Texting/Social Media
I work primarily with high school senior and recent grads. We found a great way to contact students is using social media like Facebook and Twitter or texting. Texting students is a great way to get in touch with students who may not like talking on the phone and prefer to text or are simply out of minutes. Social media has also been a great resource. If we are looking for another way to contact a student, simply looking up the student by their email address is a good way to reach out to them.
I believe with the way communication has changed in the the passing years, using Facebook and other means of web based communication are the best way to get messages out to people. We are in a digital world today.
I think social media is definitely a great way to connect with students and for interested students to potentially gain more information about the institution. I was wondering besides Facebook and general advertisements on message boards, google searches and employment boards such as Careerbuilders and Monster. Are other institutions using twitter and instagram as well as Linkedin to reach potential students?
I can tell you that I am very excited for a new program our school will be starting in the coming months. We will be able to call, text, and email all potential students. In others markets this has show to increase that first contact percentage greatly! The best way to stay relevant is to keep progressing our techniques and keep up to date. Can not wait to see what is next.
Texting is an excellent method to reach out to students. We use a Google Voice Account that ist set to send emails of texts for students and it can be set to your work phone or alternative phone it is a good way to create communication lines with students but maintain personal privacy.
I agree that social media is becoming the way of the future for offering information to our students. I have to believe that using facebook would be valuable if controlled by reaching out to students through an organizations profile. I would caution the use of a seperate profile for each employee because that may bring unwanted attention by not only students, but others that are using the media source for other reasons. I am a bit old school and fairly new to the facebook craze, so I am still very cautious with what information is posted.
I agree. In today's world it I think it is important to meet half way into the student's world. Texting, Facebook, Twitter, etc. are all social networking that today's student is a part of. Sometimes you ahve to give up your ways in order to meet the needs of the era today.
Social media is definitely the way to go with our youth. It's a great way to keep connected however, our policies keep us from engaging. I hope use some positive perssuasion to make changes within our istitution.
Great point, social media is taking over our ways of communication.
And I agree when using facebook it would be a better idea to create a separate profile just for work.
I agree that this is becoming the preferred method of contact, but I myself have not used these methods to contact students. I think there is a fine line and facebook/texting is more of a personal resource.
I agree, this is a great method of communication however always be cautious when giving out personal information.
I will primarily be working with high school students as I have in the past. I agree that texting can be useful, but only after an intiial meeting or if the student says it's ok. Using other forms of social media (not including regular email) can be innappropriate in my opinion. I would not want a student, especially one in high school to have access to my personal life like that.
Remember, you are representing your school. If you communicate with a student via your personal facebook page, there could be repercussions based on what is on your page, and using that as a representationof the school. Now, if you have created a separate profile for yourself that is only used when you have your rep hat on, then that might be ok.
I agree, many of our students today would rather be contacted via text or email but care must be taken when contacting student through facebook and other social media.
