Robert Pearl Starks

Angela, The challenges you describe are begging for a social media strategy! As you already know, there is never a magic solution to the types of challenges career professionals face but a social media strategy as outlined in the course can help provide yet another intervention strategy to address your challenges. Forming stronger partnerships from day one with students using platforms and channels they are on can help but it is a long-term strategy. Hopefully, some of the skip tracing tools can help you be an even better researcher to track down students who lose contact. Pay particular attention to… >>>

Paul, Many colleges use Facebook to generate leads and to have a positive impact on retention. However, many are not leveraging it for Career Services which is unfortunate because, as the course will outline, there are many potential benefits. Hopefully, you will champion a social media strategy at your school Paul once you finish the course! Feel free to create new forum topics with questions if you have questions. We are all here to help each other learn so please don't hesitate to ask as many questions as you want - I'm here to help in conjunction with the course… >>>

Marcus, That definitely presents a challenge. Tell me, with your online students, do you also serve a more non-traditional adult learner, or do you serve a traditional learner? I ask because I am curious if you have found that the demographic of students you serve changes their social media interactions based on your observations. You already employ a number of mediums through which to encourage continued relationships - have you found some to be more effective than others? I think your experience can benefit the learners participating in this course and this forum so I'd love to hear what you've… >>>

Marcus, Thanks for contributing to the conversation. Do you think that organizations use social media in the first way you describe because they don't understand how social media is/should be different than other traditional communication channels? If you recall module 1 and the introduction of how social media differs from traditional communication channels, I think you just provided an amazing example to the group on this exact point. Organizations want to obtain information but information can be better obtained when there are strong relationships and students collaborate with the department. You hit the nail on the head when you indicated… >>>

Glenn, Here are some resources relevant to culinary you may find helpful: http://mashable.com/2009/07/30/social-media-foodies/. I think number 9 on the list is a particularly valuable resource because it is a wiki-based site allowing people to contribute and share everything from recipes to ideas. Bakespace.com is another great online social network for "foodies." Other notable social tools to explore that may be relevant for you depending on your goals are www.cooklet.com, www.mopac.com, www.foodpals.com, and www.wearechefs.com. This is why research is such a huge part of the strategy development process. Finding relevant audiences can be challenging since there are so many emerging tools… >>>

Katya, Excellent question. How does one manage the balance between disclosure of information and protection of information? This is a personal question as well as a social/cultural question raised by the trends in society and human behavior that we are seeing because of social media. There are multiple things one can do to manage their online information in the context of leveraging social media as a professional tool. If one decides they would like to use social media platforms professionally, they may want to consider having separate accounts - one that is for personal life and personal interactions among close… >>>

Glenn, Do you use any of the Dashboard management tools mentioned in the course such as Hootsuite or Seesmic? These Dashboard services can help you automate posts by scheduling them in advance and can help you be more efficient with time management. Depending on what your strategy is, other tools may help you with your posts. For instance, sharing content can be a challenge because you need to find the content. This is content curation. Establishing listening posts to monitor relevant information published on the web can allow you to curate content to share with your audience that they would… >>>

Katya, Excellent forum post and excellent question. How and to what extent social media should be considered in employee reviews will be dependent upon the goals of the department, the individual, the organization, and the role social media plays in achieving those goals. For instance, if a Career Services department were to determine that a social media strategy should be used by each Career Advisor for employer outreach defined by increasing one's employer network (relationships) in niche industries, social media goals could be established that align with this objective. Here is an example: A Career Advisor who does not have… >>>