Higher Ed Impact 0211

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JANUARY FEBRUARY 2011

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CONTRIBUTORS

Andrew Careaga, Director of Communications, Missouri University ofScience and Technology

A veteran blogger and social media junkie, Andrew contributes to Missouri S&Ts research blog, Visions(visions.mst.edu), and blogs frequently on his personal site, Higher Ed Marketing (highered.prblogs.org). Healso is involved in coordinating the universitys social media presence on Facebook, Twitter, and YouTubeAndrews professional involvement includes service with CASE (the Council for the Advancement and Supporof Education) as chair of CASE District VI (1998-2000) and a three-year term on the CASE Communicationsand Marketing Commission (2002-2005). He also served on the CASE Commission on Opportunity andEquity from 1994-96.

Andrew Gossen, Senior Director for Social Media Strategy, Alumni Affairsand Development, Cornell University

Andrew came to Cornell in early 2010 to spearhead the integration of social media and mobile technologyinto the divisions strategic plan. Previously, Andrew spent eight years with the Princeton University AlumnAssociation in a number of diverse roles. He sits on the CASE Commission on Alumni Relations, co-chairs theCASE Task Force on Social Media, and will chair the 2011 CASE Social Media & Community conference. Andrewholds a bachelors degree from Princeton and a doctorate in social anthropology from Harvard University.

Ben Jarrett, Assistant Director, Advancement, Georgetown University

Ben leads Georgetowns student and young alumni giving effort and manages a regional major gifts portfolioHe has integrated social media into his work on pipeline development, young alumni engagement, anddonor retention. Ben previously served Georgetown as the institutions assistant director for fundraisingvolunteer management. In 2009, he was awarded a Venture Fund by the Council for the Advancement andSupport of Education to plan the Alumni Life Continuum Conference for CASE District II institutions.

Stephen Jendraszak, Operations Manager, Marketing and Communications,Ball State University

Stephen plays a key role in the authorship and enforcement of university communications policies, includinga social media policy that has generated significant interest among higher education institutions and tradepublications because it is one of first of its kind in the industry. He recently spoke on social media policydevelopment at the Public Relations Summit of the Independent Colleges of Indiana.
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HIGHER ED IMPACTMONTHLYDIAGNOSTIC


Tanya Joosten, Interim Associate Director, Learning Technology Center,University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee

Tanya manages several emerging technology projects, including the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukeesocial media emerging technology grant project. She has extensive experience teaching technology-enhanced, blended, and fully online courses and leads several online and blended programming initiatives

Tanyas publications include chapters and articles on various emerging technologies. Most recently, hework on social media has been highlighted by The Chronicle of Higher Education, Ed Tech MagazineeCampus News, and EDUCAUSE Quarterly. She serves as a member on the EDUCAUSE EvolvingTechnologies steering committee, Sage Publication Digital Media advisory board, EDUCAUSE Quarterlyreview committee, and the Sloan-C Blended conference steering committee. She also leads the EDUCAUSEsocial media constituent group.

AJ Kelton, Director of Emerging Instructional Technologies, College ofHumanities and Social Sciences, Montclair State University

AJ is very involved in virtual worlds for education he founded EDUCAUSEs Virtual Worlds ConstituentGroup, and he is the founder and chief moderator of the Virtual Worlds Education Roundtable (http://www.vwer.org). He also recently co-founded the EDUCAUSE Games and Learning Constituent Group. AJis a doctoral student in the Educational Communication and Technology program at New York Universityand can be found tweeting @sorry_afk.

Cindy Lawson, Assistant to the Chancellor for Marketing andCommunications, University of North Carolina Wilmington

With more than 25 years of public relations experience in higher education and with a Fortune 500 companyCindys work has included marketing, public relations, institutional research, integrated marketing, strategicplanning, issues management, crisis communications, media relations, event planning, publications, Webcommunications, visitor centers, and speaker bureaus. Prior to taking her post at the University of NorthCarolina Wilmington, Cindy served as the vice president for communications and strategy developmentat the University of North Carolina system. During the 1999 bonfire tragedy at Texas A&M University, inwhich 12 students died and 27 others were injured, she was the executive director of university relations

Cindy provides consulting services to cities and municipalities regarding their communication preparednessin response to terrorism. She has authored a crisis communications chapter for the recently published bookCampus Crisis Management: A Comprehensive Guide to Planning, Prevention, Response, and Recovery

as well as Effective Crisis Communications, a set of instructional materials for the National Response and

Recovery Center.

CONTRIBUTORS (CONTINUED)


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Jeremiah Owyang, Partner of Customer Strategy and Industry Analyst,Altimeter Group

Hailing from enterprise Web management, Jeremiah, a former industry analyst, consults and speaks on thetopics of disruptive technologies for brand-related customer strategies. He authors the popular blog WebStrategy and has hosted workshops, events, and community tweet-ups across the globe. Hes active withthe Twitter community and has more than 52,000 followers and growing. Previously, Jeremiah was a senioanalyst at Forrester Research, focused on social computing for the interactive marketer. Before that, heserved as director of corporate media strategy at PodTech Network, a podcasting and online video startup

Patrick Powers, Interactive Media Manager, Webster University

Patrick is responsible for all online marketing efforts at Webster University and established and maintainsthe institutions Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, and LinkedIn presences. He is an expert on social media

content management, social media strategy for admissions, Web analytics, and social media policy.

Ray Schroeder, Professor Emeritus of Communication, and FoundingDirector of the Center for Online Learning, Research, and Service, Universityof Illinois Springfield

Ray has numerous national presentations and publications in online and technology-enhanced learning tohis name, and he has published the popular Online Learning Update and Educational Technology blogs fothe past decade. Ray was a Sloan Consortium Distinguished Scholar in Online Learning 2002-03, recipientof the 2002 Sloan-C award for the Most Outstanding Achievement in ALN by an Individual, University oSouthern Maine Visiting Scholar in Online Learning 2006-09, and co-founder of the New Century LearningConsortium. Most recently, he was named the inaugural 2010 recipient of the Sloan Consortiums highesindividual award the A. Frank Mayadas Leadership Award. Ray is an inaugural Sloan Consortium Fellow.

