2011, identified that 76% of this web event participants use one or more social media platforms to reach international students (NAFSA, 2011, p.1) and 56% of participants confirmed that their use of social media platform is part of a larger strategic plan for international student outreach (NAFSA, 2011, p.4). Definition There is a seeming abundance of opinions connected with defining the phenomena called social network or social media; a simple Google search yielded 17,000,000 results within .19 seconds. There are descriptions provided by Wikipedia, different dictionaries, and self-proclaimed subjects gurus; there are publications debating the nature of these definitions, discussions about differences and similarities between social media and social networking, studies of major components of social media, views presented by members as well as users and creators of different social groups, and plethora of other topics and themes. While this public discourse could have become a separate study, for the purpose of this work I would adhere to definition created by scientists with the established reputations in the field. Cheryl Coyle and Heather Vaughn (2008) from Bell Labs Human Factor group describe social network as a configuration of people connected to one another through interpersonal means such as friendship, common interests, or ideas (p.13). Their description is clear, but it doesnt sound contemporary: people had always been using different forms of social networking. The appearance of computers and Internet, although, allowed individuals to make connections with groups they, otherwise, would have no or very limited opportunity to ever connect. In light of that observation, definition, or rather an explanation, created by Danah Boyd, from University of California-Berkeley, and Nicole Ellison, from Michigan State University (2007), sounds more encompassing. They use the term Social Network Sites (SNSs) which they define as web-based services that allow individuals to (1) construct a public or semiprivate profile within a bounded system, (2) articulate a list of other users with whom they share a connection, and (3) view and traverse their list of connections and those made by others within the system (p.211). The authors also warn against using the word networking, because networking is not the primary practice on many of them (SNSs), nor is it what differentiates them from other forms of computer-mediated communication (p.211). The above attempt seems to be the most focused and inclusive. First, it addresses the debate about whether or not social networking represents one aspect of social media or social media represents one aspect of social networking (Falls, 2008; Cavazza, 2008). Second, it implies the use
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of visible profiles, reveals public display of connections, ability for interactions, and capacity to target specific ethnic, religious, professional, sexually orientated, political, age-related, linguistic, or other identity-driven groups (Boyd & Ellison, 2008)- all the features that are being associated with the social network sites. History of SNSs and Higher Education Institutions The history of SNSs starts in 1997 when the SixDegrees.com was launched. It had majority of features that characterized SNS today: allowed users to create profiles, list their friends, and surf the friends lists. However, in 2000 the server closed, largely due to the limitations of the Internet geographic penetration and rather narrow scope of allowed activities (Boyd & Ellison, 2008). The rise of niche SNSs started in 2003 with the launch of MySpace that was largely favored by teenagers, mostly because MySpace targeted music bands, promoted popular clubs, and had a policy that allowed minors to join. Eventually it attracted three distinct populations: musician/artists, teenagers, and the recent post college crowd (Boyd, & Ellison, 2008). Many of these users, primarily older siblings of current Facebook users, are still loyal to MySpace, despite growing Facebook popularity, which allows MySpace to maintain its status as one of the few SNS used by HEIs. Today, MySpace has 185 million registered users ranging in age from 14 to 34 years old. It averages from 39 to 45 billion visits per month (ScottElkin, 2011). Other SNSs that are most popular among HEIs and can be seen almost on every college Website include Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, and blogs. Facebook began in 2004 as Harvard exclusive SNS. Later it expanded into other schools, included high school students, and, eventually, everyone, but managed to maintain an exciting exclusivity- open sign up doesnt provide an easy access to users in closed networks. Facebook creates an opportunity for building Applications, which allows users to personalize their profiles, create schools profiles, share stories and compare preferences. In January of 2008 there were 420 HEIs related Facebook pages that had a college or a university in their name. Seventy three percent of these pages were general marketing pages for the entire school and 14% were connected to sub-groups within the school community (Anonymous, 2008, p.1), such as groups of perspective students, specific university programs, groups connecting students by their ethnicity or country of origin, and similar. People who view HEIs pages on Facebook can become their fans and this creates a viral marketing effect (Reuben, 2008, p.3), when friends inspired by their friends join this specific institution. Facebook also offers organizations the ability to communicate with fans through direct and targeted messages (such as fans in a specific network or age group), and view insights, which includes details statistics on the usage of the organizations page (Reuben, 2008, p.3). According to Facebook statistics, as of 2011, Facebook had approximately 500 million active users of which 50% log on to Facebook daily, average user had 130 friends, 70% of users lived outside of US, and more than 250 million were accessing
