How to Respond Strategically to Platform Questions
You’ve been in this type of meeting before. It starts off normal enough: your team is discussing campaign performance, upcoming priorities, and maybe there’s a quick update on enrollment trends.
Then someone asks, “Should we be on Amazon?”
Another person adds, “I heard What’sApp is picking up.”
Nextdoor gets thrown in, and before the conversation wraps, someone says,
“Are we doing enough on LinkedIn?”
You think to yourself, “What are we actually trying to achieve here? Sounds like we’re collecting platforms like they’re Pokemon cards—and what’s the point?”
None of this is coming from a bad place. You know this discussion is simply an attempt to make sure your team isn’t missing something.
👉 Before you respond, let’s first understand how each platform actually works.
Amazon gets mentioned because we spend a lot of time shopping here, and it’s common for students to turn to Amazon to save on textbook costs and school supplies. Amazon is a high-intent environment. It behaves much more like paid search than anything else. People are there to solve something or make a decision. That can work if your program aligns with that moment: perhaps community education where individuals purchasing yoga equipment may be interested in a wellness class, or a career pathway where purchasing certain tools may connect directly to jobs.
However, it’s a narrow lane. Most prospective students aren’t opening Amazon to figure out where they want to go to college, and just because someone bought safety goggles doesn’t mean they want to learn a trade.
Now, WhatsApp usually comes up for a completely different reason: connection. Teams want faster, more direct communication with students, and that instinct is great.
WhatsApp is built for inquiry and ongoing communication. It works best once someone is already in your world: supporting admitted students, helping current students stay on track, and making it easier to communicate across languages or time zones. It’s also worth noting that it is significantly more popular for international audiences and ethnicities.
You may not have even had the NextDoor question pop up. This is a platform where people aren’t always sure what to do with it, but they don’t want to ignore it either. It’s hyper-local, tied to where people live, and built around trust. This all aligns great with community college missions. It’s also a great space for organic engagement and social monitoring.
LinkedIn tends to be underutilized, which is interesting, considering how often we talk about workforce alignment, career outcomes, and economic mobility in higher education. LinkedIn is strong for reaching employers, industry partners, alumni, and working adults over 30. The targeting is built around professional identity: roles, industries, and skills. Advertising on LinkedIn can be a hefty investment, but in terms of having organic engagement with these audiences on LinkedIn, I highly recommend it.
Each of these platforms has value. The challenge is that they are limited in scale. Their audience pools are often smaller than those of larger social platforms, and their targeting and optimization tools typically aren’t as robust.
While conversations about which platforms your college should be on can be daunting, the most important question is: “What problem are we trying to solve?”
That’s where intent and strategy come in.
Ask the team:
- Who are we trying to reach?
- What do we want them to do?
- Where does that behavior actually happen?
- Is this a priority over other platforms?
The pressure to be everywhere isn’t going away. There will always be a new platform, a new trend, or a new reason someone thinks your college should jump in immediately.
My recommendation? Stay platform aware, but strategy grounded.
Trends and platform performance are changing even faster than ever before, but chasing every new shiny object usually isn’t the answer. If your team is genuinely curious about a platform, give it a chance to prove itself.
✅ Test thoughtfully.
✅ Measure performance.
✅ Learn from the results.
Then decide whether it deserves a bigger investment.
Good marketing isn’t about being everywhere. It’s about being intentional where it matters most.
If you’re evaluating where to invest your marketing efforts next, let’s talk. GradComm can help you build a strategy focused on results, and not just the latest trends.
