1 – Write up some student case studies

Include student profiles and quotes throughout your website.  This provides more of a personal touch and confirms the quality of the college and courses on offer.  It also makes existing students feel special and involved.

2 – Leverage the powers of Social Media

Teenagers are by far the largest users of social media, so this is a great opportunity to communicate with them.  Make sure to monitor and answer ALL social media posts via your Facebook / Twitter accounts.  Tweet interesting college facts and relevant news.  Use Facebook to list upcoming events and display photo galleries from previous college events.

3 – Showcase successful college leavers

Teenagers love to idolise the rich and famous, as much as anyone else!   Highlight previous students who have studied at your college that have now gone on to become successful.  This acts as evidence of the benefits of studying at your college (especially if they’re now doing well in the area they studied in).

4 – Get some promotional videos made up

As they say, a picture is worth a thousand words, but a video is worth even more.  These should ideally be kept to below 2 minutes and provide an insight into the benefits and fun times that lie ahead if choosing to enrol at your college.  If you offer media related courses, perhaps your students could help you while providing them with another project for their portfolios?

5 – Mash up your content

Include a variety of content types alongside their related subject on your website e.g. student profiles, image galleries and video clips.  This provides a fuller picture as to what each course offers, and is far more engaging than a boring course listings page.

6 – Simplify your forms

Presenting prospective students with long complex forms to fill in can be daunting, and may even turn them away.  Capture as many enrolment enquiries as you can by keeping your online forms short and sweet.  If the forms need to remain long, split the process into shorter sections, with only a few questions per page.  Including a status bar showing completion progress helps to provide the user with peace of mind they’re almost there.

7 – Prioritise website functionality

List out the key functions of your college website, then design and build your homepage around the features required to meet these.  For example, a great looking website that doesn’t allow prospective students to easily search through courses isn’t much use to anybody!

8 - Don’t forget mobile

According to recent statistics from Ofcom, nearly half of all teenagers now own a smart phone, and 70% of those aged between 16 and 24 use their mobile to access the internet.  Based on these facts, failing to consider mobile as part of you digital strategy would be a big mistake.  Don’t necessarily jump on the mobile app bandwagon straight away, research your mobile analytics first and perhaps initially focus on mobile templates.

Wan't to know how we can help you with your college / HE website?  Check out our higher education products and services here.

However, there are many more social media options out there than just these three.  So, if you’re getting bored of tweeting, liking and connecting, then why not check out these alternatives:

1. SlideShare
Upload, manage and share your powerpoint presentations online.

2. If this then that
Create and manage an almost limitless set of rules to automate your social media presence.

3. Google Plus
Group friends, colleagues, clients etc into different social circles, and share web articles, photos and more.

4. Pinterest
Create and share an online pin-board, pin up photos of things that make your day, and comment on yours and others.

5. Path
Keep your very own digital journal including photos, music and even when you go to sleep!

6. Instagram
Make your simple photos look stunning using this photo sharing and filtering iPhone app.

7. Foursquare
The original location based sharing app, tag yourself at various locations to become mayor and earn rewards.

8. Paper.li
Turn all those links your followers tweet, into eye catching easy to read e-newspapers.

Apple

We’re fairly sure the world’s second most valuable company has a few tricks up it’s sleeve for 2012, as it always has.  Expect to see a 3rd iteration of its iPad, with a crazy high resolution screen, maybe even 2 versions, one being smaller in size.  This will be the year of the iPhone 5, which is almost guaranteed to be different in design to the iPhone 4 models, and will most likely have an NFP chip to let you buy stuff without your purse or wallet.  One final questions remains, is an Apple television on the cards?

RIM

Things aren’t looking too rosy for Research in Motion, the maker of Blackberry, with sliding sales both for their phones and playbook tablets.  Although it is worth pointing out that they’re still popular amongst teenagers, as we’ve been informed by our college clients.  We won’t be too shocked if they’re split into hardware and software divisions, then sold off (most likely primarily for the patents they hold).

Google

Google has recently bought out the hardware arm of Motorla, so expect to see a more integrated approach when it comes to the latest Motorola Android devices.  Also, keep an eye on how your search results are being affected by Google’s social media platform Google plus.   If you’re logged in, and carry out a search, there’s a high chance that what your circles have been searching for and viewing will skew your search results.

Microsoft

Microsoft should make some inroads with it’s funky mobile os offering, and is likely to announce the next version of it’s Xbox gaming hardware, probably launching early 2013.  We’re expecting to see Windows 8 officially released towards the end of the year too.

Nokia

This will be the year that Nokia either wins back the hearts of the masses with its new Lumia handset using Windows mobile, or slides even further behind the competition.  Its new handsets aren’t bad, but they’re probably too little, too late.

Facebook

Expect to see Facebook’s new “timeline” profile structure become the norm this year.  Also, we shouldn’t be too surprised if they make changes to the way pages work, allowing companies to do more to market their brand within the Facebook domain.  Lastly, Facebook is almost certain to go public, with analysts expecting it to raise $10 billion, valuing the company at a whopping $100 billion.

That’s about it for now folks!  Check our blog throughout the year for updates, or at the end of the year to see how our predictions have turned out.  Saying that, we may not be around that long, if the Mayan’s “end of the world” prediction is anything to go by…