Sorority Recruitment PR
 

I was just curious as to how colleges do recruitment PR. I'm panhellenic's PR chair and in charge of fall and spring recruit PR. I wanted to know what everyone does at their own campuses and if they use anything besides flyers and signs.

Thanks!
Cassi Kaiser
Lycoming College
Panhellenic PR Chair

Ours used events themselves as PR sometimes.. We would hold Greek 'open houses' in freshman dorms throughout the fall semester with a specified number of members form each chapter. They would chat with freshmen as they were coming and going and would talk up Greek life and recruitment. We also had special events and presentations during orientation week for freshman and their parents about Greek Life.

We rely heavily on word of mouth though and sorority women recruiting girls to go through formal so they could have more of a selection. there were also flyers and stuff too. If you have any campus announcement boards (like online or in a student center) you might want to post info there.

A cute idea I know some fraternities do is to distribute buttons with their letters for PR. Instead of letters, you could have something panhellenic like "ask me about sorority life" or 'Go Greek" or something catchy to hand out and have sorority women wear them on backpacks and stuff.

• Events: BBQ's, Picnics, Movie Nights, Ice Cream Socials, Trick or Treat Down Greek Street, Service Projects, etc.
• Direct Mail Campaigns
• Flyers
• Posters
• Chalk the sidewalks (get permission)
• Hang banners outside the sorority houses
• Place signs around campus (get permission)
• Pitch article ideas to the School Newspaper
• Updated Panhellenic Web Site
• Word of Mouth
• Remind sorority members that they serve as PR ambassadors for the Panhellenic Community: actions and words of one person can fall back on the entire Greek System
• Start a PR committee and have at least one PR rep from each sorority on your committee
• Create a Panhellenic t-shirt and get the sororty members to wear them
• Take out ads in the school newspaper
• Staff up a table in or around the Student Union (get permission)
• Are there any electronic billboards on campus? Promote your events this way, too
• Buy chotchkes like buttons and pens with your web site on them and a Go Greek message
• Staff a table at a student activities fair
• Get permission to make a presentation at freshman and transfer student orientations
• Brochures
• Get Greeks involved in other campus activities where they can promote Greek Life and their organizations to non-members
• Host Panhellenic Mixers with groups on campus like the Residence Hall Association, Honor Societies, the Ladies' Crew Team, etc.
• Greek Letter Days: once a week, everyone who is Greek wears letters on the same day
• Greek Week
• Homecoming participation
• Have a competition among the sororities to promote Greek Life on campus and award a prize or title to whoever gains the most points
• Keep a list of unaffiliated women and invite them to recruitment or a Panhellenic event with a personalized eblast

And most importantly, develop a PR plan with tangible goals and ways to measure those goals.

aside from chalking sidewalks, signs on campus and flyers, our panhellenic PR girls collected empty waterbottles and then made "go greek" labels for the water bottles..then got a bunch of volunteers to distribute them at local high schools.i thought it was pretty damn clever!

also we have a facebook group, which provides the PNMs with updates on events and what to wear and the schedule.

Being there to help
 

Time to move into the dorms seems to be during the hottest part of summer. Greeks passed out water bottles and helped students with unloading and carry in their stuff. All houses wore the same style Go Greek t-shirt, promoting the system. This was in addition to fliers and mailers that had been done.