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The quick growth of social networks and the arrival of the web 2.0 era has left many feeling off the pace when it comes to their marketing.

They ask: what does MySpace and Facebook, or even Second Life, really have to do with my organisation?

How do wikis, blogs, podcasts and tags fit in with what we do as a brand online?

What about techniques in search engine optimisation, contextual advertising, viral games, online branding, email and mobile marketing?

Along with these questions they wonder about their audience.

Much has been written, but how really has digital influenced the habits, preferences and lifestyles of the student audience - a demographic packed full of early-adopting, web-savvy, culture-plugged youngsters?

Change brings uncertainty, and things have fundamentally changed in UK student marketing. The days of peeling posters on department noticeboards and tattered promotional beermats are over.

Every day Reach Students answers questions on the relevance of digital media to student brands and student-focused organisations. We’ve been creating and implementing online strategies since the early days of web marketing. Today we specialise solely in digital marketing to students.

For January only, Reach Students is offering established brands the opportunity to receive a FREE audit of their current digital marketing activity. We are limiting it to one month and just five chosen brands.

We will look at everything you do – or don’t do – in student or graduate recruitment marketing, and we’ll deliver a concise report advising what you should to do next.

There is no catch.

We are offering this complimentary service for two reasons:

Firstly, we love our work. We want to meet new people, hear about their brands and share insight. 

Secondly, we believe we are the best at what we do and that, if you see our work, you will want to work with us.

(That said, we are not going to be on the phone every five minutes pushing for a sale after the report is delivered. You’ll benefit from our report and you’ll be eager to go further. If you’re not, then we won’t be wasting energy!)

So if this interests you, you want to take up the unique offer and you are involved with an established brand, get in touch to request an audit.

Consumer or entertainment brand, charity, recruiter, government department - it doesn’t matter.

Our only criteria for deciding the selected five is that they pose an interesting challenge and possess a genuine desire to stay ahead in digital marketing.

Go to www.reachstudents.co.uk and follow the Contact link to talk to Luke about getting together.

Digital marketing is changing the student marketing arena. For many in the student market it offers new opportunities and solutions. For some it actually poses a threat.

Students’ unions could suffer as a result of digital media growth.

In the past, unions have acted as gatekeepers on campus, controlling to some extent the marketing activity that takes place and profiting from relationships with agencies and brands. They still do.

But now, these agencies and brands have new opportunities to find and talk to students without interference…or payment.

Although there will always be those that want to visit campus and promote - giveaways, freshers fairs, leafleting and sampling - others are likely to become less interested in union marketing now they have the luxury of ‘options’.

There have been some uneasy relationships between unions and marketers in the past. Even those intent on making trusted and fair deals with unions have sometimes found it hard.

Admittedly there have been some utter sharks: unions have been shafted in the past by fly-by-night firms; have been patronised by those who have assumed they aren’t marketing-savvy; and have been infuriated by those who market on their doorstep without permission.

But there are also a number of ‘good guys’ out there whose only crime is that they wish to build profitable businesses promoting students’ union media channels.

These firms are the ones more unions should embrace readily if they wish to continue to profit from student marketing. These are the ones who are going out every day talking to big clients and budget holders about investing in students’ union media at a time when others are selling the alternative.

Many of these firms have new ideas about how they can make students’ union marketing assets more appealing and relevant to marketers in this new era.

Unions, to give some context, do not exist to facilitate conversations between students and advertisers. They exist to support students and they are run ‘not-for-profit’. Which explains why they can sometimes be passive and disinterested when approached with a campaign.

But the fact is – most of them at least – really need revenue. And there is revenue to be made from digital marketing through unions.

I hope unions work more enthusiastically with decent partners in 2007. Or else I fear their slice of student marketing spend is about to get smaller.

It was clear to me when I discussed digital media with union marketers at AMSU’s student marketing conference last year that unions would struggle to mobilise independently of agencies and produce anything that makes maximum use of their assets.

