When we first decided to go "bigger" with our social media accounts, we decided to engage students as much as possible. We were posting more updates, providing more information, posting pictures from events we had, etc. One thing we did, that I hope to do more frequently moving forward, is we had a contest. The students loved it. I found it really engaging.
We had this stuffed animal, that wore a little tshirt with our logo on it. For the span of about a year, any staff who traveled, took this stuffed animal with them, and posed pictures with it in front of popular tourist attractions. It went to places like Japan, Iran, and Malaysia. We would post these pictures on the tvs around the campuses, and at the front desk there were ballot forms where students could name the stuffed animal. I would hear for months people looking at the pictures and guessing all the locations the stuffed animal had traveled too just by seeing the landmarks and they would chat amongst themselves about what they thought the name should be. It was fun! Seeing pictures of the staff, just showed them that the staff were real people too, not just the people that passed or failed them. It made them feel apart of the community of our school as well.
When I post pictures from Graduation; a job posting; or a very relevant article about job search.
At the moment we don't have students on LinkedIn or Facebook, due to policy. However, what gets the most response on facebook is articles to do with new modalities of our field, continuing education, and networking exercises/events.
Susan,
I truly encourage you to stay part of our learning community - www.careercollegelounge. I continue to be a resource to help in any way I can with your career center goals. As you know, it is critical to have a foundational understanding of things which I hope this course has provided (strategy vs. tool knowledge), but, perpetual learning through continued dialogue is truly how we continue to get value from training. I hope you will continue using social media not only to help your students but to help yourself in your own professional development. Modeling desired behaviors is the best way to teach desired behaviors. As you finish this course, go and put things into practice and I challenge you to continue reflecting on how you can be intentional and more strategic as you continue to use social media as another tool to help you accomplish your goals. Additionally, please share your experience in the Lounge and ask questions when you need feedback/assistance. The entire community will continue to learn and benefit from you sharing your experiences moving forward.
Good luck! Onward!
Robert Starks Jr.
While we post information about continuing education, job fairs, special events, the thing I get a lot of response on is encouraging words to grads who are about to take a national exam, job searching, career tips and my office hours. Most times I post my availability on FB, I get 3-4 grads who send me a chat message usually starting with,"Hey Susan, I've been meaning to contact you. Can you help me with..."
I've really enjoyed and learned a lot from this class. Thanks so much Robert!
Susan,
Your approach of using memes as a playful reminder of a very important issue to manage one's digital footprint is a great example of catering to your audience to engage them while educating them. Regarding your question if it is too passive, I would imagine that you use a variety of approaches. For instance, do you conduct workshops on the topic or webinars? Do you share blog articles about the topic or write your own blog articles for your audience to read? The best way is usually a mix of ways - not just one tactic. You can also follow up your playful memes with a helpful article relating to the topic or tools - for instance, let your students know about this tool to help them out: Simple Wash - http://lwire.us/?l=QXE0. Record a Skype interview with an employer to interview them on the importance of a professional online image - share it on YouTube and post on your social accounts. There are a number of tactics you can use and should use that are direct and more "passive" and it's good to use many strategies.
Great question!
Robert Starks Jr.
The most successful posts on Facebook so far are polls and humorous memes containing job-search hints. With polls, we leave them "open" as in, other people can add answers - this way, students can contribute as well.
As for the humourous job-search memes, I find it's an excellent way to lighten some of the frustrations that can accompany a job search as well as provide information. I have several memes related to appropriate profile pictures and usually, some profile pictures change shortly after this post.
My question is, is that too passive an approach to deal with inappropriate photos for a job-seeker or is that something I should be mentioning at all? After all, it is a judgement call.
Kelley,
You have got it! "Build lasting relationships," and "represent our school as a school that cares about each student and their success." These statements are core to what social media is about. Your examples of tactics are wonderful - "congratulating them on a job, new baby, and any other life changing events" - you are getting personal and showing genuine, authentic care. That's the way you build lasting relationships. Can you share some of the benefits of the strong relationships you are forming and why these goals were established?
Robert Starks Jr.
active job orders and request for certain candidates
Facebook engagement has enabled us to build lasting relationships with the students and their families. The goal of our brand engine is to represent our school as a school that cares about each student and their success. Facebook allows us to engage in congratulating them on a job, new baby, and any other life changing events. However, we need more social engines to better engage our students.