Andy Shaindlin, Founder and Consultant, Alumni Futures

Andy is the founder of Alumni Futures, a consultancy that helps organizations understand and deploysocial technologies. His focus is on trends in online engagement, especially as they apply to educationainstitutions. A 22-year veteran of education management, Andy was most recently executive director of theCaltech Alumni Association and currently chairs the Commission on Alumni Relations for CASE (the Councifor Advancement and Support of Education). In addition to consulting with schools, colleges, universitiesand other nonprofits, Andy advises start-ups in the social technology and mobile sectors.

Jason Simon, Director, Marketing and Communication Services, University ofCalifornia System

Jason joined the University of California system in 2009, managing the reorganization of its communicationgroup. He oversees the systems marketing efforts and manages a group tasked with branding, advocacyrecruitment, and Web/outreach strategies. Prior to joining the UC system, Jason was the executive directoof marketing and creative services at North Carolina State University. There he oversaw the launch ofan integrated branding campaign, a new enrollment strategy, and the launch of a billion-dollar capitalcampaign.



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Teresa Valerio Parrot, Vice President, Higher Education, WidmeyerCommunications

Teresa draws on extensive experience designing and implementing strategic media and marketing effortsaimed at enhancing institutions image, reputation, and brand. Previously, Teresa was vice president ofmedia relations and crisis communications for SimpsonScarborough, and she has nearly 10 years ofexperience with the University of Colorado system. This includes an officer-level appointment as assistantsecretary of the university, in which capacity she assisted the board on policy and media/PR issues overtwo years filled with athletic and academic controversy that drew national and international headlines.

Norm Vaughan, Assistant Professor, Faculty of Teaching and Learning,Mount Royal University

An educator and researcher with interests in blended learning and faculty development schooling,

Norms teaching background includes graduate and undergraduate courses in educational technology,K-12 education, technical training, and English as a second language. He recently co-authored the bookBlended Learning in Higher Education and has published a series of articles on blended learning andfaculty development. Norm is the co-founder of the Blended Online Learning Design Network, a memberof the Community of Inquiry Research Group, and the associate editor of the International Journal ofMobile and Blended Learning, and he is on the editorial boards of the International Journal of Excellencein e-Learning, Canadian Journal of Learning and Technology, the Journal on Centres for Teaching &

Learning, and the Learning Communities Journal.

Brad Ward, CEO, BlueFuego, Inc.

Brad is the co-founder of BlueFuego, Inc., and has spoken around the globe at over 75 higher educationconferences and workshops, including recent events in Dubai, Singapore, Malaysia, Canada, andAustralia. His work has been featured in magazines and websites such as Campus Technology, UniversityBusiness, The Chronicle of Higher Education, Inside Higher Ed, Wired, CNET, New York Times, and more.He holds an MBA with a concentration in leadership from Butler University. Prior to starting BlueFuego,Ward was the electronic communication coordinator in the Office of Admission at Butler.

Gail Werner, Media Relations Manager, Marketing and Communications,Ball State University

Gail oversees Ball States internal e-mail messaging service, known as the Communications Center, andhas played a lead role in the development and implementation of the universitys social media policy.

Additionally, she manages Ball States official presence on Facebook and Twitter.


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MAKING INFORMEDINVESTMENTS INSOCIAL MEDIADaniel Fusch, Academic Impressions

With more colleges and universities pursuing ad hocinvestments in social media (whether to recruit students,engage students, improve learning in the classroom, orcultivate young alumni), its critical to separate the hypefrom the reality and both understand how your constituentsare actually using social media and how social media toolscan best be used to move the needle on critical operationalobjectives such as student recruitment, engagement, andphilanthropy.

Jeremiah Owyang, industry analyst with the Altimeter Group,warns that organizations that start with implementation rather than with research and strategy are at risk ofengaging large numbers of their constituents and thenproving unable to either deliver on the promise of thatengagement (due to inadequate planning and constrainedresources) or make the most of that engagement to bolstertheir objectives. Drawing on research into what is workingnot only in the nonprofit world but also in the corporatesector, Owyang offered last month a matrix of questions

that need to be addressed early in the decision-makingprocess before investing in new social media tools.

MOVING THE NEEDLE

The most successful colleges and universities

have clearly defined their goals, then identified

the tools that will be of the most help in meeting

those goals ... regardless of which social media

technologies are hot.

Patrick Powers, Webster U

Those organizations whether in higher education,health care, government, or information services thathave seen the most success in using social media have kepttheir focus on the goals, not the tools. They start not byasking How can we catch up and use Facebook? but by

asking How can we build loyalty in our constituency? andthen checking to see if Facebook (and other tools) offeopportunities for doing so. Consider these examples fromoutside of higher ed:

breadth and depth of its expertise, so it became oneof the first entities to encourage employee bloggingon a wide scale; though by todays standards its indexof staff blogs is less user-friendly than other similaexamples, IBM saw significant traffic for its menu ofexpertise and insight from a passionate crowd whichpurported to offer business and technology expertiseyou cant get from anyone else

social media channels, President Barack Obamascampaign for the White House saw unprecedented

success in using social media to back a very intentionacommunications strategy; for example, the candidatesweekly YouTube videos and direct addresses to hisconstituency allowed him to reiterate his campaignpromise, answer challenges from the opposingparty, and build loyalty through regular and directcommunication with a key demographic

to monitor social media networks as a reputationmanagement strategy; the Red Cross quickly realizedhowever, that given the candor and openness of

conversations on them, social media channels offeredmarket research opportunities to help meet goalsaround improvement of services; the Red Crosss sociamedia strategist regularly documents stories shared onsocial media and distributes them to key internal staffas discussion starters

As these examples from social media adopters in othesectors demonstrate, whats important is for eachinstitution to start with core objectives and then investigatehow particular tools might be used in ways that meet those

objectives. For example:

visibility of its music school might turn, as part of itsstrategy, to YouTube to promote its concerts andpublish online video interviews with music faculty andstudents
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engagement amid declining state support mightinclude a social media mashup on its website tohighlight events, top news, and stories of alumni whoare making a difference

ratio and the strategic objective of improving studentpersistence and academic success might make animpact on student learning and engagement in packedundergraduate lecture halls by setting up a Twitter feedin each class and having students tweet the points inthe lecture that they find muddy; the instructor canmonitor the live feed and clarify confusing points inrealtime

Matching the right tool to the objective will require researchinto not only which social media tools your constituents are

using but also howyour constituents are using those tools.

