Western Kentucky University

Our focus for the WKU College of Education and Behavioral Sciences was to increase awareness while recruiting and retaining students with primary attention towards growth within the School of Teacher Education. 

Our strategy included monthly shared media planning where we determined announcements based on our four themes - the transformational power of the WKU experience; diversity, equity, and inclusion; innovation; global reach.

In 2020 alone, we increased followership on  Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram by 30%, 25%, and 100%, respectively, and maintained an engagement rate 0f 6.7% with our followers. The industry standard metric for social media engagement in higher education is 3.5%.

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Further, we created an earned media presence through new media relationships within Bowling Green, Kentucky and surrounding areas and garnered more than 2 million media impressions in 2020, despite the dominance of COVID 19 in news cycles.

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Throughout the COVID 19 pandemic, CEBS remained nimble in marketing efforts by creating targeted paid campaigns on Google and Facebook to continue driving our online presence to our targeted audiences.

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These combined efforts helped support the natural student life cycle, and despite a global pandemic, we increased enrollment by 33% for the 20'-21' school year.

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Upon my departure, the college was trending 17% higher in committed students versus the same time the previous year. The WKU admissions office had begun a case study to ensure other WKU colleges implemented CEBS strategies to ensure the same student gain across all colleges.

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