Sorry, I Don't Do Impressions: Metrics Under the Microscope

In my past life as a Los Angeles stand-up comic, I was always envious of comedians who could do good impressions of celebrities and public figures. I was never any good at masking my voice, which became evident at an early age when I would fail attempts to prank call my friends. However, as I spent more time around the comedy scene, I learned that impressionists were not always held in high regard as many saw it as a cheap way to get laughs. Take a look at the casts of Saturday Night Live and you’ll notice there always seems to be one person who is really good at impressions…and they’re also really good at not appearing in any other movies or television shows. When it comes to comedy, impressions fall under short-term engagement with the audience and don’t have much staying power.

These days, I stand face-to-face with impressions of a different kind. As a community manager working in alumni affairs, I grapple with Facebook and Twitter impressions on a daily basis, and while the venue is very different, the evolution of how I look at them isn’t much different from the world of comedy. Facebook defines impressions as: 

“[T]he number of times a post from your page is displayed, whether the post is clicked on or not. People may see multiple impressions of the same post.”

Back in January, I started compiling a monthly social media report for our alumni networks (Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, YouTube, Livestream) and quickly wore out my shoulder from patting myself on the back. According to Facebook, we had racked up more than 600,000 impressions! Break out the bubbly; this was SERIOUS engagement with our alums!

Now, it didn’t occur to me at first that the number of living Cornell alumni is only about 250,000 and that this number might be a little misleading. Unfortunately, as I continued to dig into our metrics, I discovered the harsh reality of impressions. 

I came across the amount of post feedback we received and the number of stories created off of the posts. These numbers were far lower than the number of impressions, and I became suspicious of what impressions were really telling me about our engagement. I decided to compare these two numbers directly to the number of impressions our Facebook page compiled in the same month. Below, you’ll see the slide I constructed to demonstrate the percentage of our impressions that actually engaged with a post.

I’m not sure this is an absolute apples-to-apples comparison because none of these numbers represent unique users. However, I think it provides a general idea for how many of those 700,000 impressions really count as engaged users. You could build the same slide for a Twitter account by looking at your number of impressions, then comparing it to your number of replies and re-tweets. 

Okay, that’s enough bad news. Let’s talk about the positive side: Even though I concluded that less than 1 percent of all impressions are actually engaging with our content, that’s still almost 10,000 stories and other pieces of feedback created within one month. That’s a solid total considering how many events you would have to put on in one month to interact in-person with 10,000 alums. Now again, this is not a unique number of engaged users, so it would most likely be less than 10,000, but I think you get the idea. 

Like funny impersonators, impressions within social networks are not completely useless. Impressions do provide a general snapshot of how far your content is being spread. It is certainly worth tracking impressions from month to month to see what type of content results in your page/handle having a further reach. But when you really want to be honest with yourself and determine how much you have engaged your followers, look beyond the giant impressions number that Facebook hopes will entice you to spend some dough. We have to fight the temptation to take advantage of internal naïveté and report these falsely impressive stats. 

Saturday Night Live alum Darrell Hammond is a funny guy. He set the record for the most character impressions (107) in the TV show’s history during his tenure from 1995-2009 (another record). Yet how many truly memorable Hammond sketches can you recall? Conversely, it probably takes fans little time to recall a classic Will Ferrell moment. Ferrell’s characters were original and complex while Hammond simply mimicked someone we already know. We can’t be content with a number just because it’s large if we want to boast about our engaged community. We have to dig deep into the actual interactions we’re having with our followers, find out what makes them tick and use that to map our strategy. The complex and original content that triggers sharing and feedback is what we need to concentrate on if we hope to become a household name to our followers.

Then again, maybe I’m just a bitter ex-comic who lacks the ability to change the pitch and tone of his voice…

How Have We Grown? The CASE Social Media Conference, Then and Now

Jen Doak (@jpdoak) is the online communications specialist at CASE.

A lot has happened in social media and advancement since April 2011 when the second Social Media and Community Conference took place in San Francisco. It was a different time then: Facebook had not yet discovered chronology, people were posting pictures of lunch without fear of faculty-member retribution and most folks were struggling with questions like getting staff on board, letting go of control and how to measure return on investment.