REVIEWING THE RESEARCHThe sheer volume of talk about social media and thematerial written on it can prove to be an impediment toidentifying what investments make sense and how yourinstitution can get the most value out of them. To chart aninformed course, its critical to review the research on:

media to connect with their social network?

media to share and disseminate information?

To help address these questions, we would like to turn tothe ethnographic research of danah boyd (sic), a socialmedia researcher with Microsoft Research New England, afellow at Harvard Universitys Berkman Center for Internetand Society, and a key thought leader on the uses of socialmedia. boyds findings can help clarify how high school

students and the traditionally college-aged in particularare using social media. We will also draw on the insightsof social media experts Jeremiah Owyang (industry analystwith the Altimeter Group), Patrick Powers (interactivemedia manager with Webster University), and Brad Ward(CEO of BlueFuego, Inc.).

Lets debunk a few common myths and false assumptionsand take a look at which facts about social media use aremost important for guiding decisions at your institution.

MYTH #1: SHARING WHAT THEYHAD FOR BREAKFASTOne of the most enduring social media myths is that thecollege-aged use social media sites for sharing largelyfrivolous content (kegger photos for a social network site

status updates about what they ate at their last meal forTwitter). Most of what they share might be pure gossip,boyd notes in her April 2009 speech at Penn State,butteens also share links, references, ideas, and originacontent.

For example, consider that according to ComScore, asearly as August 2008, YouTube surpassed Yahoo! as thesite with the second-highest search traffic in the USAccording to Patrick Powers, youth are searching onlinevideos not only for entertainment but also for information

about everything from how to repair a car to what collegeto attend.

More broadly, its crucial to be aware that many of thecollege-aged will arrive at your institution used to sharinginformation and resources with their peers on a dailybasis. There is an incredible potential to leverage thatinformation-sharing for educational and in the long runphilanthropic purposes. To cite a few examples:

online videos to disseminate tutorials on the FAFSA

and the admissions process to prospective studentsand applicants

have begun encouraging their alumni to donatetheir status updates during key times of the year(homecoming, commencement, holidays, etc.) todeliver targeted messages or gift requests to theirsocial networks

facilitate sharing of research among undergraduateswithin a specific course or program

Well take a closer look at these and other examples laterin this issue.
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to avoid MySpace in favor of Facebook, in part becauseof a stigma attached to MySpace, in part because collegefaculty and staff are more likely to use Facebook alreadyand in part assuming that they would find their constituentson Facebook not MySpace.

But this may be an issue if your institution has set as apriority the recruitment, engagement, and retention offirst-generation students from lower-income familiesboyds ethnographic research see Taken Out of ContextAmerican Teen Sociality in Networked Publics (2008) finds that the majority of net-savvy teens from lower-income communities are not to be found on Facebooktheyre on MySpace. Not only is this important to knowbecause of the implications for where to look to find theseyouth; its also important to know because if your facultyare using Facebook in their classes, they may not be aware

that Facebook may be a new and unfamiliar environmentto their lower-income students ... or that their choice of asocial network site may have socioeconomic implications.

MYTH #3: YOUTH USE SOCIALMEDIA IN THE SAME WAYS THATOLDER ADOPTERS DOOne of the most pertinent findings in danah boyds researchis that traditional-aged students and 30-somethings usesocial media tools for very different purposes. boyds

research suggests that while older adopters and alumnuse social media for networking (i.e., to make new contactsto advance their career, professional pursuits, and personainterests), the younger generation uses social media tocommunicate and interact with their pre-existing network

While you may be off using Facebook and

MySpace to network with business colleagues,

high school mates, and the hottie that you think

you might want to date, most teens are not.

Theyre focused on their friends. They use these

sites to connect to people that they already

know. ... Teens are using this space as a social

hangout with their pre-existing network.

danah boyd, Living and Learning with Social

Media,April 2009

MYTH #2: YOUTH USE THE SAMESOCIAL MEDIA THAT OLDERADOPTERS DOAnother common assumption is that the college-aged use

the same social media and use them in the same ways thatolder adopters do. This can lead campus officials to makeinvestments that ultimately do not make sense for theinstitution. Its important to know which tools are being usedby which demographics. For example, lets look at Twitter.

According to the Pew Internet & American Life ProjectsDecember 2010 study of Twitter usage,those demographicsmost likely to use Twitter are:

Only 5 percent of high school graduates (compared with 18percent of the college-educated) use Twitter; Twitter usageincreases as individuals acquire more college education,but then tapers off sharply after age 29. This suggeststhat Twitter by itself will not provide any silver bullet forrecruiting either traditional-aged students or nontraditionaladults beyond their twenties. Smart uses of Twitter orrelated status update tools for college students will be highly

focused on a specific objective (such as fast turnaround onquestions from applicants, giving feedback to an instructorduring a lecture, or learning exercises designed to reach aspecific goal).

However, the data from Pew suggesting that Twitter useis more common among the college-educated, whencombined with the rapid percentage increase in Twitter usage(while only 8 percent of internet users in the US are currentlyusing Twitter, 44 percent of Twitter users joined in the lastyear), suggests that while Twitter may have limited uses for

recruiting, it will be a useful tool for the advancement officeto consider in communications with young alumni. Twittercan also be useful for specific communications with othergroups that are already connected with your institution(for example; to answer admits FAQs, or to have studentsprovide realtime feedback to an instructor).

