Robert Pearl Starks

Please share your own examples to help others see real-world usage of social media by other Career Centers. Here are some examples below. Career Services Facebook Fan Page primarily being used to take advantage of the enhanced reach social media offers for marketing: http://www.facebook.com/mycareerservices Career Services department using Pinterest to expand marketing reach: http://pinterest.com/princetoncareer/ Career Services Department Using SlideShare to increase exposure to learning from their PowerPoint presentations: http://www.slideshare.net/MTUCareerSvcs Career Services department using Youtube to share informational interviews from interns to have students teach other students from their experience. Social media scales this strategy to reach more people! http://www.youtube.com/user/unlvcareer08?feature=results_main Facebook… >>>

Jennifer , The strategy sample document in the "Resources" section provides an example of how one might measure. There are direct measurements one can do and measurements based on correlation. For example, if your office tracks how many resumes you review, how many students participate in events, how many students you serve monthly/quarterly/annually via face-to-face appointments, etc., you have some baseline measurements established. As an example, if your primary objective were to increase student participation in events and you were going to use a social media strategy to help with this goal, you could see if there is a correlation… >>>

Mary, Welcome! You'll definitely become aware of many different websites and tools but I challenge you not to think of social media as a means to search for jobs in the traditional ways one might think. If networking is the number one way people discover career opportunities, think of social networking as a means to enhance traditional networking. We have access to people we never had access to before and tools that allow us to engage with experts. The question is how do we leverage this access and the relationships/partnerships we are capable of developing if we just invest the… >>>

Hello Mary, Many schools have a Facebook Page because it is used for Lead Generation for Marketing. However, there are many schools who are still discovering that social media tools can be used to enhance student retention and career development/career services participation among many other purposes. Thus, what you describe in about your school having a FB page but Career Services not having one, is normal. Your reluctance is also normal. One thing, among many, this course will emphasize is the mindset and expectations you will have to have if you decide to leverage a social media strategy for your… >>>

Jennifer , Many people are diving into social media and describing their activities vs. their strategies. For instance, someone may say that they are using social media to post blogs, promote events, and skip trace graduates. These are activities vs. strategies. The struggle you describe is normal. Hopefully, you will begin asking yourself some important questions after this training. If you're going to leverage a social media strategy as one component of an overall department-wide strategy, in what ways will you leverage it? How will you establish a long-term, goal-driven strategy and what tactics will make sense for that strategy?… >>>

Jennifer , Any training you would like to provide to Student Support Services would depend on your goals. I'm not familiar with what is specifically meant by "Career Services training" as this is very broad. Additionally, my suggestion would be to first establish your department's goals and how social media will specifically play a role which will then provide insight on how others can support you in those goals through social media. As an example, one may find that other departments may see social media as a waste of time which means training would first start with helping others understand… >>>

Hello Kathy, I think the struggle you describe is a small portion of the struggle most people have in adapting to this new medium for human interaction and shared human experience. I imagine the conversations were similar with every other technological advancement in the past. Did people say the telephone was impersonal to face-to-face conversation? What do you think was said about email? Yet, today, organizations conduct business via email. People break up with eachoter via text messages! People are getting married having met eachother playing online games! This is the story of history and we are living through the… >>>