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Facebook through their mobile devices. People were spending 700 billion minutes per month on Facebook interacting with pages, groups, events and community groups (Facebook, 2011). On average, over 64% of active Facebook users across the world are between 16 and 25 years old (Bennett, 2011). YouTube - SNS for watching and sharing original videos- was registered in 2005. HEIs have been using promotional videos as part of their marketing strategies starting 20 some years ago with invention of VHSs. YouTube eliminated the cost of creating video cassettes or burning CDs/DVDs, the cost of postage and tremendously widened the audience of potential students. Today YouTube exceeds two billion views a day, Googles automatic speech recognition technology can translate YouTube videos into 51 world languages, 70% of YouTube viewers live outside of US, the YouTube player is embedded across over 10 millions websites (Website Monitoring Blog, 2010). Blogs, another form of SNSs, work like on-line dairies or journals. Most popular use of blogs for marketing purposes by HEIs is to have currently enrolled students blog about their lives on campus One quarter of all college admissions officers use blogs by students or campus personnel (Reuben, 2008, p.4). Twitter is a combination of an instant messaging and blogging that allows users sharing short (140-characters) updates related to their lives. Users can follow their friends, send friends direct messages, reply publically to their updates, and post questions and comments (Reuben, 2008; YouTube, 2011). The total number of Twitter accounts per one U.S. college range from 24 (University of Florida) to one (University of Denver), the average number being 8.4. Over 70% of the top 100 colleges have at least 10 twitter accounts, 7% have 15 accounts. Harvard University has the largest number of Twitter followers- 18,955 people-, while the average number of followers is 1000. College of William and Mary is in the lead of account tracking, tracking 6,056 accounts. Since the purpose of Twitter is obviously to twit, its important to mention its most prolific twitterGeorge Washington University- at almost 58 tweets per day. PERCEIVED EFFECTIVENESS OF SNSS FOR STUDENTS RECRUITMENT SNSs and returned on investment (ROI) Cheryl Darrup-Boychuck, owner and chief international education officer for USjournal, made an attempt to measure ROI of different approaches to international student recruitment, including the use of SNSs. In particular, she compared inbound marketing, in which she includes marketing through SNSs, and traditional or outbound marketing. She asserted that traditional marketing, which includes attending college fairs, development and dissemination of paperless and paper promotional materials, and similar efforts, is less effective because it is aiming at too wide of an audience and because of different obstructions, such as spam filters that block mass emails and tools like RSS that makes print and display advertising less effective (Darrup-Boychuck, 2009, slide 59). In contrary, SNSs have no obstructions and are more focused on specific groups, which, in her estimates, leads to 61% lower cost per student lead (Darrup5

Boychuck, 2009). Besides, with inbound marketing there is no cost differentiation between targeting domestic and international students, while costs of traditional forms of recruitment differ substantially. For instance, using data presented by Baxton and Foley (2009) at the AACRAOs Conference, Darrup-Boychuck demonstrates that the approximate cost of recruiting one in-state student is $200, one out-of-state student is $500, and one international student is $1,000, without including staff salaries. Meanwhile, the cost of online promoting, using pay-per-click or mobile marketing, is $119.50 per any enrolled students regardless of the students countries of origin. The cost of marketing by using SNSs like Facebook is nothing (Darrup-Boychuck, 2009). Additionally, by using SNSs universities can go green and save thousands of dollars in recurrent cost of printing and mailing educational and promotional materials (Hayes, Ruschman, & Walker, 2009). These are encouraging numbers, but, as of today, this type of recruitment could be viewed upon more as complements than a substitute of traditional methods and strategies. Indeed, while wired generation are the major target of recruitment efforts, the decision making power is still largely belongs to parents; and they are consumers of the variety of other, more traditional-outbound-, forms of recruitment and