This is a personal observation by me, Luke Mitchell, on the impact of digital on students’ union marketing.I talk here in a general manner about unions: I realise not every union is the same in its attitude and approach. I should also point out that I have no affiliation with either the ‘good guys’ or the ‘baddies’ on the agency front, nor anything to gain from encouraging collaboration. It’s an objective piece on a subject that interests me.

I’d love to read some other viewpoints – please use the comment boxes below.

You wait years for a nationwide student TV network (SUBtv) and then suddenly you can’t keep track as new ones spring up across the digital landscape.

To be fair, Xplore is an entirely different proposition to the well-established SUBtv, which has been broadcasting since 2003 in students’ unions across the country.

Xplore is essentially YouTube for students. A place for UK university and college students to upload their own clips and “have your say, whether you want to tell your best joke or sound off about what’s in the news, politics, the environment, college fees, abortion or Man Utd (this list is not exhaustive)”.

The site is endorsed by the National Union of Students and run by an NUS officer, Dan Chilcott.

It will be intriguing to see how this develops.

NUS has traditionally had a problem associating itself with any person or business whose viewpoint conflicts with its own agenda. It’s not easy to get the official support of NUS for anything - let alone an open platform for self-expression. Past executive officers have made it their business to put the spoilers on any collaboration that they can get political about.

Xplore has an exhaustive list of terms and conditions covering content posted, much the same as You Tube. You Tube takes a fairly passive moderation role, allowing users to notfiy them of infringements, but will NUS/Xplore be able to restrain itself?

It’s hard to imagine the organisation being comfortable, for example, if the platform it’s endorsing was used by hardline Trotskyists (yes, they do still exist) or Conservatives to market their ideas.

If it succeeds and attracts a lot of uploads, it is undoubtedly going to be scrutinised.

Still, it’s fantastic to see NUS continuing to be bold in its approach to all things new media.

Things have really moved on since the dark days of its deal with ITM Communications and its half-hearted attempt to be a one-stop student ‘portal’.

Under the direction of an inspired New Media Manager they have kept well ahead of the game and the current nusonline is alive with all sorts of web 2.0 incorporation.

Which brings us to Freewire TV, an IPTV (TV through telephone wires) service brought to the market by some refugees of the ITM/NUS partnership.

Freewire is described by some as Freeview via broadband. It runs over the university JANET network and is allowing some universities to install multichannel television in their halls of residence without investing in extra technology.

“The student market is the prime example of a sector that has been disenfranchised from digital TV,” Marcus Liassides, the founder of Inuk Networks which runs Freewire, told informitv.com.

“Freewire TV presents universities and other institutions with a highly compelling and long-overdue solution for the provision of high quality broadcast television.”

Read the full article.

Boso, an Ebay-esque marketplace just for students, is getting some attention thanks to some savvy marketing and, now, a wedge of investor funding.

Boso (Buy Or Sell Online) is the creation of two Oxford graduates. It recently featured on Channel 4’s Tricky Business show and as a result Blogger founder Evan Williams now sits on its advisory board.

Boso have run some pertinent, low budget marketing campaigns using Facebook flyers and have quickly built the foundations of a trading community. Their approach is examined over at Trendcatching.

The key difference between Boso and Ebay is that sellers simply market their wares at a set price and transactions take place when the first buyer accepts. And of course it works well for students because often they can collect from fellow students in person.

There have been several specialist student sites of this nature come and go in recent years, all of them failing to attract an audience. When you’ve got a meat-and-two-veg business idea and not much budget to market it you have to be pretty creative and insightful to pull in punters.

Which is why Boso is interesting. It looks like they have passed the threshold of buyers and sellers needed in order to show activity and encourage newcomers to get involved. Which means they must be pretty good at selling their service to an often sceptical UK student audience. 

A nice wad of notes from investors YCombinator should help keep up the all-important momentum.

Good luck to them.

Kevin Glennon, working in the US, has written a short think piece [pdf link] on the role of experiential marketing in the online world and gaming.

‘Virtual Test Drive’ considers the way virtual environments such as Second Life and World of Warcraft could have relevance to open-minded marketers and their brands. Glennon argues the budget-saving and audience reach benefits of online experiential marketing.

Worth a look.