Amy,
This question is important both for those who are already using social media and for those who are researching how they want to use it within the online social community they are building and/or joining. Part of the research that is helpful to conduct is to learn how the people you are trying to reach use social media and what types of things engage them. This can be done through observation (Researching students on social media), informal focus groups, surveys, or even a demographic profile which you can research with the Social Technographics profile tool included in the "Getting Your Career Center Started with Facebook" document in the resource section of this course - that tool is here: http://bit.ly/TeLUYO. Some schools have very large ground and online populations so they may find this type of tool more useful but I find it helpful for gaining insight no matter population size.
For instance, when you use this tool, you learn that those between the ages of 25-34 living in the U.S. and male tend to fall into two groups indicated in the Social Technographics Ladder (Referenced in the same handout). They are typically what are known as "Spectators" or "Joiners." If you look at the social technographic profile of each which is in the handout, you see what types of behaviors these groups tend to demonstrate on social media. This insight helps you with your strategy and tactics. If I were a one-man show, I would definitely try to have a social media strategy to build community and get my students to help each other since you lack another staff member. I would definitely consider building audience, partnering with some influential students who want to help build the social community, and see if you can start creating some "rituals" like I stated before where, on certain occasions or days, the community helps each other by sharing opportunities with their classmates on the Career Services page. That's merely one example but I encourage you to focus on what your priorities are and how you can leverage all that you are learning to help optimize your ability to achieve your goals through social media. Social media will always simply be one component of your overall strategy.
Robert Starks Jr.
From my perspective, right now - I can't answer this question from a career services standpoint, as we're not far enough into our social media efforts to monitor or even know what will engage our students with career services. I can tell you, however, what I've witnessed merely by having a facebook page to keep in contact with graduates. It seems that any "cause" if you will, National news and/or events- or debate of any kind - political or otherwise - really gets a lot of attention from our graduates. I'm not engaged with students on any social media platforms...so I can only speak to what I've seen graduates do. My reference here is only facebook - nothing more at this point.
Our students respond well to pictures of other graduates more so than employment posts or article posts. I know that that our graduates and their families genuinely enjoy sharing our posts with everyone because they really do have something to be proud of.
I have found that posting pictures from students participating in class not only engages the students but also potential students and just observers that are looking in from the oustide.
This was a great class module. Previously, I feel my social media content and information was hit or miss. Now, I feel I can control the timing, images and effectiveness better. Thanks for the tips, I'm eager to implement a more effective campaign.
I believe that if there is a community event or employment opportunity that is posted, many students and graduates will call the school or reply to the post to get further information about it. The posts are usually general information that creates further interest to draw the students in and in turn contact the school.
We have just started, but so far we use a lot of motivational pictures and quotes and that has generated some engagement, but what has had a greater impact is posting pictures of our students and graduates. Students in the shop, graduates in their work uniform. As we obtain more releases to use additional pictures, we will be posting more. Of course, I have also learned a lot from this class and will be posting relevant articles.
Thank you
Angela,
When you say "response back," do you mean you are using the number of comments on Facebook as a "response back" or the responses to "LinkedIn" posts, etc.? Relative to Social media, engagement can be measured through Facebook Insights for instance to show you what engages your audience. Once discovered, you can leverage what you know engages them to encourage the type of behaviors you want to encourage. For instance, if Facebook Insights data demonstrates that your audience tends to be engaged with stories of alumni success, how might that information be leveraged in other ways?
Robert Starks Jr.
Marcus,
How do you leverage what you know engages students to accomplish your career center goals? For instance, if you know success stories engages and interests students, consider using Facebook to announce that students can come into the Career Services office on a scheduled day to meet a successful alumni. In this example, you would be strategically using Social media and your knowledge of what engages your students to encourage that they visit your office (assuming you are a ground campus). Or, if you are online, hold a Tweet up where students can chat with an alumnus via a live chat on Twitter or have a live chat on Facebook so that students can just log in and use the comment box to speak with an alumnus. These are merely ideas to get you thinking about how to fully leverage both social media and your knowledge of what engages students to help student become more career-ready and interact with your office in meaningful ways that further your (and their) goals.
Robert Starks Jr.
Response back from the student is how we measure engagement. Unfortunately, some students don't respond unless it's beneficial to them; in a way they see as "beneficial".
