Graduate business school recruiting is a high-stakes game, considering students may easily pay $100,000+ for an executive MBA program. And with 6,000 business programs around the world vying for top candidates, higher ed marketers need every advantage to reach prospects. Until fairly recently, marketers have concentrated on email campaigns to generate leads among known prospects – a hit-and-miss strategy since many prospects either don’t share their email address or don’t open the messages they receive. Social media has provided business schools with new ways to reach potential candidates. According to GMAC’s 2016 mba.com Prospective Students Survey Report, 96% of prospective students use social media and 67% use it to learn about graduate education opportunities. LinkedIn is proving to be marketers’ digital platform of choice for reaching high-quality candidates. With its emphasis on professional connections and career advancement, it’s a natural gathering place for those who might be most interested in prestigious business programs. In addition, a recent study showed that for half of the respondents “friends, family and peers were most influential when considering further education — second only to the institution’s website. And professional networks were twice as influential as personal social networks.” And as candidates look to their LinkedIn connections for guidance, marketers are able to engage prospective students through relevant content and gradually encourage them to move through the enrolment funnel.