It is not big news that college admissions officers sometimes look at facebook or myspace to check out an applicant. That’s how powerful Facebook is, and since it’s the most popular social networking site, it’s used as an advertising tool as well. For other social media marketing you should make your video plays on youtube to be trending. Do you know that on Facebook, there’s marketing automation that is happening like the collection of customers data at many interactions to create a 360-degree view of each customer? For a more comprehensive definition of how does marketing automation work, look for salesforce.com. However, before now most of the stories have involved only a small number of admissions officers. The Wall Street Journal has surveyed 500 colleges with the most selective admissions and found that 10% of admissions officers at those colleges admit to looking at social networking sites to check out applicants.
I have said before that students need to be aware of such issues when applying to college. With this new study detailing the number of selective colleges that are considering social medial, students need to be aware of how they appear on facebook, myspace and similar networks. One easy suggestion is to restrict access to only invited friends. That, however, will not solve the problem if you have something stupid on your pages. There are stories circulating among high school and college admissions officers of students reporting on other students in an attempt to get a leg up in admissions. Who knows if friend number 637, who is also applying to the same highly competitive college as you, might give access to your facebook page where you are shown using drugs.
My best advice is to be aware of what you are posting on your pages. If it is something you would not want mom or dad to see, it might be better not to post it.
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