Twitter for marketing

Some of you reading the title of this post may be wondering what we are on about.

Twitter is one of the multitude of social networking sites that have become so popular in recent years. It basically enables users to provide updates on what they are doing in 140 characters or less.

Importantly it is popular - very popular.

So what? Well, Twitter offers a lot of opportunities for institutions who want to attract and enrol international students. With a bit of imagination you can build a network your institution and course offerings.

Best of all it should not take too much time. A few well planned minutes during the week could yield great results.

There are already lots of educational institutions using Twitter as a marketing tool. You can get a sense of how they are using it by visiting the Twitter brand index and clicking through the Twitter profile of the institutions listed.

Ok, so how could you use it? There is a great blog post on this over at .edu guru which I highly recommend that you read. A couple of the ideas suggested there are:

- special offers only available on Twitter
- a campus tip of the day

News and updates are obvious candidates for inclusion, but it is important not to be too dry. Twitter works best when you engage with your audience.

If you want to give Twitter a go it is simply a matter of going to the Twitter home page and signing up for an account. It is free.

Oh, and if you want to link up when you get there, here's our profile