Social Media at Universities

I've talked to several universities and people managing social media at universities and was not surprised that most universities are already on social media, and are very interested in engaging their prospective students, current students and alumni. Many faculties have started their own social media initiative and even within faculties, there are departments within that are doing their own engagement.

Most social media initiatives, though seemed independent of each other, are getting better with more interaction, and as the staff get the hang of it. Some universities have good policies to support the initiative while others need to get clearance, however, seeing that with or without permission, conversations about the university is going to happen, most universities get to engage on social media.

One thing I find in common in some of these universities who are starting their social media initiatives within departments of a faculty is poor communications. Many tasks are duplicated and there is not much collaborations even between faculties. After some central coordination, social media engagement can become more effective, however I still can see some major improvements that can be made.

1) Better Transition Required.

Admissions, Student Affairs and Alumni office need very good communications.

The transition between prospective students to students need to be well coordinated as there are influencers who became students, and the list of influencers should be cultivated to be student leaders to continue to help spread awareness of the University's messages.

Upon graduation, the students who are engaging with the social media team of student affairs or respective faculties should also be properly transitioned to engage in alumni affairs and get their friends to join as well.

The departments currently in all universities that I've spoken to seemed distinct and separate. There is nobody in charge or remotely interested in caring about the transition. The student affairs department sees their duties are done when students graduate, and the alumni office will try to only get the students after graduation. There may be collaboration in may other ways like running events, however, on social media, most universities do not have a transition plan.

2) Faculty vs Alumni Office.

In many universities, the faculties engage their alumni, and the university does it as well -- but separately. Being engaged twice make an alumni feel that the university does not have their act together. On social media, for an alumni to follow the university's alumni page and the faculty's page, they need to be of course different. Having all the faculties post on the university's main page is also not the answer.

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There are many other issues which the universities that I met with encounter, however I feel that most of them can be addressed with simply better understanding on their audience and a better focus on what they want to achieve.

-- Robin Low

Social Media for Education Advancement.

I attended the CASE Masterclass conducted by Andy Shaindlin and he has brought out some fantastic points that I would love to share:

Organize without Organization.

Today, Universities and Alumni Associations no longer have monopoly over Alumni Data.

Alumni can organize their own special interest groups and target event invitations to exclusive audiences.

In fact, many students have already started their own Alumni Groups on the different social media platforms, and the birth of Web 2.0 have already enabled Alumni to self organize, self coordinate and self form their own interest groups to network and organize events.

So instead of hindering the self formation of ad hoc alumni groups, Universities should look in to facilitating such phenomena.

The Birth of the Community Manager.

Just like a social media team in a company, the idea of leveraging social media in education advancement is to build a non-marketing voice and build online networks.

As Andy put it: "Internet is not a broadcast medium"

Social platforms (like online networks) are now "listening stations" for organizations.

"Every network has an underlying purpose" and motivations for such network creation. The role of the community manager is to hold the collective vision, create and manage relationships and manage collaborative processes.

In an article by Jeremiah Owyang :"The Four Tenets of the Community Manager", He lists a few good roles the Community Manager should have.

The Four Tenets of the Community Manager
In the following, I’m not going to list out all my findings, but it was clear there were 4 number of Tenets, or beliefs that each role holds. In nearly all the job descriptions, the following beliefs were spelled out as requirements for the role.

1) A Community Advocate
As a community advocate, the community managers’ primary role is to represent the customer. This includes listening, which results in monitoring, and being active in understanding what customers are saying in both the corporate community as well as external websites. Secondly, they engage customers by responding to their requests and needs or just conversations, both in private and in public.

2) Brand Evangelist
In this evangelistic role (it goes both ways) the community manager will promote events, products and upgrades to customers by using traditional marketing tactics and conversational discussions. As proven as a trusted member of the community (tenet 1) the individual has a higher degree of trust and will offer good products.

3) Savvy Communication Skills, Shapes Editorial
This tenet, which is both editorial planning and mediation serves the individual well. The community manager should first be very familiar with the tools of communication, from forums, to blogs, to podcasts, to twitter, and then understand the language and jargon that is used in the community. This individual is also responsible for mediating disputes within the community, and will lean on advocates, and embrace detractors –and sometimes removing them completely. Importantly, the role is responsible for the editorial strategy and planning within the community, and will work with many internal stakeholders to identify content, plan, publish, and follow up.

4) Gathers Community Input for Future Product and Services Perhaps the most strategic of all tenets, community managers are responsible for gathering the requirements of the community in a responsible way and presenting it to product teams. This may involve formal product requirements methods from surveys to focus groups, to facilitating the relationships between product teams and customers. The opportunity to build better products and services through this real-time live focus group are ripe, in many cases, customer communities have been waiting for a chance to give feedback.

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Basically, a community manager should have big eyes and small mouth.

Perfect Community Manager

And the 2 important questions that the alumni association needs to ask is:

1) For the initiative you want to start -- does the alumni want it?
2) For the service you want to provide (or build) -- is it easier to be accessed elsewhere?

If your organization is interested in engaging Alumni and Students in Social Media, please bear in mind: What works for someone may not work for you. But feel free to consider all the best practices by other organizations around the world.

Good examples
(Facebook)
Stanford University
University of Michigan

(Blog)
University of Texas at Austin

More examples on Mashable article: 10 Ways Universities Share Information Using Social Media

If you have any other suggestions, feel free to share!

-- Robin Low