What’s Up.doc?
Social Media on Campus
Social media is booming, and universities are doing everything they can to keep up. From Facebook to Twitter to YouTube, social networking sites are on the rise in popularity. Not only are people consuming information on these sites, but they are also actively engaging and creating their own content to be shared.
The question we face as communicators is how to harness the content that is being posted about our school, department, or division and use it to our advantage. In addition, we need to be creating our own content and contributing to this already budding universe of free marketing. The difficulty is picking the right venue to share that content.
“We have seen some major growth in Facebook during the past year, and a subsequent decline in MySpace,” says Jon Gibs, Nielsen’s vice president of online media and agency insights. “Twitter has come on the scene in an explosive way perhaps changing the outlook for the entire space. The one thing that is clear about social networking is that regardless of how fast a site is growing or how big it is, it can quickly fall out of favor with consumers. Remember Friendster? Remember when MySpace was an unbeatable force? Neither Facebook nor Twitter are immune. Consumers have shown that they are willing to pick up their networks and move them to another platform, seemingly at a moment’s notice.” (Read the Nielsen news release (24K PDF file) for more.)
It’s all about audience
When planning for social networking sites, it is very important to first recognize who your target audience is. If you are targeting students, for instance, your content (and how you position it) will be significantly different than if you are targeting faculty.
Your audience will also determine what medium you choose to share your content. Statistics show that adults are most likely to use Twitter and Facebook for their social networking needs. College students are very likely to be on Facebook, but also represent a growing demographic on Twitter. However, many students do not have smart phones and are therefore turned off to the high-frequency updates of Twitter. (This may coincide with the small retention rates that Twitter has been seeing.) Teens are rarely found on Twitter but are very active on Facebook and MySpace.
Twitter’s advantage over Facebook is that people are more inclined to follow a service or brand on Twitter. Facebook is viewed as a more personal area—a place to post information that won’t be seen by employers or educators. A person may not want U-M to be their “friend” on Facebook (with access to photos, personal information, etc.) but would consider following them on Twitter to keep up to date on news coming from the university.
Six easy steps to becoming a social media whiz
- Create social sites on Twitter and Facebook and be sure to brand cohesively across the board. Do not post from your personal twitter account: create a page for your department and keep the same name for each account you create. This will make searching for your group easier and more efficient.
- Brand yourself in the appearance of the page as well as in the description of your department. Be as specific as possible with your username—include U-M and your department so that people know as much as possible about you before they even see your page.
- Add links to your other social sites and your home website within all social networking locations. The more traffic you can generate, the better!
- Update frequently. Be sure that your content is important, though—if you update with pointless information, your audience will lose interest. Just because you can update, doesn’t always mean that you should.
- Respond to and interact with your audience. One of the most exciting things about social media is the ability to get instant feedback from your audience; another is being able to converse with them in an informal way. These aspects of social media give your brand credibility, as well as a chance to speak up against complaints and a chance to be hailed for successes.
- Many people are also taking the popular route of linking their Facebook updates with Twitter updates. This is an easy way to maintain both social networking sites simultaneously and create awareness of both sites.
Final Thoughts
New social networking sites are being published so frequently that it seems almost impossible to keep up with all of the new trends. As communicators for the university, it is our job to be where our audience is and to reach out to them. Trying to start a following on an up-and-coming site will be significantly more difficult than catering to the UM following that already exists on Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube. Be sure to establish a presence where people are already congregating, then try adopting new technologies.
When looking at how other universities have begun to use Twitter to promote their schools, it’s clear that many efforts have fallen short. It isn’t easy to accumulate a large Twitter following, and it will take some dedication on your part.
While it might seem like a great idea to create pages on every single social networking site you can get your hands on, don’t spread yourself too thin. It takes time and energy to make your site worthwhile.
Facebook followings are easy to accumulate, but you need to work hard to keep your users engaged, and the only way you will keep followers is if your content is interesting and up to date. Don’t start a page unless you’re committed to updating it. And remember: the number of fans you have does not directly reflect how many people continue to view your page. And while Twitter may seem like the simpler option, it still takes a lot of time to update posts, read other tweets, and respond to followers.
With a commitment to keeping your content fresh and your users informed, however, you’ll find that social networking can be an invaluable addition to your marketing mix.
Helpful Links
Top 10 Social Networking Sites 2009—Nielson Ratings (24K PDF file)