enrollment. SNSs and Monitoring of Students Activities SNSs have a great amount of trackability, which allows admission officers to quickly modify their marketing efforts based on the almost immediate feedback from their targeted audience, which is technologically savvy, demanding and eager to share its opinion. For example, Golder, Wilkinson, and Huberman (2007) reported that they were able to analyze 362 million messages of four million Facebook users for insights into messaging information and friending activity- an immeasurably useful input for understanding and attracting potential students. Also, Spertus, Sahami, and Buyukkokten (2005) identified topology of users through their membership in certain communities; they suggested that sites can use this to recommend additional communities of interest to users (Boyd & Ellison, 2008, p.221). This possibility can increase number of followers and fuel general interest to the specific university. Therefore, trackability can result in targeted recommendations which can create an effect of an early intervention. The idea of early interventions is fueled by the Mazzarol and Soutar (2002) assertions that the decision process through which the internationals student moves when selecting a final study destination appears to involve at least three distinct stages. In stage one the student must decide to study internationally Once the decision to study abroad has been made, the next decision is the selection of a host country (p.85). The trackability of the SNSs can help identifying stage one students, those who had already made a decision to study internationally. The enrollment officers then can help prospect-students in selecting country of interest by channeling them to specific HEIs through the communities of interests or by approaching these students directly.

Eventually, admission officers efforts can become part of the pull factors influencing students decision. Trackability also allows for metrics collection. For example, Xavier Universitys social network site Road to Xavier helped in collecting metrics of freshmen matriculation behavior, which resulted in identifying statistically significant relationships between those who logged into Road to Xavier and the likelihood of them attending the institution. The number of logins positively correlated with the enrollment into the university; the four-year longitudinal study also demonstrated the constant increase in number of logins per future admit and those who actually enrolled into the university. (Hayes, Ruschman, & Walker, 2009). These relationships allow the university to focus their resources on students who demonstrate the greatest propensity to attend. The university also discovers that if the students do not initially log on to the site within the two or three weeks of invitation, they are also less likely to enroll (Hayes, Ruschman, & Walker, 2009, p.120). Twitter offers a tracking tool called TweetStats.com (2011) which gives a powerful opportunity for obtaining number of not just tweets, but topical tweets per year, a month, or even per day, including those related to recruitment issues. For instance, the TweetStats.com can identify the months when admission questions are in their peak, and the admission officers can allocate more time to Twitter pages, during that time. There are also options of seeing a percentage of replies per specific tweet, and the number of topical tweet followers (TweetStats, 2011). This information also makes enrollment efforts more targeted and specific. Tracking tools like Google and Yahoo Alert permit universities to follow students activities. Among other things, these tools offer data regarding academic units reviewed by potential students, students common areas of concerns, geographic locations, hobbies, interests, and even parental involvement (google.com/alert). Instant awareness of what is being said and viewed allows HEIs admission to provide strategic and quick reaction to issues, challenges, and opportunities. SNSs Timeliness and Marketing Personalization The almost unlimited ability of Social Network Sites to track users activities and interests makes enrollment efforts more focused. First of all, it engages potential students and keeps them involved. For instance, if potential students profile indicates that she lives in India, interested in ice-skating and French movies, and wants to attend university on Midwest, Facebook gives her an option to be instantly connected with dozens or hundreds others like her. If one of these friends directs her to the university where he or she studies, it might make this university more attractive; after all these two share interests and culture. Meanwhile, according to the Collegerecruiting.com (2009) website over half of all colleges currently run student blogs Pick a couple of

