Will Tweet for Scholarship: How Social Media Helped Pay Student’s Tuition
A recent contest run by the University of Iowa’s Tippie School of Management set out to prove that Social media knowledge is not only an important asset to businesses marketing strategies but also to incoming business students. The contest asked potential MBA students to submit a Tweet application of 140 characters or less explaining what made them the perfect Tippie School of Management MBA candidate and future MBA hire. The winner of the competition, John Yates, received fully paid tuition to the university’s School of Management, a more than $37,000 value.
Yates’ tweet was chosen out of 58 entries with his 68-character haiku:
“Globally minded (5)
Innovative and driven (7)
Tippie can sharpen (5)”
The committee, which was comprised of alumnus, faculty and staff, chose Yates’ tweet application because of his creative combination of an ancient form of poetry with one of most modern forms of communication. Other creative entries included the following:
“All that Twitters is not Gold yet Everything under the Sun can be Sold. ‘Twas either This (Behold!!) or Twenty-Four Ounces from my Billfold.”
“10 yrs as top corporate atty, know my deals, have plenty of stories but tired of staring blankly @ financials. Time to upgrade @TippieMBAIowa.”
“Experience in 3 markets: China, Mexico and India. Passion in 2 fields: Operations and Finance. Ready for 1 MBA: Tippie. [with a link to his blog].”
The university used this competition as a pilot program to test the idea of adding an application tweet to its general application.
Taking the University of Iowa’s lead, other organizations are also beginning to utilize Twitter for similar marketing tips and giveaways. KFC and Scholarship.com also began offering scholarship money to students in return for original tweets under 140 characters.
While schools are leading the movement, businesses can also take advantage of this great idea or at least hop on the social media bandwagon. Social media is an excellent way to catch the attention of potential clients. Whether it’s Facebook, LinkedIn, or Twitter, most people are on some sort of social network and use those mediums to find information. Many people use social media for keeping up with family and friends, but they also look to business and news accounts for interesting articles that they can share or use to better their own lives.
Through outlets like blogs, social media, and newsletters you can not only get people to read your business’s message, but also to share it with their friends and social media followers who might also find it interesting.
Similar to how the University of Iowa utilized the parameters of Twitter to engage prospective students, social media can be a great way to engage your clients with giveaways and competitions. Just make sure to follow each social media site’s rules for contests carefully in order to stay out of trouble on social networks. Since these rules are ever-changing, the McCauley Marketing team strives to stay up-to-date to provide the best possible social media marketing services for our clients. For more information on the marketing services we provide, be sure to review our website and join our social networks.