Its also important to recognize that not all youth within thesame generation use the same social media. For example,consider Facebook and MySpace. Colleges have tended
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This has implications for how colleges invite students intoonline social networks whether the scope of the networkin question is the college community, their class year, orthe students enrolled in a particular course. For example:

media to recruit more students. While forming a groupon a social networking site for a specific class year orfor alumni may make sense, reaching out to prospectsthrough a social network may prove unfruitful.Establishing a channel on YouTube (where the college-aged are already likely to search for information on yourinstitution) may be far more effective in recruiting thanhaving a page on Facebook. (Well look later, though,at the utility of Facebook Ads and of uses of Facebookfor other purposes.)

social network within a course. A naive use of socialmedia would be to invite the students to friendeach other and the instructor; however, the studentspersonal profiles (which research indicates the majorityof them will regard as private) are already linked in withtheir personal social network. They may not welcomethe intrusion of classmates they hardly know or theinstructor into that pre-existing network of friendsand family. boyd points out other social risks involved:what if one student is a loner, and has a very under-developed network? What about cyberbullying? What ifone student uses information about anothers personal

life (garnered from their profile) to harass them?

MYTH #4: SOCIAL MEDIA IS FREE

There is a big misconception that social media

is free. Social media is not free. Time needs to

be invested in research, training, maintenance,

and management. There are so many examples

of institutions that dove in head first, building

initial presences but without preparing forregular communication with their community.

If a prospective student is searching for your

institution, the last thing you want them to find is a

Facebook page that hasnt been updated in weeks.


Brad Ward, CEO at BlueFuego, Inc., adds, Your staff haslimited time, you have a limited budget and resources, so itmakes no sense to rush out and have a mediocre presenceacross 15 Web platforms. Focus on the two or three toolsthat help you meet your goals, that your audience is willingto connect and engage with you on, and that you know

you can create great content for.

One thing seen increasingly in government agencies andin the corporate sector and recently at a handful ofcolleges and universities is the creation of a social mediastrategist position. The social media strategist keeps upto date on the user trends and demographics researchfor various social media tools, keeps an eye on emergingsocial technologies, monitors changes in privacy policiesfor social networks, and works with various departmentswithin an organization to help define the goals that wil

drive social media use and to help identify the right toofor a given objective. The social media strategist, in effectis an in-house consultant who to be effective has readmore about how the corporate sector has defined thisposition, as well as take a look at the educational andcareer background of the social media strategist (based ona review of 50 job descriptions and 50 LinkedIn profiles), atJeremiah Owyangs blog at the Altimeter Group.

Owyang has also recently offered suggestions foorganizational models that can guide the developmentand implementation of social media strategy on a campusbased on his research on what has worked in other sectorsof industry and government.

Finally, apart from the investment in developing andmaintaining social media presence, there is also duediligence needed in managing the risks associated withWeb 2.0 channels, which are both more open and muchswifter for disseminating information than traditionachannels. Particularly, its important to establish guidelinesor a policy for your faculty and staff in using social media.

In fact, even if your institution is making only limitedinvestments in social media, many of your faculty andstaff are already using the most popular tools; they arede facto, serving as representatives of your institution insocial media environments. To learn more about craftingan effective, responsible, yet not unduly restrictive sociamedia policy, read our article Managing the Risks of SociaMedia later in this edition.
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MARKETING ANDRECRUITING WITHSOCIAL MEDIADaniel Fusch, Academic Impressions

Research from the Pew Internet & American Life Projectconfirms that the adoption rate of many social media toolsby the college-aged is rising. But its important not to getdistracted by the rush of popularity these technologies enjoyand then establish a presence without a strategy. Its criticalto define specific uses of social media tools to help achievespecific communications goals.

To learn more about the real (and frequently overlooked)opportunities of social media for marketing and recruiting,

we turned for advice to three social media gurus PatrickPowers, interactive media manager at Webster University;Jason Simon, director of marketing and communicationsfor the University of California system; and Brad Ward, CEOat BlueFuego Inc. Here are five of their recommendationsfor how specific uses of social media tools can help bolsterparticular communication objectives:

prospects, applicants, and admits

moved into the later stages of the admissions funnel

public sphere and gain visibility for your faculty experts

with a target audience

ONLINE VIDEOSince 2008, YouTube has generated more search traffic thanany other engine on the Web other than Google. You want

visibility on that channel, Patrick Powers advises. Youth gothere not just for entertainment but for information.

Simon and Ward both recommend using online video toempower your students, faculty, and staff to tell the storyof your institutions academic and student life experience. Ashort but sincere video interview of a current student may befar more effective than a campus brochure in attracting theattention and engagement of a future student.

For applicants, offer a series of brief informational or howto videos:

You can see exampleshereand here.

You can use video not only to share what your campusexperience is like, Simon suggests, but also to makethe application process transparent. You can humanize theprocess. Note that these videos can be used not only onyour website or your YouTube channel, but as part of anorientation especially if you keep the videos short.

MORE WAYS TO USE ONLINE

VIDEO ON A BUDGETMarketing with Online Video (February 2010)

TWITTERRecent studies confirm that very few high school seniors areusing Twitter; therefore, the opportunities for outreach toindividuals in the early stages of the admissions funnel are verylimited. However, Twitter may be ideal for timely communicationwith those who are already connected with your institution.

Powers suggests that Twitter has been underutilized asa customer service tool; invite applicants, admits, andstudents to tweet their questions about where to find aparticular form, when the FAFSA deadline is, whether theinstitution is going to have a snow day. Reply to tweetsfrom students with more than just a link to an FAQ page onthe web. Twitter is a tool built on conversation, Powersadvises. Build conversation. No one wants to follow a Twitteaccount that is just one link after another giving reminders oapplication deadlines. People are on Twitter to talk to peopleIts extremely social. Take the opportunity to encourage a

personal connection with the university.

LEARN MORE ABOUT SOCIAL

MEDIA AND ADMISSIONS

Join us in San Antonio (March 21-23, 2011) to plansocial media strategy for your admissions office:

Social Media for Advancement and Admissions:Moving From Tactics to Strategy
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QUORAAs yet, higher education has hardly noticed Quora butthis rapidly growing social questions-and-answers site offersunique potential for pitching your institutions academicstrengths and getting your brand in front of the public eye.

The site pulls the subject depth of Wikipedia, the socialnature of Facebook, and the personality of Twitter into anincredible way of sharing knowledge, Powers remarks. Itsan addicting site that enables social learning. Because of itsquestion-and-answers focus, Quora offers an easy channelfor getting your big-name faculty more visibility and publicexposure by having them respond to questions related totheir field in a public forum.