enthusiastic, innovative students and ask them to write about their life at college Youll be amazed by the impact they have (p.2) and by the strong pull effect of these efforts. Admission offices engage current international students in these types of SNSs activities. These students create their own blogs and tailor their posts to the interests of student-prospects from their countries. Additionally, they can create groups on their regional SNSs, such as, for example, Orkut for South America, or Vkontakte in Russia, making their posts even more targeted and specific. High school juniors and seniors could learn from someone who had recently been experiencing the task of choosing a college. Alumni, in addition to their role of potential donors, can become college ambassadors for the future students. The effect of personalization associated with the SNSs can also assist international students in selection of a host country, which is influenced by the overall availability of information about the potential destination country and the ease with which students could obtain the information,.. and the level of referrals or personal recommendations that the study destination receives from parents, relatives, friends and other gatekeepers (Mazzarol, & Sauter, 2002, p. 85). Social network friends can be the sources of these referrals and recommendations, using posts and conversations to answer prospects questions, to describe processes, and to make connections, overall making personified efforts. Critical timeliness of SNSs allows for posting up-to-the minutes updates, various advices, as well as specific departmental and individual students stories. It can provide immediate responses to questions and concerns, offer encouragement, and celebrate successes. In general, SNSs is a connection tool, similar to the live face-to face conversation. This unique timeliness of SNSs is reflected even in some of the SNSs names. For example, the Russian most popular SNS is called Vkontakte, which literally means staying in contact. PREVALENCE OF SNSs IN OTHER REGIONS AND COUNTRIES SNSs and Internet Penetration Rates (IPRs) Facebook, Twitter, and other SNSs take a rather permanent place in the lives of contemporary US students. Many of college attendees, as well as people of more mature generations, cant imagine their existence without checking their SNSs pages for messages, pictures, and updates. These activities are as much part of our lives as the use of Internet, which essentially allows for the use and the very existence of SNSs. However, something people who live in North America take Internet availability for granted, while this is not a readily available commodity in many parts of the world. Moreover, the effectiveness of SNSs for the Higher Education marketing is heavily connected to the countries specific Internet Penetration Rate (IPR). Therefore, college personnel might find it necessary to assess potential students ability to access Internet and, as the result, SNSs.

Internet World Stats (IWS) records up-to-date internet usage, population statistics, and internet market research data for 233 countries and world regions (Internetworldstats.com, 2011)1. According to IWS (2011), IPR per region, based on the population statistics, is the highest in North America with 78.3% penetration, followed by Oceania/Australia (60.1%), Europe (58.3%), Latin America (36.2%), Middle East (31.7%), Asia (23.8%), and Africa (11.4%). Although IPR in Asia is inferior to North America or Europe, the number of actual Internet users there is 922.3 million or 44% of all world users. Europe represents 476.2 million Internet users or 22.7% of the world users, North America is at 272.1 million or 13% of the world users, and Latin America is at 215.9 million or 10.3% of the world users, all other regions collectively represent 10% of the world Internet users. The data suggests that the regions with the higher IPR are more likely to have higher usage of SNSs. Indeed, 56% of Internet users in North America are also Facebook users, followed by 54.4% of Internet users in Oceania/Australia, but then we have Caribbean with the 39% of Internet also being Facebook users, Latin America (35%), Europe comes fifth with 34.1% of Internet users being Facebook users, followed by Middle East (18.5%), Africa (15.9%), and Asia (11.3%)2. However, in term of the number of people, Europe has the highest number of Facebook users, which is 162.1 million people, there are 149.1 million users in North America, 93.6 million in Asia, 68.2 million in Latin America, 17.6 million in Africa, 11.7 million in the Middle East, 11.6 million in Oceania/Australia, and 3.9 million in the Caribbean (InternetWorldStats.com, 2011). This knowledge of the countries IPRs is beneficial for informing HEIs recruitment efforts. However, for the purpose of the enrollment management strategic planning it is also important to analyze the IPR growth. According to the data from the last decade, IPR growth puts Africa ahead of other regions, with 2,527.00% growth, followed by Middle East (1,987.00%) and Latin America (1,037.00%), a trend that emphasizes these regions increasing importance as consumers of Internet, including SNSs. HEIs that would manage to establish their SNSs in the regions and specific countries with the high IPR growth rate might be able to use familiarity effect in the near future. This strategy could lead to attracting more international students in the future (InternetWorldStats.com, 2011). SNSs and Diversity of IPR within Different Regions The diversity in IPRs within regions is another factor associated with the success of using SNSs for the recruitment of international students. For instance, while large number of Internet and Facebook users makes Asian market exceedingly attractive for HEIs online marketing, based on the number of users, only four out of 35 Asian countries -China (384 million users), Japan (96 million users), India (81 million users), and South Korea (37.5 million users) - are the leading Internet consumers; the remaining 31 listed countries report having approximately 104 million users collectively. Furthermore, only India and China net additional 10 million Internet subscribers monthly (Budde.com, 2010). Perhaps, this statistics can explain why, according to an Open Door (2010) report,
