"I appreciate you providing your perspective. Social media has disrupted so many aspects of our lives, it can definitely seem as if the more you learn, the more you realize you don't know much."
Wow, you got that right!! I considered myself to be pretty savvy when it comes to Facebook until I started managing our page and feel even more unsure of myself as I am going through this class.
You have provided information regarding so many sites that I have not heard of. I have a lot of homework to do, but I am looking forward to it.
We recently set up a page for our campus and while each department has access to it (we use Hootsuite), I am 'managing' the page with help from our corporate media department. I can already tell that we are going to have to set up additional measures for sharing the management of the page here locally as I will not be able to do it justice on my own.
Stacey,
It sounds like your school has a person running your social media but not your department. I have found that many schools who do have a social media strategy are mainly using it for marketing/admissions. Often, there are policies in place that require departments who want their own page to request permission and provide justification for why the page is wanted. This can sometimes present a challenge because organizations can fear giving up "control" since social media can be very challenging to manage. What's the situation you face? Do you know much about the social strategy currently being used? Will you have to explain your purpose/strategy?
Robert Starks Jr.
Right now we have one person from our main campus managing, however most of the time the branch campus is left out and not able to take advantage of our social media. We need to find a way that we (branch campus) can benefit fom this as well, possibly having a seperate page.
Hello Katya,
I share your passion for education. I agree that the one-on-one, individualized approach has a great impact on how one learns. If you imagine how social media has basically digitized peoples' lives, intimate aspects of their lives such as their travel patterns, the events they are attending, the articles they are reading, the brands they "like" on Facebook, the people in their circles of influence, and even their relationship status and purchasing behaviors are all recorded data. What is fascinating to me is that innovators are considering how a similar model of data collection could be used in education. Imagine online students whose behaviors are recorded such as how quickly they get through assessments, how much they tend to struggle with certain types of tests, preferences for how they consume information, etc. Then, imagine that computer software learns from this data and adjusts how the student gets information, the types of assessments they get, and the frequency at which they get information. The idea of adaptive learning is interesting - if you haven't already, you may want to check out this video: http://youtu.be/LldxxVRj4FU. The future is pretty fascinating!
Take care.
Robert Starks Jr.
Thank you very much, Mr Starks. I have a lot of homework to do on these new social media tools. And yes, my are of interest is mostly focussed on Education. I used to be a tutor in many subjects and know that a student increases his comprehension at much greater speed when assisted one on one. As soon as I get a chance, I will include your suggested sites in my Learning List (to do). I am looking forward to the next module. Katya
Hello Katya,
I appreciate you providing your perspective. Social media has disrupted so many aspects of our lives, it can definitely seem as if the more you learn, the more you realize you don't know much. The rate of change is phenomenal which is what makes the topic so confusing to many, yet at the same time, exciting. This is why I personally love being a continual student of disruptive technologies and how they are changing human interaction, business models, business protocols, culture, etc. You raise a point made in the course which emphasizes the need to be an early adopter of new technologies as a part of continual research to understand new technologies and how they can be used in one's profession. Given that you showed particular interest in TappedIn and Skype in the classroom, I'm going to presume that education is an interest of yours. Thus, you may also find the following interesting:
Unigo.com - Think Consumer reports meets Wikipedia. This site is where college students rank colleges. It has fundamentally changed how students make decisions about where they attend college. The site has over 1 million unique visits every month and Unigo.com provides all school reviews for U.S. News & World Report's annual college rankings. It is a particularly interesting case study on how social media has changed the way students make decisions. On the business perspective, it should change how colleges respond to what students are saying about them. In this way, social media is an amazing and powerful feedback loop system for organizations who actually want to listen to their customers as a quality improvement tool. Think of how social media has disrupted the power dynamic between businesses and customers. This one example clearly demonstrates many ways social media has disrupted our world.