I had written a semi-serious post from that conference on my favorite quotes taken from the hashtag, and there are still many insights that I think  hold true and will for some time. For example:

• “Technology has created an environment where we don’t tell them what’s important: They tell US what’s important.”
• “If you don’t pay students, you may also exclude high-quality low-income students from being able to work for you. Pizza is not pay!”
• “What’s the ROI on social media? I don’t know; what’s the ROI on our phone system?”

But the state of social media at institutions has evolved in those 360 short days. Facebook’s got an IPO (and Instagram), Google+ has become the empty new McMansion development across the street, and attendees at the 2012 conference in Chicago have moved from “How do we get on board?” to “What do we do next?” and “How do we sustain engagement?”

Our stellar 2012 faculty had key insights on crisis communication, content strategy, social media in alumni affairs and fundraising, and recruiting students using social and mobile. Now that their colleagues have started to realize the importance of social media, attendees were looking at how to get their presidents tweeting.

Here’s a Storify of just a few of this year’s insights, again thanks to our enthusiastic #casesmc Twitter community. If you’d like to join in on the discussions (and often-wacky side discussions), you can do so on Twitter, Facebook and Tumblr. And check out mStoner marketing manager Mallory Wood’s post on resources, live-blogs and presentations.

How have you seen the social media and advancement landscape change over the last year? Which insights have you found evergreen and which need to be amended—or discarded?

 

Social Media Medley: Seven Lessons from Promoting the 103rd Annual Drake Relays

By Aaron Jaco, Paul Kirk and Holly Worthy 

We communications professionals look forward to developing and executing social media strategies for high-profile campus events. At Drake University in Des Moines, Iowa, events don’t get much bigger than the Drake Relays, a track-and-field experience that touches all of the university’s key audiences in very real and very different ways. Alumni flock to campus for the festivities, including reunions; local sports fans fill the stadium to see the world’s best track-and-field athletes; and even prospective students pay attention to events like Street Painting.

To engage these audiences and others, we have initiated an integrated, collaborative social media strategy for promoting all aspects of the relays. Here are a few lessons learned as the university prepares for Relays Week, which will be held April 21-29:

(1) Collaboration is key to promoting an event that spans more than one office. At Drake, the relays involve the organizational and marketing efforts of our marketing and communications office, athletics department and alumni relations office.

We share a common audience in the Drake Relays and can do much to benefit each other. The week of the track meet, which draws more than 40,000 attendees to Drake Stadium, doubles as an unofficial student homecoming, a centerpiece for major alumni reunions and a draw for community events such as a parade, an indoor pole-vaulting competition and the world-famous Beautiful Bulldog Contest.

(2) Partnership is only achieved through a clearly communicated shared vision and goals. Before a social media plan took shape, our alumni office held meetings with the athletics and marketing teams to establish a shared vision for a “Relays Week.” For the first time, that vision intentionally encompassed everything that occurs in and out of Drake Stadium. The meetings resulted in a community website, the first visible sign of our new collaboration and a major step forward for Relays fans’ online experience.

From there, the marketing staff drafted a social media plan that advanced three primary goals and a series of tactical objectives. The work of a few minds set the basis for productive conversation while a team of 10 staff members worked through the details.

(3) Streamlining communications is also key. In the past, we’ve promoted the relays through at least four Twitter accounts (@DrakeRelays, @DrakeUniversity, @DrakeAlumni and @DUBulldogs), but this year @DrakeRelays is the focal point. We have gained a lot of positive engagement by following Relays athletes and fans who mention our event; they often follow back and keep in touch. We also created an official Facebook page for the relays, and a Facebook event with nearly 1,200 invitees. We are sharing the most important and engaging content via those “main” feeds. Content specific to one sub-audience (such as alumni-only news) still gets promoted via audience-specific pages/feeds rather than the official Relays outlet.

(4) Institutions need to lay a foundation of content. After setting initial social media and content strategies, we created a shared account on Hootsuite that we can use to schedule tweets in advance. Ticket information, event times, parking details and other logistics are set to broadcast at varying intervals between now and the end of Drake Relays—giving us the freedom to work on fun and engaging content like trivia contests, photo galleries and videos. 

We built up the Facebook page by using the new Timeline functionality to enter dozens of historic milestones from Drake Relays’ history. The page is no longer just a bulletin board, but also a valuable archive—a sort of digital museum. We intend to provide a place for fans to explore, learn and build friendships.

