Social Network Marketing Part 5: Social Networking and Web 2.0 Web Sites: Non-Profit's Biggest Defense Against For-Profits

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I've touched on most of the reasons for this in many of my recent postings. The bottom line though is that potential students will see a social networking site that you build differently than a for-profit education organization, assuming they realize the institution is a for-profit (some don't). Your education non-profit institution is helping the greater good through academic pursuit, a for-profit is, well, trying to make a profit. For someone to become engaged and participate on a social networking web site, they are committing significant amounts of their valuable time. For many people to commit this time, they have to have a level of trust, that they aren't just helping that a for-profit make more money. They want to feel that they are a part of the community that you are creating to help you contribute to the greater good. If you develop a social networking, Web 2.0 web site that accomplished this, then the outreach value of that site will be more than any marketing campaign you've ever imagined or been afforded. I am not saying for-profit institutions can't benefit greatly from these web sites as well, I just believe that non-profits have a chance to benefit to a much greater extent if approached correctly. Non-profits are behind on techniques like this though, unfortunately. But that is where a genuine opportunity is for you. This is definitely an area where the early bird wins, so I encourage you not to wait until everyone else has a Web 2.0 site before you set up your own site.

Oh, and whatever large sums of money you envision this would cost you, and you are using that as an excuse not to do it, I think you will be surprised just how cost effective it is and will have to throw that excuse out the window. See my posting about what education non-profits can do about their own site for more details on costs and what you actually do with your site.