How can a conversation build thought leadership for the next generation of online education?

Education tuition increases in the United States have outpaced inflation; meanwhile, college graduation rates remain stuck in the low 30% range. It’s time for a new approach to online education that responds to today’s adults. Kaplan University’s has a pioneering focus on high-quality online education.

As the first phase of our strategy, rather than emphasizing just lead generation activities, we developed a social media thought leadership that emphasized Kaplan’s focus on innovation in education. We focused specifically on the concept of “adaptive education” (education that fits around the needs of students – especially working adults – and not the other way around). Key to conveying Kaplan’s approach toward adaptive education were development of a Kaplan University blog and a separate “aggregator” site that brought together blog posts by individuals with strong points of view on online education. Kaplan hosted and convened a Web-wide discussion about key issues in making online education as impactful as possible for today’s students.

The campaign launched January 2009. The reach of the social media/blog campaign has exceeded over 7 million UMV’s to date. The Kaplan University corporate blog has generated substantial engagement, with over 100 comments in the weeks since launch.