(5) Teamwork fosters creativity and experimentation. This year, we’ll try our hand at Foursquare and Pinterest—neither of which we’ve used for event promotion. We created a Relays profile on Foursquare with event venues, attractions, parking lots and plenty of tips, photos and lists with the goal of helping fans navigate the Relays via mobile devices. Our Pinterest presence is a collaborative pin board on the Drake University profile. This year’s experience with these platforms will help inform our strategy for 2013. 

(6) Don’t forget to promote social media via traditional media.  While we’re hard at work curating web and social content, we need to remember that our audience doesn’t live online. Traditional media promotion is critical to awareness-raising in any social media campaign. Make sure to use hashtags, URLs and icons in print advertisements, banners, sandwich boards and other tangibles as appropriate.

And finally:

(7) Social media feels like a sprint, but it’s really a marathon. Set a reasonable pace and keep at it. Push through obstacles. Build your audience (and skills) over time to reach the finish line—or, at least, to accomplish your objectives.

Aaron Jaco is digital media specialist in the Office of Marketing & Communications at Drake University.
Twitter: @aaron_jaco.

Paul Kirk is assistant athletic director for media relations in Drake’s Athletics Department.
Twitter: @PaulKirk_Drake.

Holly Worthy is assistant director of Drake’s Office of Alumni Relations, where she specializes in digital media.
Twitter: @hworthy.

Media Relations Professionals as Social Media Educators: An Interview with Sheleah Reed

Jennifer Doak (@jpdoak) is the online communications specialist at CASE.

Have you started monitoring your institution’s online presence—and seen something shared by students you wish you hadn’t? It’s easy to feel powerless in a situation like this, but some media relations professionals are taking a proactive role in educating students about what can be seen and what should be shared on social media.

One of them is Sheleah Reed, executive director of communications at Prairie View A&M University (PVAMU), a historically black institution with more than 8,600 students on the outskirts of Houston, Texas. She manages media relations, alumni relations and her institution’s social media presence within the division of Student Affairs and Institutional Advancement. It’s all the more impressive, then, that she makes time to educate students as an adjunct instructor in the department of communication at the university. I spoke with her to find out more.

How did your role as social media educator come about?

I believe I was picked to talk to our student leaders about managing their own brand because of my experience as a former student leader and in my current role as the official spokesperson for Prairie View. When I was a student, I was editor-in-chief of the student newspaper, a position that was in some ways a bridge between the students and the administration. Being in that role helped me see that some of the things people do online aren’t exactly great, and  gave me the insight to talk about social media in my current position. This generation of students is heavily involved in social media, so it became a large portion of the conversation. What started as what NOT to do became WHAT you should do.

I have been invited to speak to every student group on campus—the student government association, athletes, contestants competing for SGA president and Mr. and Miss PVAMU. I have also spoken to students during a membership intake class for Greek organizations. The class wasn’t on social networking, but I saw it as an opportunity to talk to students who will represent the university on how to use hashtags and what pictures to post. The Office of Student Activities and Leadership has been the leader in requesting these social media discussions, followed by the Athletics Department.

What do you teach students? Is it within a large lecture class, a seminar or something more informal?

As an adjunct in the department of communication, I usually start conversations with classes within that department. I have spoken everywhere from small classrooms to large auditoriums, and usually we talk about how people can use what you post against you. My favorite thing to tell students is, “You aren’t there to translate the message, so be careful that you are OK with the 500 ways your photo or 150-word message can be translated.”

During a discussion with the football team, I went to Twitter and read tweets from that morning without showing them the Twitter handles. They said, “Who would say that?” and then I told them it was one of you, your teammate, Madonna or someone else. That really showed them how what people say on social networks can be taken a lot of ways, and you can’t be there to explain what you mean.

What has been the response from students?

During the years it’s changed, just like social networking has changed. Freshmen don’t pay as much attention, but once they’re sophomores and want to start participating in groups, they become more tuned in.

What do you think all college students should know about social media and Internet use in general? Do you think they arrive at college with some of this awareness?

I think students should know that Facebook and Twitter are real life. That’s a running joke among our students—it’s not real. But in fact, it is. Just because you may not be serious or literal about the content you share doesn’t mean that others won’t take them seriously. They see that content as an extension of your true life. Where you check in, who you are friends with, what you like and what you post are all summed up as part of your personality.

