It’s been just over five years since I quit my job as a higher ed social media manager to go freelance. In that time I’ve gotten to work on social media accounts for large film franchises, animated series, bestselling comic books, and even written a book of my own. But, higher education marketing has never been far from my mind. I’ve continued to keep up with the triumphs and struggles of my former colleagues still working on university campuses across the country.
While there have certainly been changes in the field, far too much has remained the same. University social media managers are still dealing with the same problems that they were half a decade ago. And as it now seems certain that my career in higher ed is pretty much over, (while I’d love to consult with a university or work freelance in the vendor space, I don’t ever see myself working full time on a college campus ever again) I feel as though I can speak more openly and candidly about some of the changes that need to be made to the field of university marketing if it ever wants to truly be successful and effective.
So with that, here are a few changes that need to be made to your university’s marketing efforts that your university marketing team has likely been wanting to tell university leadership… but have been too afraid to say.
University Marketing Needs More Innovation, Less Imitation
We’ve all been there. You’re in a meeting with the director of admissions, VP of advancement, the dean of making your life difficult, or what-have-you who just got back from a conference where they saw that a school with far more students and money than you could dream of pulled some kind of marketing stunt and now they want you to do the same. And now, every university has an Instagram wall, a giant sculpture spelling out the school’s name, and a fold-out “I’m going to #InsertYourSchoolsNameHere” insert stuffed in every admissions packet.
I get it, competition for students has never been tougher and you don’t want to be the only school that doesn’t have the bright shiny new thing.
The problem is, every university’s marketing feels the same. It’s the same marketing, just different colors. And it’s been that way for a while now. We need to start thinking more about what makes our schools unique and how we can reflect that in our marketing rather than just imitating what every other school is doing.
University Marketing Should Be Independent on the Org Chart
I once heard of a school where the marketing department sat under the office of enrollment management. However, when the VP of advancement felt that university marketing wasn’t doing enough to promote fundraising, they raised a stink and got marketing put under their office… only to find just a few months later that the VP of enrollment management was angered because they felt that university marketing wasn’t doing enough to promote admissions.
This is going to be a problem as long as university marketing sits under any other office. After all, what’s a director of marketing to do, when the VP who signs their paycheck wants more marketing for their area? Of course they are going to get first priority when it comes to marketing. And for this reason, university marketing should be an independent office under a VP of marketing.
Yes, higher ed has a problem with VP bloat, but who you report to and where they sit on the org chart has a huge influence on your work and how you do it. And it’s university marketing’s job to promote the whole university – not just one department – and it’s high time we start seeing it that way. When university marketing works on a project for advancement, the funds raised help current students and prospective students. When university marketing works on a project for admissions, it helps the alumni office four years down the road when those new students go out into the world. The list goes on.
Your university marketing office represents the whole university and deserves to be treated as such. Which brings me to my next point…
University Marketing Centralization Is More Important than Ever
I once worked at a university where the university locksmith office had a Facebook page. What would a university locksmith need a Facebook page for? Your guess is still as good as mine. But that’s also true for the majority of campus social media accounts. There’s far too many of them that don’t have a real purpose and they are all representing your university’s brand. And with the rise of generative AI, they are likely creating some atrocious content without any consideration of your brand guidelines or how it reflects upon your school.
It’s not just on social media, either: flyers, brochures, web content, and more are being created by university departments without any oversight from your marketing office. It’s been a problem for ages and it’s only getting worse. It’s time to finally end it and make university marketing centralized with all marketing materials made for the university going under their approval before being used.
Will this create more work for already over-extended marketing offices? Yes. But that’s also why this should come with both a budget increase and authority to say “no” to projects they deem unnecessary. It might not make you the most popular department on campus, but with the rise of easily accessible AI-generated content tools that any staff member or student worker can use to create off-brand marketing assets that can hurt your university’s reputation, it’s time for university marketing offices to get tough and centralize.
Your Social Media Manager Needs a Clear Path to a Promotion
The role of social media manager is no longer an entry-level job. The level of responsibility and experience required to do the job is just too high to leave up to an entry-level employee. Yet, this is what so many universities do. They hire a recent graduate, pay them less than $50K, work them until they burn out and leave for a higher paying job, and then start the cycle all over again; usually losing a ton of institutional knowledge (and, far too often, the social passwords) in the process.
This can easily be solved by giving your current social media manager a clear career path within your university — and preferably one that allows them to continue overseeing social media. There should be a clear roadmap for them to move up to a director of social media position with regular pay raises along the way. One of the major reasons I left my university social media manager position was that I asked myself where I would be in five years and the best I could hope for would be that my boss (the director of marketing) would quit and I would apply for and hopefully get that job. That’s just not a feasible route to career growth for any employee.
And while universities might not be able to match the salaries of the corporate world, they can at least provide clear advancement opportunities to their social media managers and at least make an effort to keep them at the university.
This isn’t a complete list of what’s broken in higher ed marketing — but it’s the list your own marketing team has probably already made in a group chat after a bad meeting. The only question is whether your institution is willing to hear it before the next round of turnover forces the conversation anyway.
