How Social Media Saved My Niece From Sponge Bob

In recent memory, there have been several shows in the children's television milieu that have been very disturbing to me, Barney & the Teletubbies come to mind. Thankfully, our first child didn't come along until after these fads had passed out of popular consciousness. But my nine-year old niece, Rachel, had her sights set on convincing my now 18-month old son, Charlie, about the inherent value of Sponge Bob Square Pants. Somebody had to put a stop to this madness!

While you're thinking how on earth can you tie social media & Mr. SquarePants together, rest assured I'll get there. About two weeks ago, while on my commuter bus ride home, I read a story on one of my news apps on my iPhone about a study that proclaimed Watching Sponge Bob is Bad For Kids. This was the evidence I needed to make my move. That night, I posted the following on Facebook, and see how the conversation unfolded:

Obviously, my last comment was only half serious. But a short two weeks later my sister-in-law confided that after she shared my post with my niece, and the accompanying news story about the effects of SBSP on kids, Rachel decided to give up on SpongeBob. Why? As a nine-year old, she is beginning to come to grips with herself as a student, and is incredibly self-aware. She stepped back to think about some issues she was having in school, thought about what the study was saying about attention issues, and realized that she did not need to watch SpongeBob any more. What a relief! My son is safe, at least for the moment. So what does this all mean? Other than Rachel having to get rid of a lot of SBSP clothing and toys (Christmas is coming, I hear her saying), I must say I'm very proud of her for making such a life-altering decision. 

Moreover, this interaction demonstrates how social media can influence your intended audiences. As admissions reps know, guidance counselors and advisers say how important it is to have the "experts" speak to their students when we visit their schools and centers. In the end, we reinforce the messages that counselors/advisers have been hammering home for months, but, for whatever reason, our message has a greater impact because we're the "experts." 

In social media land, while I firmly believe there are very few true experts, and even fewer (if any, myself included) who are successfully using social media in international education, our goal is to achieve the same things we have done in print, in person, and email recruiting in the past, but with different, yet more immediately impactful tools. 

Other than this blog forum, I encourage you to join in a more regular conversation at Marty B on Social Media & Intl Ed Facebook page or if you prefer LinkedIn, a group of the same name.

                                     

Live Where Your Audiences Live: International Student Recruitment Through Social Media

For as long as I've been in my current position, social media has become a second professional passion of my life, surpassed only by my love of international education.  In the last two and a half years, our EducationUSA network's use of social media is truly transforming and expanding our reach beyond the physical walls of our centers. Later this year we will be launching a useful new tool for prospective students that will be using social media extensively, as we spread the good news about the five steps to U.S. study.


Our chief guiding principle in marketing EducationUSA is to "Live Where Our Audiences Live." Not simply physically, through our network of 400+ centers in 170 countries, but in the virtual world on platforms that our key audiences are using. For purposes of this post, part one of a series on social media in international admissions, we're talking students. 


We all know how Facebook started on a U.S. college campus, and has grown like wildfire to the point now, where recent ComScore data (as reported by InsideFacebook.com) showed that 72% of all U.S. internet users were on Facebook, that works out to over half the U.S. population. While the U.S. is a fairly mature Facebook country with, at present, more baby boomers signing up than any other age demographic, the rest of the world is a different story. Facebook will reach, based on conservative projections, 700 million users worldwide in June. Here are a couple of staggering numbers for international admissions folks to chew on. This data comes direct from Facebook's advertising module.

• 70% of all Facebook users reside outside the U.S.: 490,000,000
• 60% of FB users outside the U.S. are in the college age demographic (16-25 yr. old): 294,000,000

If you haven't already considered using social media more actively in your international student recruitment, these numbers should give you some motivation. To see the incredible growth particularly in the college-age demo in some of the most populous Facebook countries, check out my earlier blog this year. Even more revealing is the level of penetration Facebook currently enjoys in some countries. Social Times, an excellent social media resource/RSS feed to follow, recently profiled the Top Ten Countries Where Facebook Rules that outlined internet usage stats v. Facebook usage where each of the top 10 had more than 86% of its internet users on Facebook. Those 10 countries are:

1. Philippines
2. Israel
3. Turkey
4. Chile
5. Argentina
6. Malaysia
7. Indonesia
8. Peru
9. Colombia
10. Venezuela

But Facebook is not a universally dominant social media platform. I encourage you to check out a recent presentation I gave at the Ohio NAFSA Drive-In Meeting in April, that highlights some of the other fascinating facts on other social media platforms that enjoy dominant market positions in certain countries. 