If a political science faculty member is an expert

in congressional elections, US presidential

elections, or elections in California, the topics areall there awaiting answers.


To learn more about using Quora to gain visibility, readPatrick Powers recent post on the topic.

FACEBOOK

Facebook continues to be an underutilized opportunity,Ward remarks, especially Facebook Ads. We recently saw198 scheduled campus tours in November for a client usingFacebook Ads, at a cost of only $3.15 per visitor. Also, theamount of data available via the Facebook Ads manageris staggering take advantage of it to learn more aboutyour audience!

USING FACEBOOK TO GOOD

EFFECT

Best University Facebook Pages

Ward cautions, however, that while Facebook hasopportunities that most havent yet tapped, someinstitutions run the risk of over-using Facebooks better-known features. If youre updating your Facebook pageeven once a day, youre posting too much, he suggests.Based on our 22-month review of every universityFacebook page in the nation, the data paints a strong casefor limiting monthly page updates to 15 or fewer.

When universities post too much content, it drives

their communitys engagement down, people

hide them from their feed, and that connection

is forever lost. It is an extreme privilege that you

have, to be posting content directly in betweensomeones best friend, Uncle Bob, and other

favorite brands on the newsfeed. Use it wisely.

Brad Ward, BlueFuego, Inc.

SOCIAL MEDIA MASHUPSMany institutions offer a social media directory, allowing visitorsto the website to quickly connect with the colleges Twittefeed, Facebook page, or LinkedIn group. Powers notes thatthe next evolution beyond the directory is the social media

mashup, and he has collected aseries of examples. In a mashupan institution pulls the most interesting and engaging contenfrom multiple social media channels and feeds that contentinto the website. By tracking your clicks (and the subsequenbehavior of those who click), you can both take note of whatis most interesting to your visitors (what is catching the eyeand holding the attention of prospective students? Currenstudents? Alumni?) and tailor your feed over time to make itincreasingly appealing and relevant to your target audience.

Mashups carry the additional advantage of engaging youfollowings across social media platforms. A Twitter user is no

necessarily an active Facebook user, and vice versa, Powerscautions. By offering a mashup, you keep both engagedonline with your brand. Its essentially one-stop social networkshopping. For an especially attractive example, take a lookat the Savannah College of Art and Designs Social Stream,with its up-to-date feed of key videos, photos, and blog postsfrom faculty and students.

Offering a mashup does require some curation and care; iyou pull content that isnt of interest to your audience, you willose them quickly and it will be much harder to recapturetheir attention.!

SOCIAL MEDIA AND THE ADULT

APPLICANT

Join us online on February 16, 2011 to learn aboutuses of social media to recruit non-traditionalstudents:

Using LinkedIn to Reach Adult Prospects andApplicants
http://localhost/Users/kennethjs/Downloads/www.academicimpressions.com/news_signup.php?q=6888v274891yThttp://www.quora.com/http://patrickpowers.net/2011/01/3-ways-higher-education-could-be-using-quora/http://patrickpowers.net/2010/10/more-examples-of-the-best-university-facebook-pages/http://patrickpowers.net/2010/12/best-social-media-mash-ups-in-higher-education/http://patrickpowers.net/2010/12/best-social-media-mash-ups-in-higher-education/http://www.scad.edu/connect/social-stream/http://www.academicimpressions.com/events/event_listing.php?i=1050&q=7457v274891yThttp://www.academicimpressions.com/events/event_listing.php?i=1050&q=7457v274891yThttp://www.academicimpressions.com/events/event_listing.php?i=1050&q=7457v274891yThttp://www.scad.edu/connect/social-stream/http://patrickpowers.net/2010/12/best-social-media-mash-ups-in-higher-education/http://patrickpowers.net/2010/10/more-examples-of-the-best-university-facebook-pages/http://patrickpowers.net/2011/01/3-ways-higher-education-could-be-using-quora/http://www.quora.com/http://localhost/Users/kennethjs/Downloads/www.academicimpressions.com/news_signup.php?q=6888v274891yThttp://www.academicimpressions.com/events/event_listing.php?i=1050&q=7457v274891yT


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tools to aid in meeting specific pedagogical challenges?Dont just say Go out and use it, Joosten warns.Come up with a method of teaching faculty aboutsocial media, and make sure that the professionaldevelopment you offer focuses not on how to use

Facebook but on how to use Facebook for their class.

If you are asking students to participate in classdiscussion or activities via a social networking site, isthere a clear demarcation between their private profilesand what they are sharing in class? For example, willan instructor set up a course page in Facebook withresources and an online wall to which the students allhave access? Or will students need to friend eachother and the instructor (giving access to their personalprofiles) in order to participate? Or will the faculty

member set up a Ning site as a stand-alone socialnetwork for the course?

DONT TRAIN FACULTY ON THE

TOOL, TRAIN THEM ON THE

AFFORDANCE

To learn more about training faculty to use onlinetechnologies in the classroom, read these articlesfrom Higher Ed Impact:

Tips on Training Faculty on Teaching withTechnology (Nov 2009, with Patricia McGee)

Training and Preparing Faculty for TeachingOnline (June 2010, with Charles Dziuban)

While these articles are more focused on facultydevelopment for online courses, much of what isadvised also applies to supporting faculty in theuse of social media.

MOVING THE NEEDLE ON THENSSE BENCHMARKSTo learn more about how social media tools can be usedthoughtfully for positive impact on specific NSSE measuresfor student engagement, we turned to thought leader

Norm Vaughan, assistant professor in the Department ofEducation, Faculty of Teaching and Learning at Mount RoyaUniversity and co-author of the book Blended Learning inHigher Education (Jossey-Bass, 2008). Vaughan notes thatyou can measure the impact of social media on three NSSEbenchmarks, in particular:

WHAT YOU CAN MEASURE

Degree of active and collaborative learning

Student interaction with faculty

Level of academic challenge

For example, you can measure the first of the three by

correlating grades with student survey results showingtheir perceived degree of active and collaborative learning

Vaughan notes four opportunities to use social meditools to increase collaborative learning, student/facultyinteraction, and academic challenge. Educators can usesocial media tools to:

provoking collaboration, creativity, and problem-solving

responsibility for their own learning

theyve achieved, fostering greater engagement andempowerment

Lets take a closer look at each of these.

