We work with many clients in the higher education sector and have gathered together our tips, tricks and advice for utilising the platform best in this industry. Please copy and paste the suggested filters to save yourself some time, experiment with some of the suggested charts for your reporting and don't forget you can always reach out to your Customer Success Lead to provide more guidance to get the most out of Pulsar.
What's included within this article:
How to report on direct vs indirect mentions
How to analyse owned vs earned media
Examples of filters looking at different key events
Examples of student & staff titles for bio keyword filtering
Case studies and example reports for inspiration
Direct and Indirect Reporting
In our experience of working with high education institutions, they often would like to report on both direct and indirect mentions. But what is the difference between direct and indirect mentions?
Direct mentions are when someone directly tags you in their tweet
e.g. "@PulsarPlatform I think your tools are amazing"
Indirect mentions are when they refer to your organisation but don't tag you
e.g. "Pulsar Platform's data is very insightful".
If you're wanting to report on this you will need to use the filter to separate out the two. For direct mentions, add your owned X handle(s) into the Keywords section.
For indirect mentions, add your institution's name into the Keywords section of the filter.
đĄ Top Tip: Be sure to save these filters to make them easy to apply every time you come into the platform.
Owned and Earned Content Reporting
Another thing we find higher education institutions reporting on is owned vs earned. What is the difference between owned and earned media?
âOwned media is content that you have posted from your owned social media accounts.
Earned media is content posted about your institution from other authors.
To only look at your owned media on Pulsar TRAC, use the Authors section within the filter to pull forward content coming from your accounts only. This would be typically done within a brand search tracking all mentions of your institution.
You can filter for X accounts and Facebook pages. To filter by a Facebok page, enter the page's URL tag into the single authors field ie. from the screenshot below you would enter uniofwestminister into the field.
đĄ Top Tip: Remove the @ handle when filtering for specific X accounts
To analyse earned content all you need to do is press the + sign next account name in the filter to change it to a - . By doing so, this excludes content that come from your institutions owned accounts.
Filters for Key Event Tracking
Here are some example booleans you can use in the filter to track key events throughout the academic year. Please consider your institutions owned hashtags and event names to add to these keywords.
Graduation | graduation OR graduating OR #graduation OR #graduating OR "grads 2023" OR #2023graduation OR âclass ofâ |
Open Days | "open days" OR "open day" OR #openday |
Freshers Week/Welcome Week | freshers OR #fresher OR âwelcome weekâ OR âfreshers weekâ OR #welcomeweek |
Results Day | "results day" OR "result day" OR #resultsday OR "uni results" OR "ucas results" OR "ucas result" OR #uniresults |
Strikes | strikes OR strike OR #stopthestrikes OR "strike day" OR "strike days" OR "ucu strike"~6 |
Rankings | ranking OR rankings OR ranked OR âleague tablesâ OR âleague tableâ OR QS |
Varsity | varsity OR #varsity2023 OR #varsity |
Clearing | "clearing 2022"~6 OR #clearing OR #clearing2023 OR "in clearing" OR "into clearing" OR "through clearing" OR UCAS OR #UCAS OR #UCAS2022 OR "clearing course"~6 OR "clearing courses"~6 OR "apply to clearing" OR "clearing apply"~6 |
Filters for Targeting Students and Staff via Bio Keywords
A great way to isolate conversations coming from students and staff is through bio keyword targeting. Within the demographics section of the filter you can target different communities via their bios.
Here are some helpful examples to use and save as filters.
Current Students | student OR study* OR "studying at" OR "1st year" OR "2nd year" OR "3rd year" OR âfinal yearâ OR âfirst yearâ OR "first yr" OR âsecond yrâ OR âthird yrâ OR masters OR phd OR undergrad OR postgrad OR postgraduate OR undergraduate |
Alumni | alumni OR alumnus |
Staff | professor OR researcher OR teacher OR lecture OR lecturer |
You can also identify other communities via the language they use in conversation. Enter these keyword combinations below into the Keywords section of the filter and save them for later.
Prospective Students | (thinking OR might OR going OR too OR to) AND (applying OR applied OR application OR apply) |
Offer Holders | "received offer" OR "offer" OR "starting in" OR "Starting at" OR "accepted application" OR "i've accepted" OR "starting at" OR "received offer" OR "accepted offer" OR "I'm going to" OR "starting in" OR "starting at" |
Inspiration for Reporting
Within the Reports section of Pulsar TRAC, when creating a dashboard you are able to create your own custom charts. We have found the below recommended filters to be useful for identifying the why behind certain themes. Use these a keyword filters when creating your custom charts:
Reasons for entering clearing
Missed Grades - (grades OR marks OR results) AND (miss* OR lower OR rubbish OR crap OR bad OR shit OR "didn't get" OR "not good" OR "not as good")
Didnât Apply - ("did not" OR "forgot to" OR "didn't") AND (apply OR applied)
Late Applicant - "applied late"~6 OR "late application"~6 OR "late applicant"~6
Rejected - reject* OR "said no" OR denied OR deny OR refused
Student Concerns
Finances - finances OR finance OR money OR "student loans" OR "student loan" OR "maintenance loan" OR "maintenance loans"
Moving away - "moving away" OR "moving out" OR "leaving home" OR "moving from home" OR ânew cityâ OR âbig cityâ
Scholarship - Scholarship OR Scholarships OR bursary OR bursaries
Accommodation - accommodation OR housing OR halls OR flat OR flats
Nightlife - "night life" OR nightlife OR "going out" OR "night out" OR "nights out"
Academics - academics OR lectures OR lecture OR tutor OR exam OR assessment OR exams OR assessments OR essays OR essay
Other Charts to consider:
KPI Alerts for Crisis Comms Management
Within higher education, there is often a need to monitor certain crisis situations.
A great way to be notified when a mentions of crisis keywords gather momentum, is through our KPI alerts. These will allow you to be notified by email when volume or sentiment changes and reaches your set threshold. You would apply these KPI alerts to your brand search to see if they were mentioned in relation to your institution.
Below is a helpful list of saved filters you can use for crisis comms management.
Strikes | strikes OR strike OR striking |
Protests | protest OR protests OR protesting OR protestors OR protestor OR protested |
Mental Health | "mental health" OR anxiety OR depression OR depressed OR anxious OR overwhelmed OR stressed OR stressful OR stress OR "mental illness" OR suicide OR suicidal OR suicides |
Drug Misuse | cocaine OR ket* OR MDMA OR pills OR ecstasy OR 2cb OR acid OR drugs OR "drug deal" OR "drug dealing" |
Crime | "break in" OR "break ins" OR "break into" OR stab* OR rape* OR "sexual assault" OR theft OR thieves OR intruder OR robbed OR robber OR robbery |
Illness | tonsillitis OR mumps OR "glandular fever" OR mono OR "freshers flu" OR measles OR meningitis OR sepsis OR chlamydia |
Case Study and Reports
Here are links to our higher education related white papers and client case studies, which have been collated and published by our Pulsar marketing team. They may help to inspire your use of the tools or give you some fresh perspectives about how social listening can be applied in the higher Education industry.
Clearing Report:
We hope you enjoyed reading this article! đ
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