I don’t think many of our students understand the reach of social networking. Maybe it’s in part a cultural issue—many people say that African Americans are on the lower end of the digital curve. Whatever the reason, many students do not seem to understand that they can’t take back what is already out there. Interestingly enough, I have tons of Facebook friends who are students—when something happens I find out mostly because they have already posted it. It’s an advantage as an educator to have student friends on Facebook because they can see a bigger picture of me, with family and opinions, and they know I’m trustworthy. Most of the students become more careful and guarded with Facebook after our conversations, but now and again they slip.

I have removed myself from Twitter, though, because I found it overwhelming!

What should media relations professionals interested in educating students keep in mind?

I think it is important that the staff in communications and marketing departments are seen as experts. The students that attend our institutions, as well as the faculty and staff who work for them, really reflect our brand. You can’t manage what anyone says, good or bad, but you can help them to understand the big picture. For example, our student government association members have to understand that they are seen as the experts related to things happening on campus. If there were a student death, for example, and they posted incorrect facts, it could be seen as reliable by the media.

A Resurgence of Tumblove

Ma'ayan Plaut is the social media coordinator at Oberlin College.

After spending the better part of a year observing the wonders of Tumblr from a close range, I decided that Oberlin should try and cultivate a following on our college Tumblr. Summer was the perfect time to do this: Most students are away from Oberlin (and missing it desperately); recent graduates are only realizing how much they miss the place they called home for four years; and rising high school seniors are gearing up in their college searches.

Tumblr's simple microblogging setup is reminiscent of Twitter. Both microblogging platforms offer users the ability to appreciate posts (on Twitter, you can “favorite” tweets by clicking a star icon; on Tumblr, you can “like” posts using a heart icon) and repost or “reblog” them quickly to a personal account.

In three months, we gained almost 200 followers—more than one a day. Better yet, these new followers were interacting with us with “likes” and reblogs galore. It's likely that someone who saw one of these liked posts or reposts would trace back to the original poster (us!) and start following us, too. Win-win.

So, how do you build an audience on Tumblr?

• Observe. What's your audience doing? Start by creating some tracked tags on your Tumblr and listen. Read what people are saying, what they're posting and what gets reposted. Become familar with the language your audience is using, then you can hop in.
• Give them what they want. There are particular kinds of content that tend to tumble well: images, videos, quotes and sometimes short, punchy, original writing. I've been expanding from just posting photos via Flickr's Tumblr plugin to pulling out compelling teasers from student blogs and Oberlin news stories (and of course, linking to the original content as the source).
• Tagging is king. Users search Tumblr using tags, and much like Flickr, you can use tags to find similar content that you’ve posted in the past. A well-tagged post might go viral based entirely on the tags and the people tracking it.
• Share the love. If someone else is talking about your institution, show them some love. Like a post if it mentions you kindly, reblog it if you think it's relevant to the rest of your audience. When people reblog, occasionally they'll comment too, and reblogging their content back allows for an actual conversation. In both of these scenarios, your Tumblr username will be associated with that post, which is great for getting your account's name out there.

So, you've got a Tumblr. You're figuring out your audience. How do you keep them tuned in?

• Ask questions. If you end your post with a question mark, you will be offered a “let people answer” option before publishing. This means exactly what you think: Tumblr will enable a little answer box right below your question post, which will show up as a recorded answer with that post forever. It's similar to a reblog, but without the additional bits of information (only the username and answer will be displayed).
• Enable the ask box. While we have many means by which an incoming student can ask questions, Tumblr provides us with one more: the ask box. And although Tumblr is not strictly anonymous, it doesn't tie students to their personal Facebook or email account. After receiving an "ask" in your Tumblr inbox, you can choose to answer publicly or privately—an option you can decide upon when answering. If you choose to enable anonymous questions, you can even connect with non-Tumblr users who find your blog—particularly important since the non-traditional blogging form of Tumblr does not allow for comments unless one is a user.
• Capture your students’ voices. Since Tumblr has a built-in younger audience, it works well with students. As I mentioned in my previous post, Tumblr is a quick and dirty way to make a website. A number of student orgs at Oberlin have picked up on this and use the platform as a way to promote sponsored events and connect with students. Reblogging these posts are a great way to project an already present student voice.
• Capitalize on procrastination. During finals, when I knew that many students would be taking "Tumblr breaks" as often as "Facebook breaks," I asked students what they were eating, what they were listening to, where they were working and what other websites were serving as a distraction.

