Recruiting Student Brand Ambassadors to Improve Brand Recognition on College Campuses
Many small businesses located near college campuses are constantly competing for the attention of college students in the area and must seek new, dynamic marketing strategies to attract new customers. Student brand ambassador programs offer a low-cost way to market to students to increase brand recognition on college campuses. Student brand ambassador programs involve recruiting students as social media influencers who spread a business’s brand and message across their social media networks.
The Program Structure
The goal of a student brand ambassador program is to recruit students who not only have a high social media following but who also have solid engagement rates, meaning that followers like posts that they share. Businesses should target students who have over 1000 followers and an engagement rate that is anywhere above 25%. These students should also be creative, have previous experience in marketing, demonstrate great leadership skills, and act as trendsetters within their community. These students must also be willing to take on an unpaid position and, instead, receive free/discounted products and the opportunity to gain experience in marketing. The number of brand ambassadors that are brought into the program will vary depending on the size of the business. There will typically be at least one student who acts as the campus lead and oversees each project, and, in turn, is provided more freedom over their content. The other ambassadors will focus on creating unique content for the business across various social media platforms including Facebook, Instagram, and TikTok.
Best Social Media Practices
During each day there are specific times that are conducive to an increase in engagement with social media posts. By posting content about products or offerings during these times, ambassadors can increase the number of followers they reach and improve brand recognition among their audiences. In America, 63% of people who have an Instagram account check the app on a daily basis and spend 30 minutes a day on the app. To maximize the engagement of their audiences, it is best for businesses to post between 11 am and 3 pm EST from Monday-Friday. Facebook is currently the leading social media platform with 60.6% of internet users using Facebook. Facebook users will spend about 58.5 minutes a day interacting with the social media platform, so the best times to post to maximize user engagement is between 9:15 am and 3:15 pm from Monday-Friday. TikTok has quickly become a popular app, especially among adolescents, with approximately 1 billion active users across the globe. TikTok users will typically open the app 8 times a day for 52 minutes total with the most active times occurring between 6 am and 10 am and between 7 pm and 11 pm EST from Monday-Friday.
Effectiveness of Student Brand Ambassador Programs
71% of marketers believe that brand ambassador programs are the most effective way to reach new and existing customers. Student brand ambassador programs are particularly effective because college-aged students do not tend to respond well to celebrity endorsements but have been shown to respond well to lower-level influencers known as micro-influencers. These people reach more of an audience through social media than the average person but are not celebrities and tend to attract a more specific demographic. A study conducted by a professor of Marketing at The University of Pennsylvania found that 82% of consumers were more likely to follow a recommendation made by a micro-influencer. This demonstrates the promising potential to reach a wide audience through the use of micro-influencers as brand ambassadors on college campuses.
One of the more successful brand ambassador programs which capitalizes on the use of college students is Red Bull and its recruitment of student marketeers. Much of Red Bull’s success comes from its ability to push an experience, rather than simply a product, through social media and in-person events. They do this through the use of ambassadors who are leaders and trendsetters in their community, as well as people they believe match the high-energy lifestyle promoted by the brand. Red Bull demonstrates the importance of not only attracting influential students but also the value of attracting people who match the brand and message you wish to promote.
On a smaller scale, Rem and Company interviewed the founder of Pop Social, a startup created by students at UT Austin, about the effectiveness of their ambassador program. Pop Social is an app that provides a social platform for college students to establish meaningful friendships based on understanding and interests, as opposed to a photo. Pop Social was able to recruit students from different cities in Texas by offering a program that provides experience, leadership positions, and the opportunity to work on projects that correlate with their long-term career plans. Pop Social challenged these ambassadors to post content every 2-3 days on social media platforms such as Instagram and Facebook which included affiliated links which tracked the success of each ambassador. After 6-8 weeks, the startup saw a 35% increase in users, and they were able to equate 90% of these users to their brand ambassador program. By using these student ambassadors to strategically post on social media about their brand, Pop Social was able to significantly increase its users at no financial cost to them, demonstrating the value of implementing student brand ambassadors as a means to increase brand recognition.
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