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students from China, India, and South Korea represent the largest group of international students in the US HEIs; Taiwan and Japan hold the fifth and sixth places. The situation is similar in Latin America: 39.4% or 72 million Internet users in Latin America live in Brazil, followed by Mexico (15.1% or 27.6 million), Columbia (11.4% or 22.8 million) and Argentina (10.9% or 20 million). The remaining 16 countries collectively have 22.7% or 40.3 million Internet users. Brazil is also leading this region in the growth of the IPR, while Open Door (2010) identifies a 6% increase in students enrollment into US HEIs from this country (InternetWorldStats, 2011). The Middle East is equally uneven. Iran has 52.5% or 33.2 million of all Internet users in this region, followed by Saudi Arabia (15.5% or 9.8 million) and Israel (8.3% or 5.2 million). In the year 2010 Saudi Arabia demonstrated the largest increase in the International student enrolled in the US HEIs. The remaining 13 countries have 23.7% of Internet penetration or 15 million users. In the last decade Iran had exhibited remarkable 13,180.00% of the IPR growth, as did Syria (13,016.00%), while IPRs in countries of Bahrain (88%), United Arab Emirates (75.9%), and Israel (71.6%) are among the largest in the world (InternetWorldStats, 2011). Out of 57 countries on the African continent, 46 countries have less than one percent of IPR. Nigeria has 37.1% of IPR and 43.9 million users, followed by Egypt (17% or 20.1 million), Morocco (11.1% or 13.2 million), and South Africa (5.7% or 6.8 million). In the last decade Africas Internet and Broadband sector has been rather insignificant, but accelerated tremendously in 2009 and 2010 due to improvements in infrastructure, the arrival of wireless access technologies, and 90% decrease in the Internet cost. Broadband is rapidly replacing dial-up which is detrimental to the speed of connections (Budde.com, 2011). Overall, majority of world regions, mostly developing countries, are displaying energetic expansion of broadband at the decreasing cost due to marketing competition. This is an important development, because level of access to Internet-based SNSs is highly influenced by the broadband availability. For example, at the minimum broadband speed of 256 kbps, downloading a short (20 MB) college promoting video clip from YouTube will take 10 minutes and 25 seconds in most African countries, compare to 2 seconds at a connection speed of 100 Mbps in Taiwan or Hong Kong (InternetWorldStats, 2011; The World in 2010, 2010). Also, there are still huge differences among countries when it comes to the broadband affordability: in 2009, an entry-level fixed (wired) broadband connection cost on average $190 per month in developing countries, compare only to $28 per month in developed countries (The World in 2010, 2010, p.7). Countries Gross Domestic Product (GDP), IPR, and the Use of SNSs Ability to afford studying abroad financially is another important decision making factor for international students. As it was mentioned in the Open Door (2010) report, almost 70% of all international students, primarily undergraduates, are funded by their families,
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their home country governments and universities, and foreign private sponsors. Since 2006, the funding by families had fluctuated, but percent of home government funding had been increasing steadily with the largest increase of 26.6% taking place last year, and so did the funding by foreign private sector. As we saw earlier, Internet and SNS penetration rates are also connected with the cost of broadbanding. Perhaps, financial stability of different countries might influence these countries IPR growth and, consequently, penetration of the SNSs. In order to test this hypothesis we will compare top 25 places of the international students origin. The variables for comparison will include these countries IPRs, Internet users growth, use of SNSs, and Gross Domestic Product (GDP) per capita3. This comparative analysis is illustrated in Table 1. Out of top sending 25 countries, five belong to the upper middle income countries, i.e., according to the World Bank categories, countries with annual per capita income from $3,706 to $11,455; remaining 14 countries belong to high income countries with over $11,455 per capita income per year (World Bank, 2011). These countries also have been enjoying high IPR and high Internet usage rate, two factors that explain moderate growth of Internet users in the majority of these countries. The remaining six sending countries-India, Nepal, Nigeria, Vietnam, Kenya, and Pakistan- are part of low income group of countries with the annual per capita income from $936 to $3,705 (World Bank, 2011). Their IPRs are also