Are your students on Tumblr? What are they sharing?

Social Media in a Mobile Context

Joel Pattison is associate director for creative services at William & Mary.

Social media and mobile—both are popular topics for anyone involved in web communications. While it's easy to find opinions on both subjects, there seems to be less commentary about their intersection and overlap. Social media and mobile are closely related, but it takes guidance and planning to make them work together in harmony. How do you engage using social media on the mobile platform? I'll give you some insights from our efforts at William & Mary.

Some social media, like Foursquare, are inherently tied to mobile devices. William & Mary embraced Foursquare from an early date—the college opened an account in September 2010. To facilitate interaction with our Foursquare community, we created and consolidated check-ins for campus venues and added photographs to our most popular check-in spots. We worked with the campus bookstore, computer store and coffee shops to offer specials and discounts to anyone who checked in using Foursquare. And with the cooperation of undergraduate admission, we borrowed interesting facts from our campus tour for prospective students and placed tips in the relevant buildings. Foursquare is just one piece in the rapidly expanding geo-location space—Michael Stoner recently blogged about the use of SCNVGR for admission events.

But what about social media platforms that aren't directly tied to mobile devices? At William & Mary, we pursued several strategies for promoting social media interaction with mobile users. Our most successful method was promoting campus-wide events—and associated hash tags, photographs and Facebook commentary—through a button on our mobile website. During homecoming this year, we placed a special event button on our mobile site for the two weeks surrounding homecoming weekend. The button served as a mobile aggregator for tweets, pictures, Facebook posts, videos and blog entries related to homecoming. We also provided buttons on our mobile site for commencement and orientation. We know from observation and analytics that these social media event buttons are some of the most popular content on our mobile site, despite being available only for short periods of time.

Cross promotion between social media and mobile works both ways—social media channels can also be used to build momentum for mobile websites and mobile applications. In early 2011, William & Mary released a game that allowed students and alumni to dress up the school mascot in different outfits. Users could save their creations and post them to Facebook, thus generating social media buzz around the newly released app.

Social media and mobile devices should work hand-in-hand, but it doesn't always happen automatically. With a mix of careful planning and experimentation, you can leverage mobile devices to expand your social media footprint.

SCVNGR Treks Augment Admission Events

Michael Stoner is the president of mStoner (mStoner.com), a marketing firm that works with education institutions.

Soon, prospective students staring at their mobile phones on your campus may not be texting their BFFs, but participating in a game that's designed to introduce them to the college—and increase their interest in applying to and attending your institution.

Early adopters in admission offices across the country are experimenting with SCVNGR, a mobile gaming platform, for a variety of admissions-related purposes. Their experience suggest that teens—and parents—enjoy a challenge while they're visiting campus and participating in other activities.

SCVNGR is used by more than 400 colleges and universities around the United States, museums like the Smithsonian, art galleries and businesses like Dunkin’ Donuts. Participants in a SCVNGR trek take part in challenges (e.g. take a picture of the library clock and upload the image), earning points for each challenge. SCVNGR can be played on any mobile device via text message or by using a free iPhone or Android app.

A trek consists of a number of linked challenges. Participants can play casually by taking part in a couple of challenges or they can play more seriously, competing with each other to accumulate points, often in order to win prizes.

Colleges and universities develop SCVNGR treks for many purposes, including alumni engagement. Given the teen penchant for video games, it’s unsurprising that admissions offices are looking closely at it. Here are some ways in which admission offices are using SCVNGR.

Complementing In-Person Events

Both Clarkson University and Penn State University created SCVNGR treks to give attendees at admissions events something to do that's less structured than the typical agenda.

“At Clarkson, our goal was to teach participants things that they wouldn’t hear on a campus tour or learn throughout the rest of the day.” said Jessica McPherson, a staff member in marketing and external relations. “We had approximately 600 students and their families on campus for a jam-packed day of events. Knowing the schedule, we decided that if we were going to have a SCVNGR trek on such a busy day, it would have to coincide with event locations and stay quite simple." The trek had five challenges in three different buildings.

At least 60 people participated. "We thought that was great! We even had parents playing. We were surprised that so many participants played via text message instead of with the app." McPherson added, "People loved the prizes and the idea that they learned something that others might not know."

[Learn more about SCVNGR Treks at Clarkson and see SCVNGR's case study about the Clarkson trek.]