Here are just a few places where Facebook doesn't rule (yet):

• China – Renren (Facebook knockoff), QQ (like MSN Messenger chat), and others including Youku (YouTube ripoff), and Sina Weibo (Twitter clone) 600 million internet users
• Russia – Vkontakte, Russian language, 111 million users globally
• Netherlands – Hyves, 11 million (2/3rd of Dutch population)
• Japan – Mixi, but Twitter is about to surpass Mixi in terms of total users
• Brazil – Orkut, but Facebook and Twitter gaining fast

Happy hunting, everyone.  


For those who'd like to connect IRL and talk more about these topics, I'll be at our EducationUSA Pavilion in the NAFSA Expo Hall in Vancouver Tuesday-Friday next week (May 31-June 3), booth #537, so please stop by to say hello!


Part two, next week, from Vancouver, will focus on how to approach social media in international admissions-Get Connected, Stay Involved, Be Relevant.

http://issuu.com/martybennett/docs/socialmedia-in-international-recruitment

Double Digit Growth in Two Years, Okay; How About Quadruple Digit Growth? Roll on Facebook

Continued kudos to Nick Burcher, out of the UK, who has done the heavy lifting on the data mining every six months for the last three or four years on Facebook numbers by country (and willingly shares it).  His blog post today revealed the most recent Top 30 countries on Facebook in terms of members.  Interesting to note that in this year-end top 30 - four new countries have entered.  Compared to the numbers from Dec. 2009, the minimum totals required for entry into this top 30 club rose from 1.9 million (Thailand 12/09) to 3.27 million (Saudi Arabia).

The chart below shows in the top 30 only those countries who have seen quadruple digit growth over the last two years. These ten countries represent with few exceptions countries in the developing world that are markets with tremendous potential.

Rank	Country	Number of Facebook users Dec 31st 2008	Number of Facebook users Dec 31st 2009	Number of Facebook users Dec 31st 2010	12 month growth %	24 month growth %
2	Indonesia	897,040	14,681,580	32,129,460	118.8%	3481.7%
6	Philippines	390,700	8,387,560	18,901,900	125.4%	4738%
7	Mexico	1,440,640	6,505,040	18,488,700	184.2%	1183.4%
9	India	1,071,280	5,397,480	17,288,900	220.3%	1513.9%
16	Malaysia	850,420	3,975,640	9,544,580	140.1%	1022.3%
17	Brazil	209,460	2,413,900	8,821,880	265.5%	4111.7%
18	Taiwan	112,900	5,490,300	8,752,640	59.4%	7652.6%
21	Thailand	168,720	1,963,560	6,732,780	242.9%	3890.5%
23	Poland	194,820	1,609,100	4,540,320	182.2%	2230.5%
25	Peru	296,200	1,510,480	3,888,560	157.4%	1212.8%

What is even more telling about where this growth is coming from as it relates to international admissions needs, for these same 10 countries check out my own bit of number crunching below that reveals how significant the potential college age markets are in these growing nations.  With the exception of Brazil, in each of these countries, anywhere from near 63-76% of all Facebook users are in the college-age demographic.

Rank	Country	Number of Facebook users Dec 31st 2010	Number of FB users between 16-25 years old	% users 16-25 yrs. old
2	Indonesia	32,129,460	22,725,220	71%
6	Philippines	18,901,900	12,978,340	69%
7	Mexico	18,488,700	11,626,540	63%
9	India	17,288,900	13,132,400	76%
16	Malaysia	9,544,580	6,097,680	64%
17	Brazil	8,821,880	4,733,260	54%
18	Taiwan	8,752,640	5,578,520	64%
21	Thailand	6,732,780	4,523,980	67%
23	Poland	4,540,320	2,885,360	64%
25	Peru	3,888,560	2,500,000	64%

All this data from Nick Burcher and from my further drilling down, comes directly from Facebook's advertising module.  To paint a bit broader picture, if you were to take the top 25 countries on Facebook outside the U.S. and do a banner ad that displayed only on the profiles & pages of that same college age cohort (16-25 yr. olds) you would reach over 194 million potential students.

Still think Facebook is only a U.S. phenomenon?  I've realized in working with U.S. institutions that precious few have really embraced social media in their international student recruitment efforts.  In times when budgets are being tightened everywhere, the relatively cost-effective world of social media is wide open to the institution that knows how to best approach it.

Social Media in Africa a Pipe Dream? Think Again.

Africa Renewal Magazine | A social media boom begins in Africa

In the course of the last 20 years in the United States, we have gone from using land-line phones to computers to mobile/smart phones as our primary means of communicating.  In much of Sub-Saharan Africa as well as many parts of Central Asia (and other regions), just within the last five to ten years, a significant number of Africans have made the jump from no phone at all, to mobile phones, skipping the land-line and desktop computer stages entirely, as their chosen mode of communications. With over 400 million mobile phone subscribers now in Africa, it is the mobile social web that is now becoming increasingly a source of focus.   