lower, but the growth of Internet users is much higher than in other countries and the number of Facebook users is in millions.4 Over the last five years the enrollment of students from Kenya and Pakistan had been declining, but India, Nepal, Nigeria and Vietnam had been demonstrating consistent growth of the students study abroad flow (Open Door, 2010), which is reflected in Table 2. Obviously, more research is required, but these trends- growth in IPR, growth in number of Internet users and strong SNSs membership-can suggest an opportunity for geographic expansion of enrollment strategies, including opportunities for more aggressive recruitment of students from lower income countries through the use of SNSs. Students from these destinations might also be potential candidates for obtaining on-line degrees. CONCERNS AND BARRIERS Loss of Control over Content One of the biggest limitations in the use of SNSs is the loss of control over pages creation and content; anyone can create an official college account on Facebook, Twitter and other SNSs and share any type of information with the users (Reuben, 2008). For instance, Mascari and Webber (2008) warn that students can use Facebook pages of their college of interest to get any number of college application essays designed to match your personality and grades To get the inside scoop on partying, drugs, sex, and cheating (p.4).
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Similar concerns are connected with the use of blogs and comments placed on SNSs. Negativity in bloggers commentaries can easily and instantly change or create readers opinion about any issue (Solis, 2008), including perception of any HEIs. Reuben (2008) says if your university had a Facebook page, a MySpace page, or uses any of these other tools, there are forums for comments that have the chance of collecting negative remarks and feedback (p.7). Marty Bennett (2011) in the NAFSA- run live conversation with the college recruiters makes the same comments. He also emphasizes that in social media you no longer control the message-its about joining the conversation (p.2). Increase of Personnel Time Commitment For some of the more seasoned admission officers the ability to use SNSs on the same level with potential enrollees involves, as Mascari and Webber (2008) call it, a giant leap into the techno world of students (p.3). The authors emphasize that current or upcoming students are wired to function in the digital world and the world of social networks. These students grew up in the different technological environment and are used to different forms of communication and knowledge acquisition. For instance, for many of us, e-mail is the primary source of connecting with peers and colleagues, but Hayes, Ruschman, and Walker (2009) site the work of Kirkpatrick (2009), who insists that for young people e-mail is how you communicate with elders in formal situation while social networks and SMS are the preferred methods of communication among peers (p.110). Just in contrary, majority of college admission officers and counselors belong to the generations of digital immigrants and early adapters, who, similar to immigrants learning new languages, have to learn new technologies and then integrate these technological advances into their lives to avoid professional extinction (Mascari & Webber, 2008; Prensky, 2001). Meanwhile, recruitment professionals are charged with the myriads of different duties, which create barriers for them to find time to rewire themselves and become fluent in these new languages. Besides, admission offices of many universities, particularly in the smaller liberal art colleges, are often a one-person operation. Investing time into learning new technologies and cultures, maintaining SNSs content, responding to messages, following tweets and blogs, in addition to these individuals regular duties, might be, and usually are, time prohibitive5. Additionally, while admission officers recognize the importance of SNSs for recruitment and have general understanding about the content of messages and topics that would attract prospective students (Noel-Levitz, 2009), they still need to have better insight into this younger generation interests and cultures. Many of the admission officers report not having enough competencies to develop content that would be relevant to domestic students; they are even less confident when it comes to addressing international students needs and developing SNSs contents that would attract foreign candidates to their colleges Facebook pages (Missy, 2011; Thostenson, 2011). Learning and adapting new cultures can help with creating the SNSs content and enriching their