Penn State developed a series of treks to supplement its summer visit event. Jenna Spinelle, an admissions counselor, explained, "Penn State undergraduate admissions used SCVNGR for 'Spend a Summer Day.' We bring almost 10,000 students and families to our University Park campus over six days in July and August to learn more about what Penn State has to offer. Our trek included challenges at some of our landmark locations around campus (the Nittany Lion Shrine, University Creamery) and other areas that we wanted to highlight (e.g. campus computer store, information fair with student organizations). Several hundred people participated over the course of six days, representing about 10 percent of total attendees."

[Spinelle wrote about the university’s experience in “Spending a Summer Day with SCVNGR.”]

Augmenting (or Replacing) In-Person Tours

At Dartmouth College, SCVNGR treks are being used to augment in-person campus tours. The admissions office at Dartmouth created seven SCVNGR treks, highlighting different aspects of campus life so that visitors have something to do when campus tours aren't operating.

In a post on the Wired Campus blog, Josh Keller observed that Dartmouth tours simply can't accommodate the more than 20,000 campus visitors each year. Using SCVNGR, Dartmouth develops treks around special-interests like sustainability in addition to highlighting campus landmarks like the library.

Additionally, John Beck Jr., senior assistant director of admissions at Dartmouth, noted, "Many low-income teens are more likely to access the Internet over their phones than high-income teens, so we’re not shutting out a part of our population by socioeconomic means.”

Other institutions, like the University of California Santa Barbara, offer links to SCVNGR right from their campus tours website.

Keys to Success: Swag, Marketing & Mobile Access

Both McPherson and Spinelle commented on the importance of awarding prizes for playing SCVNGR. Clarkson University erected a booth in the student center to distribute prizes to players, handing out a variety of Clarkson items such as Frisbees, coffee mugs, bumper stickers and pen sets. Penn State gave a small prize to anyone who stopped by its social media table and showed that they had completed at least one challenge. Each day, it picked one person from the competitors to receive a gift bag of Penn State and SCVNGR t-shirts, water bottles, sunglasses and other swag.

Advance publicity and on-site help with how to use SCVNGR boost participation rates. Penn State started promoting its trek a few weeks before the actual visit day using Facebook, Twitter and an email reminder that went to students who’d registered. Both Penn State and Clarkson produced small flyers explaining the trek and how to participate.

But on-site, in-person promotion could help too. McPherson notes, "We missed an opportunity to educate potential participants on SCVNGR. The accepted students had between one and two hours of downtime depending on when they arrived and registered on campus. Having a table set up next to the registration table would have been ideal to fill that void in activities and to teach students and families about SCVNGR."

Both Penn State and Clarkson plan to expand their use of SCVNGR next year. For those who are thinking about initiating a SCVNGR trek, McPherson advises, "Have some goals in mind, both for the outcome of the trek (were people glad they played?) and for the trek itself (what should a participant get out of playing?). Starting out, qualitative goals are equally as important as quantitative. We tried to get a lot of feedback so that we can continue to improve our treks and challenges."

She also noted one particular issue faced by her rural campus—not all mobile phones work in Potsdam, N.Y. "We did not anticipate that we would have a lot of students who were unable to receive mobile coverage and therefore unable to use their phones at all." Resourceful Clarkson students saved the day for users who wanted to play SCVNGR but did not have cell phone service, writing the challenges down and posting the answers for them. "The people they helped were especially grateful and we learned a valuable lesson—next time we will print out a few challenge sheets in case this happens again."

Social Media Burnout? Already!?

Matthew Herek currently serves as the associate director of young alumni engagement in the office of alumni relations and development at Northwestern University.

It had been a while since my last blog post. This time, something funny happened on the way to the laptop. A new school year was upon me, and with it, the requisite events that I'm sure all of you also have on your calendars—including welcoming new alumni across the country, student orientation on campus and football games.

During this time frame, I realized that social media was not a priority for me in the context of my job. Postings were less frequent. I did not have time to personally welcome each new Twitter follower. The Facebook fan page became more dependent on other people to provide material.

Why did this happen? I'm a champion of these technologies. If I'm not a ninja, I'm at least a blackbelt. Is it possible I'm burned out already? If I'm burned out, what do the other people around me think about the effectiveness of social media?

I have good news and bad news for those of you reading this. The good news is that after further diagnosis, I'm not burned out on social media. The bad news is that my temporary social media shutdown may be indicative of just how far we have to go to make social media an integrated part of our alumni engagement and fundraising strategies.

