We don’t talk a lot about LinkedIn. It is not a platform designed to connect retail to customers. If you were looking for information on a big sale your favorite store was having, LinkedIn wouldn’t be your first choice — or even your fifth choice. Chances are, you’d never turn to the site. While it is not a natural fit for marketing your college store to students, there is still benefit to being active on the site. Here are three ways LinkedIn can help you grow professionally.
Winning the heart of today’s student means showing you care about the two things: money and career.
Connecting with nontraditional students can be a challenge. As they come and go, more disconnected from campus events than other students, your message can be lost. Many of these students have jobs, they might have kids and they are older. All of this contributes to making them feel disenfranchised on campus. Keeping this population of students in mind, here are a few ideas of how your store can engage with overlooked students.
As the English poet John Donne famously posited, “No man is an island.” College campuses can often feel like their own, self-sustaining world. In a lot of ways, that’s what they are; jobs, housing, food and even medical services are often provided. However, no one exists in a bubble. Embracing the greater community beyond the campus walls can drive foot traffic, enhance the shopping experience and support the local economy.
Let’s pretend I’m a nontraditional student. It may be hard to picture me, because nontraditional students come from a variety of backgrounds: we are veterans just back from Afghanistan, professionals over 25 returning to school because we want to change careers or because we’re looking for advancement, and first-generation students fresh out of high school. We are also those enrolled primarily in online classes and holders of GEDs.
Winning the heart of today’s student means showing you care about the two things: money and career.
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