Facebook and Admissions: Interesting Trends from Varsity Outreach Report

Varsity Outreach released its third “Facebook and Admissions” report this morning, sharing responses from 160 colleges and universities to its 2012 survey. There’s some good information in the report, but here are a few findings that caught my eye:

• This isn’t a surprise, but the Varsity Research data responses confirm that while admissions offices use many social channels, Facebook is still number one in importance among them (according to 82% of respondents, a slight decline since 2011), and that 86% of universities have a Facebook presence for admissions.
• The majority (57%) of colleges and universities have 2–3 people managing their Facebook presence; 50% spend 1–4 hours a week on this work and 29% spend 5–10 hours a week.
• Respondents identified “information dissemination” as the top goal for Facebook (41%); only 12% tied it into recruitment/yield efforts.
• A large majority of respondents said that Facebook can have more impact on “Admit’s decision to enroll at your school,” but admitted that it had more actual impact on admitted students. [Can we call this faith-based social media planning?]
• Finally, 47% were more satisfied with Facebook as a yield tool than a prospect recruitment tool (30%).

You can download a copy of the report here.