I propose that the best way to measure how dedicated your institution is to social media is assess how important it is during periods of perpetual whitewater. When every staff member is pitching in to make sure that a wealthy donor's visit goes well, who is making sure that new Facebook content is being posted? When the gigantic alumni leadership event that requires every staff member (and possibly their relatives and pets) to drop what they are doing for a week comes to campus, who is banging the drum to make sure that event has a Twitter hashtag?

You can call it burnout or blackout, but either way it points to a real gap in social media strategy. If you know that for the immediate future, your institution will not have a team dedicated solely to social media, then you have to take these busy times into account when creating your social media strategy.

1. Remember that social media does require time, sometimes a lot of it. Social media is not something you can just get to when you have a minute. It is very nimble, but also highly disruptive. Do you allcoate time to regularly focus on your social media efforts? If not, you should at least consider scheduling blocks of time when you have advance notice that things are going to be absolutely crazy around your institution.
2. Would you ever let your phone go to voicemail for two weeks without checking it? I'll assume the answer is no, and if not...I'm probably a little bit jealous of you. Remember that social media is communication, and you probably have a percentage of alumni who look to your social media presence for news about your institution. You simply cannot vanish for an extended period of time. Some people say that you shouldn't post when there is nothing to talk about. I question how there can be nothing to talk about? You work at an educational institution, a vast buffet of items perfect for social media. At Northwestern, we've started posting a picture each week and asking alumni to identify the location on campus (credit for this idea goes to Greg Block at San Diego State). Colleges and universities do world-changing work—there must be something to talk about.
3. Share the social media load. Unless your job description says you need to be the sole curator of all things social media, consider bringing on another person (or two) to do some of the posting and content management. The speed of social media makes this a practical necessity.
4. Look at the calendar in advance. Don’t be surprised by your calendar. Every institution has a busy opening week at the same time every year. How many of us can say, with genuine surprise, "I really didn't expect yesterday to be such a long day?" This is somewhat repeating my first point, but you must treat the curation of social media content as a task on par with checking email, checking voicemail or communicating with your volunteers. Check your calendar and do not use being "busy" as an excuse not to be present on your social media channels.

Through this blog post, you have read my confession and what I plan to do about it. For social media to gain further traction and credibility at our institutions, those of us responsible for the upkeep of the channels must first treat it as integral to our own jobs. Perpetual whitewater is an apt description for the type of work we do. Even when water is splashing you directly in the face, you have to keep paddling.

A Very *Social* Media Orientation

Ma'ayan Plaut is the social media coordinator at Oberlin College

As a young alum working at my alma mater, each fall, I'm awash with memories of my orientation at the same time as the new class begins flooding campus. My own orientation was filled with names and faces and meeting people in person who I had so happily met and fallen head-over-heads in friend-crush with through our Class of 2010 Facebook group.

Even as an administrator, I have been deeply involved with the incoming class on Facebook. I knew I had to do something to try and meet as many of these fascinating new students in person as possible, so I pulled out my trusty dragon backpack, filled it with the necessities (camera, iPad, water bottle and business cards) and informed my audience of my outfit on Facebook and Twitter. My plan was to embrace the "social" part of my social media coordinator job title.

I began with the northern part of campus, popping my head into as many rooms in as many dorms as I could—my only criteria was that the room contain first-years. My basic spiel was, "Hi! I am from the Internet! I answered your questions all summer, I blogged about you and I just wanted to say hello in real life and see that you're a real person. What's your name?"

This turned out to be a magical introduction. Most students (and parents!) recognized my name or identified my outfit from my Facebook post and were really excited to become involved with the two social media projects I had created for move-in day.

The first was a simple photo project, a snapshot of a new student (or students, if a roommate was also around) plus something to represent Oberlin or the class of 2015 in the photo. I got shirts (worn, held up to smiling faces or modeled on a sibling who was helping move in), sweatshirts, blankets, bracelets, IDs, lanyards and the ubiquitous hand signs for OC or 15 if it was too early in the unpacking process to have the Oberlin swag unpacked.

Why a photo project?

• Parents love photos of their kids. My mom is guilty of this. Each time I blog or post photo albums, she's always looking for photos of myself or my brother and points it out when she doesn't see either of us. I managed to get photos of about a tenth of our incoming class—and moms and dads everywhere are happy.

