Why education industry must take engaging seriously

The Indian education sector is divided into various sectors such as pre-school, K-12, coaching institutes, higher education to name a few. With plenty of schools, colleges and institutes operating in each sector, very few names are known by public at large. This is where engaging in education sector plays its role. Socialising is a part of everyone’s life and engaging with students, parents, investors and public is very important in today’s world for any educational organisation to survive.

But how really must one go about engaging? What exactly is the right channel of doing it? Engagement can be done via various modes like education fairs, using social media like Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, WhatsApp, Snapchat etc by posting content for the target audience to name a few.

The Benefits

Social engagement in education sector provides various benefits:

• Gaining valuable insights from students, parents and investors.
• Increased brand awareness and loyalty
• Provide rich industry experiences
• Increase website traffic and search ranking
• Finding out what your competitors are doing
• Share content faster and easier
• Geotarget content
• Build relationships

Many schools realise the importance and thus, stay socially active by engaging in educational fairs, networking on various internet platforms etc. Premier schools like Shemrock, Kidzee, Manav Rachna International School, Amity, LPU are a few which engage on social platforms. Amol Arora, Chairman & Director of Shemrock and Shemford Group of Schools shares that, “Engaging is very important for a brand to survive and be visible to general public at large. People form quality notions about the brand upon exposure via public engaging. Earlier, big budgets were required for social media presence. Now with changing times, this has become the need of the hour. Engaging forms a good match between user and customer as they are concerned about surroundings of the school where they send their child. Publishing important content also helps in brand building.”

He further added that, “Different mediums have different requirements. For instance, we share activities of students, schools, viral videos about festivals, parenting tips on Facebook and Twitter. Liking and tagging them increases its reach. Corporate articles are posted on LinkedIn. We make sure that the content posted by us is not controversial thus we are a socially responsible school. Social media provides massive exposure to brand unlike WhatsApp and Emails which have a limited reach.”

G D Singh, renowned educationist and brand maker, says that branding is important even in education because talented students want to join the best institutions so that they get better jobs in better companies. “Branding gives higher visibility and far reach which also helps in attracting better faculties which improves the education standards which in turn attracts better students and the cycle goes on and on,” he says.

The Offline Engaging task

Engaging via Education fairs where educators and other educational institutions come to engage with public and increase their visibility has a massive impact at higher education. According to Amol Arora, “Education fairs are useful only for higher educational organisations. Those at junior and middle level are usually known to public at large via word of mouth and other mediums of engagement. Though these fairs help in brand building but do not provide adequate return on investment.”

As quoted by G D Singh, “Education fairs are good for giving the visibility while social media gives good connects but nothing gives more mileage than excellent education.”

Why social media helps

Engagement on social media is fast becoming a ‘must-do’ for educational institutes. With almost 40 per cent of India’s current population having access to the internet, the online space is something that cannot be ignored by brands in any industry including education. Speaking on these lines at the Intelligentsia Summit, Arvind Passey, Sr columnist, The Education Post said, “Wonderful universities, fantastic places of learning are losing out in the race, because the social media is making sure that the mediocre players who are gaining mileage because they understand the social media.”

He also gave an example of how engagement on social media can do wonders for a brand’s or even an individual’s visibility. “Everything should not and need not really be outsourced. Social media engagement should be encouraged in-house, not outsourced. Engagement on Twitter, why not? Engagement on Facebook, why not? A few weeks back, when we had a cab strike in Delhi, instead of my blog, I wrote an update on Facebook on my take on the Uber, Ola etc. That little update gave me more than a 1,000 likes. There were hundreds of people commenting. So this is what engagement is all about,” he said.

Therefore, engaging in the education industry is indispensable to survive in this technologically hyperactive era where students, parents and investors want to settle with the best without any compromise. Engaging as an activity builds brand, contacts and increases the presence of the institute worldwide. It’s the need of the hour and need of every industry including education. Engage and let the world know you!