A SENSE OF PLAYCiting the results of the Canadian study What Did You Do inSchool Today?, Vaughan decries the decline in engagementfrom one year to the next throughout secondary educationIts like a downward spiral, he warns. By the time thechild is 10, they no longer have much time or space in theclassroom to play. And learning through play is critical tocreativity and problem-solving.
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Social media tools are exciting because they

break down the idea that learning only occurs

in class. Students who use social media tools

in their private lives are coming to college not

only with different tools but with new ways ofknowing and of sharing information. We have

unique opportunities to foster learning as a

social act.

Norm Vaughan, Mount Royal University

Here are two examples:

State University, Twitter is a key tool in helping studegain proficiency writing in Italian. Students tweetItalian only, engaging initially with each other and wthe instructor. The limitation to 140 characters requthat students be deliberate and intentional in crafttheir responses in Italian. Antenos-Conforti also uTwitter to add an element of immersion of the couwhen a group of native Italian speakers join the tweet

recent study by Richard Arum (New York Universand Josipa Roksa (University of Virginia) confirms shdeclines in the time students spend writing outside

class. Norm Vaughan points to Google Docs as one tto support collaborative work outside of class. A studworking in Google Docs can choose who they shthe document with (not just classmates, but potentothers on campus or at other institutions or even general public) and can invite both critique and editin

Writing is challenging to begin with, Vaughan notand often students spend the majority of their acadeyears writing for an audience of one. They write for instructor, and they write what they feel they needwrite in order to go through the hoops and get the graConsider the power of giving them a larger audienStudents are empowered when they realize that writcan be a social action, not just an assigned task.

Ray Schroeder adds that Shared Spaces (Google Lanow offers about 50 gadgets stand-alone programs tprovide collaborative planning and organization featuFor example, Schroeder notes, the mind-map gadgpermit small groups to plan projects, assign tasks, cremilestones, and organize group projects.

Social media tools, Vaughan suggests, can reawaken thatsense of play and increase the level of academic challenge.

How do you engage students in the classics or in

STEM? Beyond memorization of verb paradigmsor mathematical formulas, do learning games.

Have them problem-solve and apply knowledge

within the context of a game or a challenge.


For example, Roger Travis, associate professor of classicsand director of thevideo games and human values initiativeat the University of Connecticut, has long been piloting

uses ofwikis and related tools to create learning games.Since integrating these learning games into his courses,Travis has seen

(bucking a national trend of diminishing enrollments inclassics courses)

Mediterranean studies majors over the past two years

his course evaluation (on a 10-point scale)

Tanya Joosten offers an example of using Twitter toencourage student creativity. Suppose a drama or literaturecourse had students create roles and act them out usingcharacters from the courses assigned texts. Role-play orsimulation prompts students to move beyond cognitive tobehavioral and affective learning. Twitter really facilitatesthis, Joosten advises; in Twitter, the role-play can continueoutside of the classroom, and the tweets can easily berecorded, reviewed, and critiqued. This use of the tool may

prove especially useful for online or blended courses, inwhich fostering experiential learning when students do notmeet often face-to-face can prove especially challenging.

COLLABORATIVE LEARNING INAND OUT OF THE CLASSROOMThe NSSE research has documented how much learningtakes place outside the classroom not merely in privatestudy but in social settings.
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CO-CREATING KNOWLEDGE

The key is to encourage metacognition help

students learn how to learn, help them co-create

knowledge and take ownership of their learning.When students are creating and contributing to

knowledge, learning becomes more than just

checking off boxes on the way to graduation.


Here, especially, social media tools offer opportunities:

blogging for informal writing assignments wherestudents are invited to seek public critique of theirviews; then, as students respond to the critique withtheir own critique of the critique, they have theopportunity to engage in public dialogue

social bookmarking to encourage students toshare research (for example, have one group of studentslook at one side of an issue while group B looks at theother side, and have groups A and B collect and sharetheir resources via social bookmarking; then, in class,give both groups 20 minutes to prepare for a debate inwhich Group A will argue from Group Bs point of viewusing Group Bs bookmarked resources, and vice versa)

wikis and other collaborative writing tools to havestudents write their own textbook over the course of theterm; have them add new content, dispute, and revise

Wikipedia to encourage students to act bothas critical readers of the resources available to themand as active contributors to public knowledge; forexample, the University of Rhode Islands graduateschool of oceanography is engaged in updating dozensof Wikipedia entries on oceanography

YouTube to have students publish and share onlinevideos such as interviews, student documentaries,dramatic readings, or even student-created tutorials onmath or science

GIVING STUDENTS CHOICEAs students take active roles in creating the knowledgebase for the course, Vaughan notes that the last criticastep is to empower students to take ownership of theirlearning by giving them choices in how to demonstratethe knowledge theyve achieved. What are the ways thata student can demonstrate having met specific learningoutcomes a faculty member has set for a course? Besidesa traditional research paper, what about an online video oa project using mind mapping tools? Students completinga teaching internship, for example, could offer an onlinevideo that includes a recording of a session they havetaught plus video commentary from the student. Havethem create their own learning environment outside of theclass, Vaughan suggests.

LEARN MORE ABOUT

ASSESSING STUDENT LEARNING

Integrating E-Portfolios into Your AssessmentStrategy (July 2010, with Tracy Penny Light)

Finally, Vaughan advises making sure that upon graduationthe students will retain access to learning resources(whether the LMS or specific social media environments

you offered them while they were enrolled. Considerestablishing a lifelong learning portfolio as one step infostering both lifelong learning and a lifelong connectionand affinity with your institution. !
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SOCIAL MEDIA FORYOUR ADVANCEMENTOPERATIONDaniel Fusch, Academic Impressions

How much are you ready to commit to social

media? You dont get a second chance at a first

impression, and there isnt a lot of room for a

beta version with your alumni.

