Dylan Olive
The Southern Editor
The app “ZeeMee” gives prospective college students the ability to talk with current college students to learn more about their undergraduate options – Florida Southern College appeared in multiple 2023 year-end rankings for engagement, activity and views.
In an official partnership with ZeeMee, FSC started utilizing the app in the fall of 2021 to give students more insight into the college by talking to student influencers and Admissions counselors. Student influencers are work study employees for the Office of Admissions who post weekly and chat with potential students on ZeeMee whenever they have questions.
The official ZeeMee app released statistics last month on 2023 statistics – FSC was ranked No. 1 for “most engaged officials” with total enrollment between 1,000-5,000, which refers to the Admissions counselors and student influencers. In the same enrollment category, FSC was ranked No. 2 for “top post views” and No. 5 for “top group chat.”
Along with the year-end rankings, ZeeMee releases an overall top 10 most engaged college communities list every week. Over the last month, FSC has made multiple appearances on the list. The week of Jan. 8, Florida Southern was the No. 1 community in “most active, connected, and engaged prospective students” for every college in the U.S. that uses the platform.
Hannah Garcia, class of ‘23, is a digital content specialist in the marketing communications department. Overseeing ZeeMee is one of her responsibilities, which includes managing the six student influencers, sending out the monthly schedules, analyzing live-event data and communicating with the school’s ZeeMee representative.
These students can follow different schools and see posts from the influencers, similar to an Instagram feed,” Garcia said. “So these posts might include information about dining on campus, Junior Journey, different dorms or just fun events that are student life-related activities.”
At least 10 people every day join the Florida Southern community on the app – sometimes more, Garcia said. At least once a month, the college sends out a major push via text or email to students who have inquired about FSC’s website or application, and those days see an influx of students joining, which are “always crazy in the chat.”
With more than 2,000 colleges on the recruitment platform, ZeeMee allows direct communication from these potential students to college staff/students from around the country and internationally. To hear directly from college students’ own experiences, as well as information and data from the counselors, students can navigate the college decision-making process a lot easier.
“I know that there’s a higher percentage of students that commit to Florida Southern if they’re on ZeeMee versus the students that are not active on the app,” Garcia said.
Inside each college community, there are channels for different topics of questions that students have: ask a current student, general, ask a counselor and announcements. Each week, student influencers host a live event to further engage students. Trivia, information sessions and question and answer events are common events that influencers host to cater to the different interests of students, to help them decide whether or not FSC is truly the right fit for them.
“As a student influencer, I am on the app daily. I check in with students, answer questions and facilitate conversations,” sophomore student influencer Olivia Dunson said. “I was not at all shocked [about FSC’s national engagement rankings], we have such an active ZeeMee community. They love getting to know each other and ask questions about FSC.”
Since the FSC application deadline isn’t until March 1, some applicants wait longer to apply. Garcia said ZeeMee is busier starting in December and going into January and February because applications are rolling in, and the students are getting notified of the app.
Many students have found their freshman-year roommate, and found clubs and organizations to get involved with, or decided to commit after tethering between two schools because of FSC’s active, growing ZeeMee community.
