Think Outside the Communication Plan and Start Engaging Prospective Students
“The world is made up of circles, and we think in straight lines”
— Peter Senge
Last week, I spoke with a former enrollment colleague who was struggling with how to integrate their social media efforts into their communication plan. My thoughts on this have been swirling since. To what degree does a controlled, static, one-directional communication flow merge with the engagement offered through an organic, dynamic, and multi-directional social media space? Can it? Should it?
These questions of ‘how’, ‘when’, and ‘should’ remind me of desired path design. The concept behind desired path design is to create walkways along the lines that people are naturally inclined to travel.
Despite what landscape designers may have in mind when they cut out sidewalks in parks or on college campuses, the instinct of pedestrians is to veer from the prescribed paths between Points A and B and instead forge paths that they determine (desire) are the better way to get where they’re looking to go. Think of the paths worn free of grass that traverse parks and campuses despite the presence of nearby sidewalks. The sidewalks conform to the planner’s vision, not the pedestrian’s instincts, needs and desires. In a desired path design, one does not install sidewalks as part of the design. Instead, you let the sidewalk placement be defined by those who are walking from building to building or from building to field. Only after these desired paths are defined do you install your sidewalks.
I think the conversation surrounding communication plans and social media engagement is somewhat analogous to this. I believe my conversation with my colleague was revolving around a false premise. It was based on the notion that social media engagement was part of a communication plan. They are related, but they are very different things: communication plans are metaphorical planned sidewalks built by the college, and social media engagement is a student’s desired path that inevitably cuts corners and takes unexpected turns.
Communication plans revolve around a dated model of student recruitment. In its worst form, a school views it as the means to inspire discovery of and to build affinity toward a school. While useful for informing process, in today’s world they utterly fail to engage. On the other hand, when used purposefully and intentionally, social media allows students to follow their desired paths of discovery and establish true engagement with colleges and with each other.
Established communication plans tend to be static and transactional in nature, each piece offering some type of value proposition along with some call to action: “come to campus”; “apply now”; “I’m coming to your high school next week”; “congratulations, you’ve been admitted”; “don’t forget to pay your bill”. The content of the communication plan is a steady, unidirectional stream of helpful information, prompts, and reminders. However, as a tool to inspire relationships with a Gen-Z audience, this is a sidewalk bound for failure. Today’s students are an audience that ‘designs its own path’.
I would suggest that colleges make a dramatic distinction between ‘communication’ and ‘engagement’. In order to successfully meet entering enrollment goals, it might be helpful for college admission and communication officers to consider the idea of desired path design. Engagement efforts must first provide students the openness and freedom to carve that ‘desired path’. Then and only then can a communication plan have impact.