Ben Jarrett, Georgetown U

Moving into social media will require reallocating resourcesthat were previously committed elsewhere. You needto determine as early as possible how important it is foryou to invest in social media, based not on what otherinstitutions may be doing but on the needs of your alumnibase. Ben Jarrett, assistant director of advancement atGeorgetown University, and Andy Shaindlin, founder andconsultant with Alumni Futures, recommend two sets ofresearch questions that need to guide your advancementshops investments in social media.

First, Jarrett advises looking at data that will tell you theextent to which your alumni are using social media, andwhich social media they are using:

young or how aged is your base? Compare this withdata from the Pew Internet & American Life Projectand other reports on social media adoption let thatfactor into how much funding you put behind yoursocial media strategy

they use and for what purpose(s)

Second, Shaindlin suggests conducting an audit of yourexisting programs, events, and services. Even beforeconsidering how social media tools can boost online giving,start by looking for ways to use social media tools to getbetter at offering alumni particularly young alumni the services, information, and support they need. Building

lifetime engagement with alumni has to start with showingthem that the institution offers them lifetime value.

For this reason, you want to find out:

provided elsewhere in ways that are either moreaccessible or more effective

provided elsewhere

Once you know this, you can perform judicious triagefreeing up resources (not just dollars but, more significantlystaff time) for new offerings that will better advance youmission. Shaindlin sees this audit and triage as a criticastep if a shop is to do justice to the potential of socia

platforms to engage many constituents in meaningful waysat relatively low cost.

A SURVEY OF THEOPPORTUNITIESOnce you know how young or old your alumni base is,what social media tools they are using, and what serviceswould re-engage them with your institution, identify whereyou are likely to see the most impact through engagementin social media.

We place too great a focus on improving giving

through social media; many shops remain very

focused on adding another vehicle for donors to

give through. But social media offers many more

opportunities than just that.

Ben Jarrett, Georgetown U

In February 2010, Jeremiah Owyang, an industry analystwith the Altimeter Group, developed an initial matrixcharting positive impacts social media use can haveon engaging alumni. Comparing strategic adoption ofsocial media to harnessing fire in terms of its potentiato advance engagement and fundraising goals, Owyangnoted that shops can harness social media to:
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other status update tools

ask non-members to join the alumni association or tomake a gift

affinity by offering ongoing content, and offer alumni achannel for promoting themselves and their activities

example, offers an event management tool)

Andy Shaindlin of Alumni Futures, with input from Liz Allenand Andrew Gossen, has published a more comprehensiveversion of the matrix for advancement shops that includes18 use cases, as well as additional opportunities for usingsocial media tools in support of shop objectives such asprospect research and crisis communications.

In this article, we will take a quick look at four specific usesof social media in advancement, to help you think throughsome of the possibilities well look at examples of usesof social media to:

USE SOCIAL MEDIA TO BOOSTALUMNI NETWORKINGIn offering services to your alumni base, a good place tostart is to use social media tools to give alumni betteropportunities to promote themselves professionally

online. Here are a few examples:

can be integrated into your alumni website to boostboth networking and affiliation with your institutionFor example, Colgate has recently launched a ColgateSenior Profiles site. The site allows graduates to identifyothers in their region using Google Maps, and thenread their classmates profiles and contact information

tools can be used to develop and publicize alumnvolunteerism. For example, note Harvards PublicService on the Map project, which invites Harvardalumni to record their service activities on a virtuamap.

career services for the University of Chicago AlumnAssociation, maintains a LinkedIn alumni careers sitethat also includes over 7,000 participants, with theadded benefit that if he wants to promote an alumnnetworking event, he knows that he can fill the eventwith participants from the LinkedIn site alone within a

week. To learn more, read our article on career servicesfor alumni.

USE SOCIAL MEDIA TO ENGAGEALUMNI IN CONTESTS ANDACTIVITIESEducational institutions tend to focus on the moreserious uses of social media, Shaindlin notes, but oftenyou can engage more constituents through fun activitiesOffer social games or contests. Here are a few examples

GoldenTicket chocolate bar contestinvited alumni to buy achocolate bar and visit and login to the alumni websiteto check if their purchase included the winning code

hosted on their alumni Facebook page

college mascot

LEARN MORE ABOUT SOCIAL

MEDIA AND ADVANCEMENT

Join us in San Antonio (March 21-23, 2011) toplan social media strategy for your advancementoperation:

Social Media for Advancement and Admissions:Moving From Tactics to Strategy
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USE SOCIAL MEDIA TO IMPROVESTEWARDSHIPJarrett suggests that one of the much-overlookedopportunities presented by social media is the power ofsocial media tools to provide fast and cost-effective options

for stewardship: Social media presents an opportunity tobring message or impact statements to a wider audience.Here are two examples:

than publishing the honor roll in a booklet, for example,consider tagging donors on a thank-you pictureon Facebook making it easy for their friends andclassmates to see the investment a donor has made toyour institution

donors and thank them on their Facebook wall

USE SOCIAL MEDIA FOR ALUMNIPROSPECT RESEARCHAndrew Gossen, senior director of social media strategyat Cornell University, and Andy Shaindlin note that socialmedia can offer a way to collect critical market researchon your alumni and then use that information to driveyour communications. In this model, you can direct youraudience to interesting content alumni are generatingthrough their online presence in blogs, media sharing,tweets, and interviews. For example, Stanford AlumniAssociations Facebook Community page is an especiallyeffective example:

page

blog entries, emphasizing what is likely to be of most

interest and preventing the page from becoming a longand user-unfriendly list of links

You can also increase affinity-group engagement byaggregating and showcasing student- or faculty-generatedcontent that speaks to specific alumni interests.

While some institutions have begun considering harvestingdata more broadly from the social network profiles of theiprospects, Gossen (whose institution does not look tosocial network profiles for prospect research) warns thatthere are significant risks involved. The conservativeand ethical way, he advises, is to create opportunities

for them to opt in to sharing their information with you,and then record that information as a resource for yougift officers. You then rely on the professional ethics andsensitivity of the prospect handler in deciding, for exampleto friend that alum on Facebook.

