Interventions

Public

Discussion:

Helllo Amy,

Every institution has different policies regarding social media usage. Some institutions still have not yet developed policies. I can tell you that in some instances, institutions consider communicating with students through personal pages such as yours, "Fraternization," and only allow direct communication and "friending" once they are in graduate status. Thus, one would be required to have a fan page set up in the name of the Career Services department under these circumstances. Some institutions require that campuses make formal requests to a corporate office such as compliance with a needs statement arguing the purpose of the page and what goals will be accomplished to first gain permission to establish a separate Career Services presence on Facebook. I would first say make sure you follow your company policies. Whereas this is likely obvious to you, I only say this because any advice I may have still must be taken with a grain of salt as I do not know your institution's policies and procedures and every institution handles these things differently, making it more complex.

With that being said, I think the best structure is for you to create a new Facebook Account that isn't tied to your personal account. If you want to use the "direct message" feature only available via a personal profile (vs. a fan Page or a Group), I suggest you create an entirely new Facebook profile under your Career Services department name (assuming this follows company policies). Then, create a Fan Page for your Career Services office as well. If you are allowed to "Friend" students and/or graduates, you can do this with your Career Services profile page. Once someone is a "friend," you have the ability to direct message them. When I was a Career Services Director, we had a Career Services profile and a Fan Page. The profile allowed us to "friend" graduates only since "friending" students was considered fraternization and against policy. The Fan Page, however, allowed us to improve affinity with students and was our vehicle for reaching our "pipeline" of future graduates. We had to request permission to initiate these strategies and had to make an argument for why they would help. Thus, whereas it is not important for everyone to measure, we also measured results of our efforts after collecting baseline measurements. For instance, did event participation increase after our Facebook strategy was initiated? By how much? Did we get more office visits as a result of our Facebook initiatives? If so, by how much? Did student impressions of career services improve via survey data? Did we see in increase in student awareness of services offered through the Career Center after our Facebook strategy? If so, what was the improvement? These are examples of how Facebook can merely be one additional tool to help you accomplish your stated objectives. It is difficult to measure the impact directly but a correlation between when you start your strategies and when you see improvements will likely attribute the results to your new strategies. If you can, I suggest you measure so you can speak to your results. Start simple and only measure one thing. As you feel more comfortable using social media and get a handle of things or perhaps get additional human resources, consider what else you may want to measure to see if what you are doing is working.

As far as "what" you should post, I recommend getting feedback from students (surveys, focus groups, informal conversations) to let them know that your office would like to establish a Facebook account to stay connected with them and to help them via this channel and ask them the types of things they would find helpful if shared via Facebook. What would they like to see and in what ways would they get involved if your office had a Facebook presence? Would they like to help promote it or be someone who helps their fellow students by participating in a job post day? If you can identify your "influencers" (discussed in the course), you'll also know who you should recruit to help you with your initiative and in what ways you can have them help.

This will give you insight on what your "Posts" should be focused on to engage users. However, also keep in mind your Career Center goals. For instance, if you would like to use Facebook as one component of your Career Services marketing strategy to increase one-on-one, face-to-face visits, how might you use Facebook to do this? Might you run contests designed to get students in your office? Do you want to use Facebook as a means to have students help students find jobs by encouraging that users post job openings to help fellow students? This might be accomplished by establishing a Facebook "ritual" such as "Job Post" Wednesdays where Facebook community members post jobs they have found on the Career Services Facebook page to let other community members know of opportunities. This might make perfect sense for someone like you who has a one-man show and could leverage the community to help in your efforts in some way.

Does this answer your question? Please let me know if you have any other questions and I hope these comments get you thinking as you continue through the course.

Robert Starks Jr.

Helllo Amy, Every institution has different policies regarding social media usage. Some institutions still have not yet developed policies. I can tell you that in some instances, institutions consider communicating with students through personal pages such as yours, "Fraternization," and only allow direct communication and "friending" once they are in graduate status. Thus, one would be required to have a fan page set up in the name of the Career Services department under these circumstances. Some institutions require that campuses make formal requests to a corporate office such as compliance with a needs statement arguing the purpose of the page and what goals will be accomplished to first gain permission to establish a separate Career Services presence on Facebook. I would first say make sure you follow your company policies. Whereas this is likely obvious to you, I only say this because any advice I may have still must be taken with a grain of salt as I do not know your institution's policies and procedures and every institution handles these things differently, making it more complex. With that being said, I think the best structure is for you to create a new Facebook Account that isn't tied to your personal account. If you want to use the "direct message" feature only available via a personal profile (vs. a fan Page or a Group), I suggest you create an entirely new Facebook profile under your Career Services department name (assuming this follows company policies). Then, create a Fan Page for your Career Services office as well. If you are allowed to "Friend" students and/or graduates, you can do this with your Career Services profile page. Once someone is a "friend," you have the ability to direct message them. When I was a Career Services Director, we had a Career Services profile and a Fan Page. The profile allowed us to "friend" graduates only since "friending" students was considered fraternization and against policy. The Fan Page, however, allowed us to improve affinity with students and was our vehicle for reaching our "pipeline" of future graduates. We had to request permission to initiate these strategies and had to make an argument for why they would help. Thus, whereas it is not important for everyone to measure, we also measured results of our efforts after collecting baseline measurements. For instance, did event participation increase after our Facebook strategy was initiated? By how much? Did we get more office visits as a result of our Facebook initiatives? If so, by how much? Did student impressions of career services improve via survey data? Did we see in increase in student awareness of services offered through the Career Center after our Facebook strategy? If so, what was the improvement? These are examples of how Facebook can merely be one additional tool to help you accomplish your stated objectives. It is difficult to measure the impact directly but a correlation between when you start your strategies and when you see improvements will likely attribute the results to your new strategies. If you can, I suggest you measure so you can speak to your results. Start simple and only measure one thing. As you feel more comfortable using social media and get a handle of things or perhaps get additional human resources, consider what else you may want to measure to see if what you are doing is working. As far as "what" you should post, I recommend getting feedback from students (surveys, focus groups, informal conversations) to let them know that your office would like to establish a Facebook account to stay connected with them and to help them via this channel and ask them the types of things they would find helpful if shared via Facebook. What would they like to see and in what ways would they get involved if your office had a Facebook presence? Would they like to help promote it or be someone who helps their fellow students by participating in a job post day? If you can identify your "influencers" (discussed in the course), you'll also know who you should recruit to help you with your initiative and in what ways you can have them help. This will give you insight on what your "Posts" should be focused on to engage users. However, also keep in mind your Career Center goals. For instance, if you would like to use Facebook as one component of your Career Services marketing strategy to increase one-on-one, face-to-face visits, how might you use Facebook to do this? Might you run contests designed to get students in your office? Do you want to use Facebook as a means to have students help students find jobs by encouraging that users post job openings to help fellow students? This might be accomplished by establishing a Facebook "ritual" such as "Job Post" Wednesdays where Facebook community members post jobs they have found on the Career Services Facebook page to let other community members know of opportunities. This might make perfect sense for someone like you who has a one-man show and could leverage the community to help in your efforts in some way. Does this answer your question? Please let me know if you have any other questions and I hope these comments get you thinking as you continue through the course. Robert Starks Jr.