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attractiveness, but these efforts require additional, complex and multifaceted training and, again, time commitment. Secondary Nature of SNSs, Privacy and Availability of Research Social Network Sites can be very effective in following up and engaging students who have already learned about a particular school. Unfortunately, they are not as effective for creating an initial interest. Noel-Levitz (2009) survey of 1000 college-bound students portrayed that before students begin learning about your college and, hopefully, falling in love with it, they have to find it. Their search for colleges starts with Google, MyCollegeOptions or College Board options that bring them to colleges website. The website navigation provides perspective students with the variety of options, SNSs and pages are among many of these links. This secondary nature is one of the SNSs weaknesses. However, 70% of survey participants expect the presence of SNSs on the colleges Website. They value these sites mostly by their content, accuracy and simplicity of navigation (Noel-Levitz, 2009). Presently, there are no established policies that can regulate content of the SNSs messages, the follow up use of this information, and protection of users confidentiality. Meanwhile, Hayes, Ruschman, and Walker (2009) advise that once you lose the public trust due to poor security measures, it will be very difficult to regain (p. 121). Interestingly, users of SNSs in countries with the slower IPRs are less concerned with the possibility of their privacy violation. According to research presented in The Economist (2011), Europeans are increasingly concerned about online data privacy (para 1), but Eastern Europeans from countries marked by the slower IPRs, such as, for instance, Latvia, Poland, Slovakia, and Cyprus, have a high trust in SNSs. Western Europeans worry about potential misuse of their personal data much more (The Economist, 2011). Another large barrier is connected with the skyrocketing evolution of SNSs and breathtaking speed of their development which surpasses the corresponding research. Currently, majority of information is available through secondary sources, such as blogs, Internet discussions, forums, and various sites, but more primary contemporary scientific articles are needed. Research literature that is more than a year old is in danger in sounding obsolete. CONCLUSION AND RECOMMENDATIONS International strategic marketing and positioning are important features of HEIs, particularly because the global demand for higher education is projected to grow from 97 million students in 2000 to 263 million in 2025 (Ruby, 2005, p.234), which would make the access to higher education opportunities more restricted and uneven among individual countries and entire continents (Blight, Davis & Olsen, 2000). Universities in the U.S. can compete for this market niche by sharpening their international recruitment efforts and making these efforts more focused, more specific, and more attuned to the international students needs (Altbach, 2004; Becker, 2009; Lasanowski, 2010). Based on the findings of the above research, we can make a few conclusions and recommendations

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that might benefit HEIs in the U.S. by providing some additional enrollment strategies for them. The rising popularity of SNSs creates grounds for additional approaches for higher education marketing. Among unique features offered by the SNSs are unprecedented trackability of students interests, immediacy in responses to students concerns and questions, targeted personalization of recruitment efforts, and low institutional financial obligations. These features can be adopted and used aggressively by any HEIs in the U.S. Growth in IPRs, growth in number of Internet users, and strong SNSs membership in countries outside of U.S. suggest an opportunity for geographic expansion of marketing strategies, including opportunities for more aggressive recruitment of students from lower income countries through the use of SNSs. Perhaps additional research of local, nativelanguage based SNSs, such as Orkut in South America and RenRen in China, is in order which will help in acquiring deeper insights into demands and expectations of local populations. Moreover, students from these destinations might also become potential candidates for obtaining on-line degrees in the US institutions. The use of SNSs for enrollment purposes requires fluency in the sites content and operation which is more typical for wired personnel. One way of addressing this need can be the investment into creation of students positions whose sole purpose would be to maintain enrollment pages of the institutional SNSs or additional training of the existing staff. Taking into account that marketing through SNSs demands almost no cost, investment into personnel might be warranted. Privacy and control over the content of the SNSs still present areas of concern. Addressing these issues requires additional studying and practical work. Besides, more research is needed to learn about SNS related behavior of the mature population, because this generation is often responsible for financing educational aspirations of its children. Since SNSs aggressively penetrate into everyones way of communicating and obtaining information, studying SNSs related behavior of parents population could result in obtaining a competitive edge in the enrollment management strategies. Furthermore, more focused and consistent follow up and studying of the SNSs initiatives should be encouraged among higher education professionals. These strategies could give U.S. system of higher education a viable advantage in understanding the evolving ways of social contacts and communication, in attracting prospective international students and, hopefully, in preventing HEIs in the US from loosing international students to the universities of other courtiers.