For colleagues at U.S. institutions exploring the myriad of ways to reach students, and for those who have long wondered how to connect in Africa, here's an opportunity. From the article below: "In recent months Facebook — the major social media platform worldwide and currently the most visited website in most of Africa — has seen massive growth on the continent. The number of African Facebook users now stands at over 17 million, up from 10 million in 2009. More than 15 per cent of people online in Africa are currently using the platform, compared to 11 per cent in Asia."  


Time to have a second look at Africa...

A social media boom begins in Africa

Using mobile phones, Africans join the global conversation

By André-Michel Essoungou

More and more Africans are using mobile technologies to access social media tools on the Internet.

Photograph: Africa Media Online / Anthony Kaminju

In the mid-1990s, as the use of mobile phones started its rapid spread in much of the developed world, few thought of Africa as a potential market. Now, with more than 400 million subscribers, its market is larger than North America's. Africa took the lead in the global shift from fixed to mobile telephones, notes a report by the UN International Telecommunications Union.* Rarely has anyone adopted mobile phones faster and with greater innovation (see A bank in every African pocket?, Better health at the click of a button).

A similar story now seems again to be unfolding. Africans are coupling their already extensive use of cell phones with a more recent and massive interest in social media — Internet-based tools and platforms that allow people to interact with each other much more than in the past. In the process, Africans are leading what may be the next global trend: a major shift to mobile Internet use, with social media as its main drivers. According to Mary Meeker, an influential Internet analyst, mobile Internet and social media are the fastest-growing areas of the technology industry worldwide, and she predicts that mobile Internet use will soon overtake fixed Internet use.

Studies suggest that when Africans go online (predominantly with their mobile phones) they spend much of their time on social media platforms (Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and so on). Sending and reading e-mails, reading news and posting research queries have become less important activities for Africans.

In recent months Facebook — the major social media platform worldwide and currently the most visited website in most of Africa — has seen massive growth on the continent. The number of African Facebook users now stands at over 17 million, up from 10 million in 2009. More than 15 per cent of people online in Africa are currently using the platform, compared to 11 per cent in Asia. Two other social networking websites, Twitter and YouTube, rank among the most visited websites in most African countries.

Along with regular citizens, African stars, thinkers, political leaders and companies have rapidly joined the global conversation. The Facebook fan base of Côte d'Ivoire's football star and UN goodwill ambassador Didier Drogba is more than 1 million people. Zambian best-selling author and economist Dambisa Moyo has more than 26,000 followers on Twitter. Media organizations in South Africa and companies such as Kenya Airways are using various social media platforms to interact better with customers and readers. During recent elections in Côte d'Ivoire candidates did not only tour cities and villages; they also moved the contest online, feverishly posting campaign updates on Twitter and Facebook.

High costs and poor connections still limit Africans' use of computers to gain access to the Internet.

Photograph: Alamy Images / Peter Treanor

Constraints and opportunities

Africa's upward trend in the use of social media is even more striking given the low number of Africans connected to the Internet and the many hurdles Africans face in trying to go online.

Africa's Internet users (more than 100 million at the end of 2010) represent just a small percentage of the 2 billion people online around the world. In the US alone, more than 220 million people use the Internet. Within Africa, one person out of every 10 is estimated to be an Internet user (up from one in 5,000 back in 1998), making the continent the region in the world with the lowest penetration rate.

Among the many reasons for this poor showing are the scarcity and prohibitive costs of broadband connections (the fastest means of accessing the Internet), and the limited number of personal computers in use.

But these challenges simultaneously contribute to Africa's impressive growth rate in the use of mobile Internet, which in recent years has been the highest in the world. "Triple-digit growth rates are routine across the continent," notes Jon von Tetzchner, co-founder of Opera, the world's most popular Internet browser for mobile phones. "The widespread availability of mobile phones means that the mobile Web can reach tens of millions more than the wired Web." Mr. Tetzchner believes that like mobile phones, whose use has grown rapidly in Africa in recent years, the "mobile Web is beginning to reshape the economic, political and social development of the continent."

‘Seismic shift’ coming

Erik Hersman, a prominent African social media blogger and entrepreneur who helped drive development of the ground-breaking platform Ushahidi (see Young Africans put technology to new uses), is equally enthusiastic. In an e-mail to Africa Renewal he notes that "with mobile phone penetration already high across the continent, and as we get to critical mass with Internet usage in some of Africa's leading countries (Kenya, South Africa, Ghana, Nigeria, Egypt) … a seismic shift will happen with services, products and information."

