In this blog post, I continue my research of Kaplan International and analysis of a Kaplan University's 2015 campaign, culminating in several recommendations for the brand in order to further leverage its social media presence.
Kaplan University is an institution of higher learning dedicated to providing innovative undergraduate, graduate, and continuing professional education. The goal of campaign is to attract people to attend university's programs.
Let's have a look.
Presence in Social media
In the first part I have examined the presence of Kaplan International in social media in detail. Here is the short review of company's social media presence in general and Kaplan University in particular.
Feedback Complaints Kaplan University always answer on its main social media such as FB
but it doesn't` pay much attention to other ones. Example Consumeraffairs
Analitycs Social Searcher
Statistics 29Sept -27Oct .2015
According to statistics, the time between at 1 p.m - 4 p.m. is the best time to post on FB. We can see here that the highest activity occurs between 2p.m - 6p.m.
Most attractive content are pictures
Audience geography Google Trends
Comparing to previous metrics, Kaplan International focuses more on foreigners,
and we can see that Kaplan University is more oriented on Americans.
The analysys the company, maid on Alexa.com gives us the same picture
In the first part I have already compared Kaplan International with one of the competitor, EF educational, using IceRocket. The result for EF educational was 0.17 posts per day and 5 posts total. For Kaplan University - 0.37 posts per day and 11 posts total.
Let`s have a look on Google Trend now to compare Academic Study campaign of EF Education and Kaplan University campaign of Kaplan
Recommendations
The stuff of Kaplan is able to explain the services that they offer to everybody in their social media. They feel that there is a personal connection with the customers. They are prepared to respond to consumers on social media. They understand that consumers use all of the social media platforms to ask questions and complain. May be I can only recommend them to monitor the social media space and pay more attention to the reviews on the other resources besides ordinary social pages like Facebook and Instagram In General I think that it's very clear for management of Kaplan how to use social media and tap this kind of engagement.
The authors of the Groundswell, Charlene Li and Josh Bernoff , told us that among the benefits gained from working with the groundswell, there are changes in corporate thinking - you start to pay more attention to the needs and requirements of your customers (215Groundswell).
The future of Groundswell.... Ubiquitous Groundswell.
Social networks will connect people with those they care about. But "tapping the groundswell inside your company" (234 Groundswell) means not only how organization can master the elements of the groundswell thinking to transform how their company work with customers. (217 Groundswell). The authors of the book wrote about the success of various company.
And I want to dedicate this blog to a well - known company "Zappos" . Firstly, because this company is famous for its unique culture
Secondly, it is constantly cooperating with the customers in social networks,
it even went ahead and created its own social network for potencial employees. I really think that it is the part of future groundswell
Zappos created a special social network called
Zappos Insiders. People who wants to work in the company are required to
join the network.
There they will communicate with current Zappos professionals in order to demonstrate their loyalty to the company and willingness to work there- in some cases publicly. And, perhaps, recruiters will notice potential employees' zeal and invite them for an interview. And even if they're not hired immediately, this social network gives them a way to continue to openly communicate with chosen Zappos "ambassador."
Besides that, the website still has some common elements, like a "Life at Zappos" section boasting about the company's mission and campus perks like parades, ice cream trucks, and live animals.
The company also claims that it's mindful of privacy, giving people the choice to engage publicly or privately as they look to get a foot in the door. Ditching the cover letter and resume for a social network seems a bit surreal; not even Facebook does things this way. And it certainly requires to jump through extra hoops, but Zappos seems to believe that social networks are the way to hire employees in the future. "We're hoping a lot of other companies jump on board. Zappos brings happiness
not only customers, but also its own employees" said Michael Bailen, who heads talent acquisition for the company.
In addition, with the help of Zappos Insiders experts will identify those who will be hired. Not everyone will be happy, but still, those candidates who really want to work and fully share the company's vision, will remain connected. If companies can carry out such projects with their employees being involved with the groundswell, these employees, in their turn, will be involved in the companies' cultures and probably will communicate with customers through social networks more passionately.
How do you feel about the fact that more and more companies are shifting their activities to the online sphere?
I have decided to write about Kaplan because I had the greatest experience with Kaplan a couple years ago. Kaplan International English is one of the world’s leading providers of lifelong education, that provides higher education programs, professional training courses, test preparation materials and other services for various levels of education in English speaking countries across the world.