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REFERENCES Altbach, P.G. (2004). Globalization and the university: Myth and realities in an unequal world. In National Education Association (Ed.), The NEA 2005 almanac of higher education (p.p.63-74). Washington, DC: National Education Association. Anonymous, (2008). How higher ed is using Facebook pages. Retrieved from http://www.academicagroup.com/node/4598 Barnes, N.G., & Mattson, E. (2010). Social media and college admission: The first longitudinal study. MA, Dartmouth: Center for Marketing Research, University of Massachusetts, Dartmouth. Retrieved from: http://www.neacac.org/docs/uploads/files/amc2010/2010%20AMC%20Web %20Social%20Media%20and%20College%20Admissions%20The%20First %20Longitudinal%20Study.pdf Becker, R. (2009, September). International branch campuses: Markets and strategies. London: The Observatory of Borderless Higher Education. Bennett, M. (2011, May 12). The impact of social media on international student recruitment. Proceeding of Issuu. Retrieved from http://issuu.com/martybennett/docs/socialmedia-in-international-recruitment Blight, D, Davis, D., & Olsen, A. (2000). The globalization of higher education. In P. Scott (Ed.), Higher education re-formed (p.p.93-111). London and New York: Falmer Press. Boyd, D.M., & Ellison, N.B. (2007). Social network sites: Definition, history, and

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20

IWS uses different sources for its aggregated information pages. Internet Usage and Broadband Statistics are current from Internet World Country List. The usage rate comes from Nielsen Online, ITU, and official countries statistics. Country population is published by US Census Bureau. All of the above information was comprised on different pages of the InternetWorldStats.com (InternetWorldStats, 2011).
2

Facebook World Users and Facebook World Penetration statistics are consolidated for August 31,2010 from the official number of Facebook users reported in each country or word region (InternetWorldStats, 2011).
3

IPR and percentage of Facebook users for this table are collected from Asia Pacific Network Information Center, March 31, 2011; Africa Market and Telecommunication Reports, March 31, 2011; European Communication Market Reports, June 10, 2010 or August 31, 2010; Middle East Market Reports, June, 2010; North America Telecommunication Reports, March 31, 2011, and Telecommunications for Latin America, August, 2010. Because of the later date of the info collection, the numbers in this table are slightly different than those provided by IWS.
4

The data presented in Table 1 is not completely compatible, because statistical reports for Africa, Asia, and North America are dated by March 2011, and statistical reports for Europe, Middle East and Latin America are dated by August 2010.
5

All these observations are relevant to domestic students. However, growing popularity of SNSs and digital technologies around the world, (for instance previously sited sources demonstrated that 70% of Facebook users live outside US), suggests that technological skills and cultural insights of admission officers that are required for attracting domestic students might be needed for attracting foreign students as well.