University Blogging and Social Media Engagement Tips

University Blogging Tips

From HR to marketing to networking, social media is revolutionizing how we communicate with each other. Whether you represent your universities marketing department or perhaps a law school or business school department, its imperative that you start engaging strategically in social media. For instance the New Society for Communication Research highlights recent research by a research fellow and professor of marketing from the University of Massachusetts at Dartmouth:

Colleges and universities are using social media to recruit and research prospective students, and it is becoming increasingly clear that online behavior can have important consequences for young people.

After the invention of the printing press, the radio, the television, the cell phone, the iPod, and the mobile phone, the rise of social media the driving force in the next wave of communication innovation. Therefore its not surprising that the study concluded:

• Adoption has grown by 24% in one year: 61% in 2007 as compared with 85% in 2008. Usage increased for every social media type studied.
• Adoption is being driven by admissions departments’ recognition of the increasing importance of social media in today’s world.
• Colleges and universities are outpacing U.S. corporate adoption of social media tools and technologies (13% of the Fortune 500 and 39% of the Inc. 500 currently have a public blog, while 41% of college admissions departments have blogs).
• Social networking is the tool most familiar to admissions officers, with 55% of respondents claiming to be “very familiar with it” in the first study and 63% in 2008.
• 78% of private schools have blogs, versus 28% of public schools, and 50% of schools with undergraduate populations of less than 2,000 have blogs.
• Nearly 90% of admissions departments feel that social media is “somewhat to very important” to their future strategy.

Given those conclusions, “What can someone in university recruiting or marketing do to help create an effective social media communications strategy for your university?” To that end, I’ve provided a few effective pointers to help university professors, and administration as they help create, shape, and execute social media communication strategies:

Start listening. See what other universities are doing in the social media space. See what people are saying about your university with Google alerts. Keep updated with the latest news in your field by following Alltop blogs in your nice and inserting them into an RSS reader.

Your social media and blog should reflect your personality. Focus on great content that answers these fundamental questions:

What makes your university program unique?
What is your specialty?
How does your university program deliver value?
What are the people in your university program like?
What is your city or staff like?
How can you improve or simply the lives or your current or potential students?
Why should a student chose your program among the 100s you compete with?

Find out what students want. Actively engaging in simple student questionnaires via email or a free service like survey monkey.

Second, a clear blogging and social media policy. D. Weil has fantastic suggestions on this issue in the corporate context which should largely cross over to the education context. A simple yet clear social media communication policy will clear up blogger ethics and responsibilities. This is the best prescription for resolving conflict before it starts.

Create a blogging community. If you don’t create a community, its smart to have some form of aggregation. For instance you could create a widget for each of your bloggers and put it on a blog based dashboard.

Organize your social media campaign. Try it out, distribute responsibility, create a content schedule. Also, you will want to connect all your social media profiles in one centralized location. For instance the Haas School at Berkeley has done a nice job of putting all their social media all in one digital spot. Seek out help and guidance from other who are engaged and experienced with social media.

Social media is the future of communication. Dive in. Inaction is death. The real risk is in delay with waiting and seeing. Waiting for most best practice models to emerge in 3 to 5 years is waiting 4 to 6 years too long. The tools are very low cost and require a minimal investment in digital infrastructure (low cost solutions can be created for less than $500) and student time (a commitment of less than 90 minutes a week can yield a great social media project). And its certainly better for them than watching reruns of American Idol, America’s Top Model, or the Real World. One example of social media experimentation and community is Owen School of Management’a online social marketing portal Owen Bloggers.

The next generation of students is deeply emerssed in technology. Learning to engage and communicate using this medium is imperative to connect with Gen Y undergraduates and Gen X graduate students. The Society for New Communication Research confirms:

“Those graduating high school today have been exposed to the Internet since childhood. They are constantly connected — plugged into digital music devices, cell phones, the Internet, instant messenger and social networks, perhaps all on the same device. This world of interactivity and hyper-communication has fundamentally changed how teenagers and young adults receive, process, and act on information,” stated Mattson.

“Social media have undeniably changed the landscape of college admissions,” added Barnes. “The value of these social media tools for college admissions offices cannot be underestimated. As more and more young people spend increased amounts of time communicating online, an institutional presence will become mandatory. “

Those institutions of higher education which adopt to these new communication realities will be the ones which win in the 21st century.