In cases where an institution is considering miningprospect data from social network profiles without theexplicit knowledge of their alumni, due diligence is neededin determining what legal, ethical, or privacy issues maycome into play, and then beyond that, a number of critica

questions need to be asked:

from social media profiles likely to be?

Gossen recommends the litmus test of asking: If aprospect saw their profile printed out, would they be upsetby the information included? Would it corrode the trust

relationship? Gossen adds, Given these considerationsit is not a good idea to be in the practice of storing any othis information on a large-scale basis without explicit useconsent. !

LEARN MORE

Social Media for Alumni Prospect Research:Assessing the Risks and Rewards (January 2011,with Andrew Gossen)
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MANAGING THE RISKSOF SOCIAL MEDIADaniel Fusch, Academic Impressions

Social media channels present a unique amount of risk whencompared with traditional media because of their openness,their ease of use, the speed with which information ormisinformation can be disseminated to a large audience,and the lack of awareness many social media users haveon how public or private their favorite channels actuallyare. (For example, consider that many Facebook usersare unaware of their profiles privacy settings.) And theserisks are present whether or not your instituton invests inintentional social media communications. Regardless ofyour level of investment in social media technologies, your

institution needs to put in place proactive steps to addresslegal, reputation, and safety risks.

Having your media relations office listen in to the talk aboutyour institution on social media sites is a start, but it isincreasingly important for institutions of higher education toestablish a social media policy or guidelines that will equipfaculty and staff to represent the institution responsibly.An article at the Council of Public Relations Firms blogFirmVoice in June 2010 highlighted the crux of the issue,quoting Mark Eber of Baltimore-based agency IMRE:

When it comes to social marketing, legal tends

instinctively to want to shut things down by

enforcing very restrictive policies on employee

participation. Yet given the right tools and

guidelines, employees can serve as excellent

brand ambassadors on sites like Facebook and

Twitter, and in any case, theyre going to take

part in the discussion whether you try to prevent

them or not.

Mark Eber, IMRE

At least in the strictest sense, control of social mediachannels is a moot point. Whats needed now are policyand guidelines that address two critical questions:

social media communications?

empower them to be our advocates and ambassadorson the social Web?

To learn more, we turned to Andrew Careaga, directoof communications at Missouri University of Science andTechnology; Stephen Jendraszak, operations managefor university marketing and communications at BalState University (among the first institutions to adopt aformal social media policy); Gail Werner, media relationsmanager for internal communications at Ball State

University; Cindy Lawson, assistant to the chancellofor marketing and communications at the University ofNorth Carolina Wilmington, and a leading expert on crisiscommunications; and Teresa Valerio Parrot, vice presidentfor higher education at Widmeyer Communications.

Here are their recommendations for managing andmitigating risks to your institution and its constituents:

the legal issues for your faculty and staff

representing the university responsibly through sociamedia communications

staff, and faculty orientation, and make material on itavailable at the start of each semester

CREATING A POLICY TOADDRESS LEGAL RISKSMany institutions do not have a formal social media policyand some do not think they need one; after all, the materiayou will want your policy to address is already coveredunder existing institutional policies (FERPA, HIPAAcopyright and fair use).

Even though your institution already has policies in placefor regulating the sharing of certain types of informationestablishing and communicating a clearly articulated sociamedia policy will give you the opportunity to educate youfaculty and staff about the public nature of social media
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Though the public nature of social media channels willseem obvious to your media relations office, many socialmedia users see their channels or their network profiles astheir space (consider the name MySpace). The key isto remind faculty and staff that social media is no differentfrom any other communications platform, and that in

terms of sharing copyrighted or proprietary information --or student records -- posting on a social media site oughtto be treated with the same care as a phone conversationwith a reporter.

Share the policy broadly, and explain why it

exists. Tell the story of the policy. Avoid a knee-

jerk reaction from the campus by making it clear

that the policy reinforces existing policies around

regulatory compliance, copyright and fair use,

and proprietary information.

Stephen Jendraszak, Ball State U

CRAFTING GUIDELINESTO EMPOWER BRANDAMBASSADORS AND ADDRESSRISK TO REPUTATIONOnce you have addressed the legal issues, there is a muchmuddier territory to explore -- that of how a multitude ofsocial media users are representing your institution andits brand. You need to start by thinking through yourinstitutions level of openness, from the very beginning,Teresa Parrot advises. A restrictive, Big Brother approachto guidelines for social media communications maymake the point about risk -- but aside from engenderingresentment, it also misses the opportunity you have toempower a multitude of potential brand ambassadors.

Rather than setting restrictions, use the guidelines todraw clear distinctions between how employees need torepresent the institution and how they may be using socialmedia themselves as private individuals. Remind membersof your campus of the likely permanence of what they postonline; encourage them to check their accuracy and alsoto let your marketing and communications office know ifthey are planning a university-related blog, online video,or other communication; inform them about the resourcesyour communications staff can offer them.

Parrot also recommends crafting guidelines that help therelevant staff know when and how they need to respond inthe event that negative comments appear.

Establish parameters for what is and is notacceptable. We may not want to respond in a

case where maybe just 1 or 2 people will be

offended. We need concrete guidelines that will

help us judge when we need to respond, and

when we need to just have a thick skin.

Teresa Parrot, Widmeyer Communications

COMMUNICATING YOUR POLICYAND GUIDELINES

Dont create the policy and then think youve

done the work. The real work is communicating

the guidelines and equipping people to be

ambassadors. The real work is sharing the policy

beyond the small group that wrote it.

Andrew Careaga, Missouri U of Science and

Technology

Careaga and Parrot emphasize that you need to distributethe guidelines widely, and you need to distribute themthrough channels where your intended audience (facultyand staff using social media) will find them. Dont let youcarefully crafted guidelines go to a binder sitting on a shelf,Parrot warns. You can read through the policy withoutinternalizing it when you are about to hit send on a tweet.Organize small groups -- or encourage department headsto. Present examples and case scenarios; invite staff toconsider specific uses of social media, brainstorm creativelyand problem-solve. Keep the focus not on rules but onbuilding brand ambassadors.


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