When it comes to researching and applying to college, high school juniors and seniors

have an abundant amount of resources to help them. From parents, to guidance counselors,
college fairs, campus visits, and more, there are many, many people, organizations, and materials
that help students decide what programs and schools might be right for them. However,
information and guidance about applying for graduate schools is much more limited. In
particular, many undergraduate students are extremely busy in their collegiate studies that it
becomes difficult to make time for the application process while still finishing their
undergraduate degrees. This coupled with living away from home and not having the parental
guidance and coaching as readily available, along with minimal graduate recruiting and
advisement, students looking to go on to graduate school could benefit from additional
information and services that can help make applying to graduate school a bit easier.
Blogging is beneficial to every organization, whether an educational institution, nonprofit organization, or large corporation. First, blogging allows organizations to establish
themselves as a thought leader in their field and differentiate them from the competition. There
are thousands of universities out there for students to choose from. A blog can help prospective
students learn about the college or university in an informal manner and can also become a
resource to them that provides guidance on how to proceed through the application process.
Since blogs are often written in an informal and friendly manner, they can often begin to
build a relationship between the student and the school. The student can start to feel a certain
sense of belonging to the university. If the blog provides information on the entire application
process, from how to pick out programs that are right for the student, to the steps to getting the
application in, as well as other relevant information, prospective students will keep returning to
the site.

The key is to find the right balance between informational, value-added content as well as
promotion of the graduate programs at the university. If the blogs content is entirely about the
school, students will lose interest and will probably not check back for new updates. It is the
information about graduate school in general that will provide prospective students with the
impetus to come back.
A blog also gives an organization a personality. It allows people to see the organization
almost as if it was an individual, and as a result a sort of fondness can be cultivated. Blogs give
organizations the opportunity to ease up on their corporate lingo and talk to their audiences in a
more friendly and informal manner. (Gordon & Berhow, 2009)
Blogs also ensure an organizations website is constantly changing. If a website is
stagnant with no new information, then there will not really be a reason for people to come back
to the website. By including a blog that is frequently updated, organizations are providing a
reason for people to return to their sites for new information.
Blogging also does not only offer the school or organization a unique way to share
information and reach their target audiences, but it also allows members of their audience the
ability to engage with the school in the comments section. The comments section offers
prospective students an easy way to ask questions and respond to topics and conversations
started by the college or university. Just like social media sites, blogs offer a unique solution to
enable two way communication and gives prospective students an opportunity to have a public
voice during the graduate school search and recruitment process. (Blood, 2004)
Blogging helps facilitate word of mouth marketing. With the ability to share an article on
a social media website with one simple click of a button, blogs offer readers a greater

opportunity to help share the messages being put out by the school, thus leading to word of
mouth marketing, or giving the content the opportunity to go viral. (Jansen, et al, 2009)
Another benefit of a blog is it is a way to help handle and mitigate crises. Research states
that communicating through a blog during a crisis elevates the publics perception of the
organization that is going through that crisis. (Sweetser & Metzgar, 2007) This is an area in
which Kean University may have benefitted during the accreditation and other related crises.
Blogging also can help drive traffic to your website. Even if the school hosting the bog is
not being directly searched for, if a prospective student uses a search engine to seek information,
the schools blog may be found. Blogs tend to push websites further up in the rankings, and
therefore gives people a greater opportunity to find the website.
Blogs also tend to turn the additional traffic into qualified leads. Prospective students
may stumble upon your blog and then proceed to request more information or reach out to the
schools representatives for more information.
We are living in a digital world. Social media, blogs, and podcasts, among many other
digital and electronic mediums, are the ways people communicate these days. Reaching students
on the platforms they are already on, i.e. the Internet, makes complete sense. A 2006 survey
indicated 63% of college-bound juniors that were polled said they would read a blog written by a
college or university as a way of gathering information about that school. It is likely that a
college student looking to continue their studies in graduate school would revisit these methods
of information gathering when it came time to search for graduate schools.
It is important for colleges and universities to embrace the digital age we are living in.
The Internet provides them with additional ways to reach their prospective students in a place
they are already going for information, the Internet. Blogging allows all organizations unlimited

space to share information that would not fit in any other of their web pages. As with any new
technology organizations should embrace blogging, or be prepared for their competitors that do
to have greater success.

References
Blood, R. (2004). How blogging software reshapes the online community. Communications of
the
ACM, 47, 53-55.

Gordon, J & Berhow, S. (2009). University websites and dialogic features for building
relationships with potential students. Public Relations Review, 35, 150-152.
Jansen, B.J., Zhang, M., Sobel, K., & Chowdury, A. (2009). Micro-blogging as online word of
mouth marketing. Extended Abstracts on Human Factors in Computing Systems, 3859-3864.
Roach, R. (2006). Prospective college students receptive to electronic social network
recruitment methods, survey finds. Diverse Issues in Higher Education, 23, 5-6.
Sweetser, K.D. & Maynard, E. (2007). Communicating during crisis: use of blogs as a
relationship management tool. Public Relations Review, 33, 340-342.