Openstudy.com - I mention help engines or Q&A networks in the list of resources near the end of the course with stackoverflow.com, LinkedIn Answers, and Quora as examples but Openstudy.com is a help network that allows students to get help from other students in areas of study such as math, science, English, etc. Thus, it is an example of how communities of students are helping other students through "social" tutoring. Imagine how something like this might help with retention and how it enhances traditional tutoring programs where students were limited to the number of tutors in a room to help them. This site also uses gaming mechanics that encourage the behavior desired of users. The way it does this is by offering "badges" which are symbols of social capital that publicly recognize helpful community members. The idea of gamification is a hot topic right now and coincides with discussions about social media because it is a powerful tool to elicit desired behaviors.
Just some additional things to ponder.
Thank you Katya for contributing to the forums.
Robert Starks Jr.
First of all, I don't even know if we have a social media strategy or not. I've known that the company has its own Facebook page, but until today, I had not visited it. I don't visit my personal Facebook page that much either.
This course is awakening my interest in social media usage. The more I read about it, the more I realize how behind I am in this topic.
Particularly, there are two things that caught my attention today: I will look into Tappedin for education professionals and want to learn more about Skype in the Classroom.
Marcus,
At my college, I began using social media before our marketing department did. Once our marketing department started using it, they implemented many rules and I had to present my case for why I shouldn't have to shut down my page. I bring this up because it is common for marketing, admissions, and student retention to see the benefits of leveraging social media but not everyone will understand how Career Services or even Education can leverage social media. The entire organization can leverage it to their benefit but you may have to present your case. I'm glad to hear the course is helping you see why a social media presence and strategy is beneficial.
Robert Starks Jr.
Hello Robert,
We really don't. Our marketing department manages the school's social media; however, career services only has a generic site that has no pictures and nothing of any interest. Some students have open accounts that allow us to see what's going on in their lives. Since going through this class, I've noticed that we should have more of a social media presence.
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 feel would be useful, helpful, or even entertaining. I use a variety of listening posts and curate different content but as an example, you could use Google Alerts. I have alerts on "Employment trends, Hiring Trends" as one thing I want to make sure I monitor. I often share this information with my network. In your case, you may find that listening posts will help you curate content that will help you in your posts/tweets to students. Youtube is a great platform to use to source content to share with students. For instance, here are videos of Chefs giving professional advice on the field: http://youtu.be/bcbenIuIzJQ and http://youtu.be/XeJYHVf6LI0. You can take content sharing a step further to use a tool like bitly.com to shorten your URLs and create tracked URLs to better understand what your audience is reacting to. I know you are at a culinary school so I shared some culinary content - enjoy!
Robert Starks Jr.
It is a collective management. There are three of us at the school that keep our Facebook page relevant by posting photos, links and general information. There is not one person specifically in charge. I am working on setting up a career services sub page on our page that I will oversee. We will have to look into having a career service dedicated page
Lesli,
Many schools have Facebook accounts and most Career Services offices, according to a NACE survey, have their own Facebook account. The goals of each are different. Whereas your school may be using social media as a lead generation tool and an engagement tool for retention purposes, Career Services has unique goals. It sounds like your office currently is not leveraging social media for Career Services goals since you do not have a Career Services account.
As a Career Services Director, I had to convince others to let Career Services have their own page and I had to explain why. Our strategy led to an increase in job leads, job orders, employer partners, guest speakers, PAC members, and much more as outlined in the course. Our strategy was managed using the Heterarchy structure described in the course and we used Hootsuite as our Dashboard management tool. It allowed us to monitor conversations, schedule posts, and track click throughs of content shared with our students and alumni.
Our office became much better at marketing our services and increasing student participation because of it. I am wondering if you will be the one who champions such a strategy at your institution. Being an individual user of social media is a great start but a cohesive, purposeful strategy can produce so many results.
To be honest with you i dont run our facebook accouts. But our department doesn keep communication through emails and personal visits, to our sites and employeers.
