Social Media at Open House

Image from the U of A website.

Tomorrow is a big day in student recruitment at the University of Alberta. It is the 2014 Open House, where over 7000 prospective undergraduate students and their families, will visit the U of A campus. As I am a recruiter, this is the single busiest day for me. I will be on campus for 9-10 hours, setting up our booth, taking it down at the end of the day and in between, speaking to thousands of people. We have two presentations on the program and thankfully they are not part of my duties!

Open House is a day to showcase our undergraduate program and make our pitch to prospective students. To this end, we have program staff and current students helping out at the booth, as the Student Recruiter and I cannot handle the volume alone. She and I will chronicle the day via our social media accounts, to promote the event and to hopefully connect with our students.

Open House is really a social media marketer's dream. There are ample photo opportunities, great sound bites from students, and the topic matter is exciting and engaging. I love posting throughout the day, from set-up to take down, showcasing what happens at OH. We showcase student interactions, what is happening at other OH booths, our university mascots, GUBA and Patches (here is a photo of Patches and I). Students can follow us all throughout the day on our Facebook, Twitter and Instagram accounts. I think it supports the students who visit us in person, as they may see themselves in posts and can connect with us using our #ualbertabcom hashtag. It also works for students who are unable to come to campus in-person, as they can follow our accounts and hopefully feel like part of the excitement.