The sense that the future holds more promise is inducing major companies to show special interest in Africa's expanding pool of Internet users. Facebook, after launching versions in some of the major African languages (including Swahili, Hausa and Zulu) in May, has announced it will offer free access to its platform to mobile phone users in various countries around the world, including many in Africa. In October Google started testing a new service for Swahili speakers in East and Central Africa. Tentatively called Baraza ("meeting place" in Swahili), it will allow people to interact and share knowledge by asking and answering questions, many of them of only very local or regional interest.

Africans are also getting ready to benefit from the fast-growing mobile Internet sector. In South Africa, MXit, a free instant messaging application with an estimated 7 million users, is the most popular local social networking platform. From Abidjan and Accra to Lusaka and Nairobi, African programmers are designing, testing and launching new homegrown platforms and tools to keep the African online conversation going.

* Measuring the Information Society: The ICT Development Index, 2009.

Facebook and EducationUSA: An Update

Facebook is the driving force in social media today. Four or five years ago many thought of this fledgling social network as just a fad, limited to college campuses in the US. Today, the number of users on Facebook worldwide (as of this blog post: over 262 million) would make it the 4th largest country in the world, only 38 million or so behind the US. Keep in mind that 70% of all Facebook users are outside the US. This is where my US international admissions colleagues really have an opportunity to break ground.

While there are certainly a multitude of types of social media (from microblogs, to blogs, to photo/video sharing sites, to newsfeeds, and many more) out there to use, the big dog they are all looking to is Facebook. I've covered some of the other options and avenues to reach out using social media in other past (and future) posts, but today, let's focus on the current state of affairs with regards to the use of Facebook.

At present, 38 countries worldwide have more than 1 million Facebook users:

1. United States 79,808,380
2. United Kingdom 19,042,180
3. Turkey 12,834,260
4. Canada 12,091,440
5. France 11,654,520
6. Italy 10,598,540
7. Indonesia 8,358,660
8. Australia 6,293,200
9. Spain 6,251,860
10. Argentina 5,996,380
11. Colombia 5,934,060
12. Chile 5,178,360
13. Mexico 4,505,500
14. Philippines 4,477,400
15. India 3,959,980
16. Venezuela 3,943,660
17. Germany 3,725,060
18. Malaysia 2,549,180
19. Belgium 2,430,020
20. Sweden 2,397,560
21. Hong Kong 2,192,800
22. Denmark 2,059,480
23. Norway 2,058,300
24. Taiwan 1,950,680
25. South Africa 1,870,900
26. Greece 1,796,400
27. Egypt 1,786,500
28. Israel 1,669,160
29. Switzerland 1,557,480
30. Singapore 1,533,040
31. Brazil 1,439,080
32. Czech Republic 1,298,140
33. Netherlands 1,260,140
34. Finland 1,195,040
35. Peru 1,107,140
36. Thailand 1,077,140
37. Serbia 1,041,840
38. New Zealand 1,030,060

All of these stats can be found on http://www.checkfacebook.com/ which also provides data on the fastest growing countries and a demographic breakdown by age group of each countries population. In almost every country, 50% or more of the Facebook users, are in the 14-24 year old range, i.e. prime college material.

Many domestic admissions offices in the US have been increasingly using social media: YouTube channels, iTunes podcasts, student blogs, and webchats, and also social networks like Facebook to recruit and/or convince to enroll at their respective institutions. But I ask today, how many of you are using these tools explicitly to attract international audiences?

We have realized at EducationUSA that we need to "live" where our student advisees live. And in so many (not all, mind you) countries that place they live most is online, and increasingly online on their mobile phones/devices. Even in some of the most remote countries on earth, mobile phones are must-haves. In fact, in many developing countries families go from no phone at all to having a mobile phone (and no land line).

Specifically as it relates to Facebook, we have made a concerted effort to encourage and train our advising centers to set up and use center profiles, groups and fan pages to reach out not only to their student advisees, but also to help connect those advisees to former students who are now in the US, and probably living on Facebook. We have created an EducationUSA page which we invite you "become a fan." This page serves a multitude of audiences but can connect you with our advisers and their Facebook profiles, groups and fan pages as well.

I invite you to check out the "Info" tab on the Fan page to see a list with hyperlinks to the growing presence of EducationUSA on Facebook--17 center profiles, 22 groups, and 26 fan pages from centers around the world. This list is updated fairly regularly so bookmark the page and come back often.

We encourage our colleagues in international admissions to set up their own Facebook fan pages and/or groups specifcally for international students looking to get connected with your institution. For more ways to connect with our EducationUSA centers as you recruit internationally, please contact me for details.