CUnet's SocialThumb Gives Higher Education Marketers a Single Platform to Leverage Social Media Networks

PARAMUS, N.J., March 22, 2011 /PRNewswire/ -- CUnet (www.cunet.com) announced today the launch of a new social media management platform aimed at marketers in higher education. The platform was designed to make it easy for schools to reach and engage with audiences through multiple social media platforms, while providing clear measurement analytics to track and optimize the effectiveness of each channel.

As social media tools continue to gain influence, schools are looking for new, efficient ways to use these channels to connect with both current and prospective students. According to the 2011 Higher Education Benchmarking Survey, conducted by LeadsCouncil in partnership with CUnet, 63 percent of schools are planning to increase their spending in social media for marketing purposes this year. Despite this, many schools continue to struggle with how to use these platforms effectively.

"For many schools, the cost of managing several presences across multiple social networks, both in terms of time and money, is a significant impediment to using social media effectively," said Jeff Berg, Social Media Strategist at CUnet. "CUnet's SocialThumb simplifies this process by giving schools one centralized control panel to manage Facebook pages, Twitter feeds, YouTube channels and other social venues. Unlike most social media management tools, SocialThumb allows educators to engage beyond just posting and responding to comments, providing robust workflow management, post scheduling and the analytics required to track successful student engagements."

Available as a licensed software or a fully managed offering, CUnet's SocialThumb allows schools to:

• Manage & Streamline - Schedule, manage, and assign activity, and easily share across social networks in a single step, incorporating clear workflow and approval paths.
• Listen & Communicate - Social inbox makes it easy to track and monitor social media activity while also enabling schools to quickly respond, and engage with students and prospects.
• Measure & Report - Beyond simple monitoring, SocialThumb provides extensive analytics allowing users to easily track activity, engagement and reach with key audiences, measure the effectiveness of different channels, and measure basic sentiment.

For more information about SocialThumb or any other products and services that CUnet provides, call 1.888.77.CUNET or visit www.cunet.com.

About CUnet

CUnet delivers industry-leading technology, media, and marketing services to higher education institutions to help recruit and enroll students. Driven by a commitment to technology leadership, compliance, and exceptional customer service, CUnet's higher education experts partner with schools to improve marketing performance and deliver qualified inquiries that meet enrollment and retention goals. CUnet is proud to be a founding sponsor of the Education Marketing Council and is dedicated to promoting ethical marketing practices in postsecondary education. CUnet, headquartered in Paramus, NJ, is part of Nelnet (NYSE: NNI), a leader in education planning and financing for more than 30 years. For more information, visit www.cunet.com.

SOURCE CUnet