Let me tell you about Kaplan and how they have come to be the international provider of international education that they are today.
Kaplan was founded in 1938 by Stanley H. Kaplan. He started to tutor and prepare students for the SATs. His business grew rapidly as more and more colleges across the United States started to use standardized testing methods to assess the applicants. 1984 - more than 100 centers nationally with around 600 part-time satellite offices serving 95,000 students a year. Later on in the year
1985 - the Washington Post Company bought Stanley H. Kaplan Educational Centers Ltd.
2006 - a merger between Kaplan, Inc. and Aspect Education, Kaplan Aspect emerged.
2009 - one business unit under the Kaplan International Colleges name.
Nowadays - over 1 million students each year, over 600 locations, more than 30 countries, Kaplan employs more than 31,000 Kaplan employs worldwide.
The target audience of Kaplan is the people of different ages (Kaplan has the programs for all ages and tastes) that want to improve their future, they are curious and open to the new
As you can see Kaplan has many featured channels. The company has a lot of y very interesting and useful videos, available on it's YouTube channel. Beside the video about services of the company, the channel offers video-lessons and tutorial on Youtube . Thus about 2 years ago Kaplan announced content collaboration with YouTube channel Rachel’s English to create a video which helps non-native speakers improve their American English.
Generally channel have positive feedback from the viewers. Sometimes people leave their complaints and Kaplan answers them
Likes:149,096 The page is one of the most popular places among many social media users.
On the Facebook the company is actively using groundswell's principle: energizes and embraces people inviting to discussions and asking for their opinion.
Twitter page is not very popular comparing to other social resources. Content is similar to Facebook, Instagram pages. The company use Twitter to post pictures, announce about upcoming events, and talk about current ones. There's no a lot of user's feedback here
Instagram is very popular company's social media page. And again, along with Facebook, groundswell's principle: the company energizes and embraces users
Instagram for Kaplan is the perfect opportunity to get quick messages and photos to their target audiences. They use Instagram as effective platform to reach a new audience with visuals and short messages
Not very popular company's social media page. They don't use this resource a lot, the date of last post is December 2014, of picture is August 2014 . It has mainly reposts from YouTube.
The pages are well-organized, easy and enthralling to read. Kaplan is building credibility and trust with their customers through Blog and motivate them to purchase the service
I would like to draw your attention to one more thing. Besides profiles on famous social media websites like Facebook, Kaplan has profiles, community pages and groups on social medias that are popular in a particularr country. For example they have "Kaplan International English"community on popular Russian network "Vkontakte". Actually they don`t have an office in Russia , so it is very reasonable to have collaboration through the social network. The company's representatives always answer questions. There are a lot of pictures,ineresting posts, discussions and customers' review about experience with Kaplan.
Observation of analytics
IceRocket specializes in real-time search Blogs, Tweets, news, images etc. all from one page.
In comparison, one of the competitor "EF educational" - 0.17 posts per day and total posts - 5
Addictomatic - search of the customer page with the latest buzz on any topic. I have tried different names: Kaplan International English, Kaplan International College and Kaplan. The results were nearly the same. (There are no datas about account content from Twitter, Facebook or Instagram)
Strength: The likelihood your brand is being discussed in social media. Sentiment: Ratio of mentions that are generally positive compared to those that are generally negative. Passion: The likelihood those mentioning your brand will do so repeatedly. Reach: Measure of the range of influence
I know my brand has been mentioned by others on Facebook and LinkedIn and other sources. But none of these mentioned showed up in the list.
Google Trends shows us how often a particular search-term is entered based off the total search volume.
Compete Compete.com is a web traffic analysis service of Compete, Inc. which operates in the United States and publishes the approximate number of U.S. visitors to the top 1,000,000 web sites.
Conclusion
Social media has changed the face of customer relationships. Consumers have become so accustomed to online communities that it's often their preferred go-to for communication, even with companies. When the customer of Kaplan have a good experience with a service, they want to share it with everyone. I think that it's very clear for management of Kaplan how to use social media and tap this kind of engagement. Sure, no limited for perfection and in the next part of my monitoring will try to give some recommendations.
Kaplan International