• "I wish I had taken more pictures." My (and Avenue Q's) mantra of making the most of college is to take lots and lots of photos. Getting our students started and smiling for the camera on day one encourages them to continue smiling for four more years.

• Class unity (and campus pride) is important. By having students represent their year or their connection to Oberlin, it made for a really cohesive album of images that clearly state these students' connections to our school.

The second project was a video with a simple concept—grab as many new students as possible and have them say one sentence for the camera. The sentence had to include answers to the following questions:

• What is your name? Secret: This was also so I would be able to learn the names of as many people as possible. It was a mild success. I can identify a great number of students by name and face at this point!

• What is your class affiliation? This allowed me to talk to transfers and double-degree students without getting into a confusing class year discussion. Most students said 2015, first year or freshman.

• What is one thing you're most excited about for the upcoming year? After a few students were unable to choose just one thing, I asked students for a sentence's worth of exciting things, which actually gave me content to work with later.

I had planned to shoot videos just on move-in day, but many other interview opportunities arose during orientation so I extended the interviews through the end of the week. What emerged were a few gigabytes of spectacular videos of glowing incoming students in a variety of dorm rooms as well as inside, outside and hanging out in groups, grinning like their lives depended on it and with their voices dripping with the most natural enthusiasm possible. Need proof? See for yourself.

Why make a video?

• Our students are cool. Very few of our current Obies, alums or faculty and staff have met these students yet—this video serves as an abbreviated introduction to our new class. Also, this was a great way to invite our new Obies into the family. (My repeated line was, "From one Obie to another, you're allowed to be excited! I'm bouncing around telling you about Oberlin, be excited with me!")
• New students are willing and ready to talk to practically everyone. It helps that I had a reason to be popping around and saying hi. Everyone already knew my name and it was time for me to do my part and start meeting Internet people in real life.
• Parents like to know that their kids are in good hands. Having an administrator pop in and say, "Hi! We're happy you're here!" is invaluable and good for curbing separation anxiety.
• Getting students involved on day one is a good, good thing. What better way to get people involved and excited about social media than telling them that they're a movie star and they should watch themselves on Youtube?

What sorts of activities did your campus have planned to welcome the new class?

This Is How They Do It

Susan Evans is the director of creative services for the senior strategic communication team at the College of William & Mary.

When I google "William & Mary Class of 2015," the top result is the Facebook page we created for incoming students. In just a few days, these bright and hopeful new students will show up on campus for orientation. They've been active members of our community for months.

William & Mary Class of 2015 on Facebook launched on December 1, 2010, first as a community for early decision admits. As William & Mary Dean of Admission Henry Broaddus states, "early decision students already bleed green and gold." So we intentionally allow the enthusiasm about William & Mary to simmer away on Facebook for a few months while the rest of the class is admitted. In late March, another 4,000+ were notified about the Class of 2015 Facebook page.

The Undergraduate Admission team hosts the Facebook party while students are deciding. Admission selects a group of current students (Tribe Ambassadors!) to field questions and generate discussion within the online community. Don't misunderstand the intent, a primary goal is to convince the best students to attend William & Mary.

By May 1, some percentage of admitted students become enrolling students and the wildly enthusiastic orientation team takes over the management of the Facebook page. Throughout the summer months, orientation staff post reminders and instructions, but the bulk of the conversation is, as it should be, among the enrolling students.

As of August 11, 2011, the page had 1,610 "Likes." (Note: William & Mary typically enrolls a freshman class of 1,450.) Photos, videos, and the personalities of incoming students fill the space as connections are made, fears are allayed and information is shared. In a recent seven-day period, the vibrant community produced:

• 58 posts
• 261 likes on posts
• 235 comments to posts
• 3 new discussion threads and 14 posts to threads

Comments and posts run the gammet; everything from "Who else is in love with Harry Potter?" to "Where can I find a move-in schedule?" to "Does anyone know if there's a limitation on how many posters you can hang up in your dorm?" to "So who else is in the 7 person Caribbean Identities class?"

Since December 1, this enthusiastic crew of incoming students also started (and continued) 81 discussion topics covering everything from "Rock Climbers??" to "Favorite Books" to "Need a cheap minifridge?"!

Like many colleges and universities, William & Mary first used a custom spot within our campus portal as the online community for admitted and new students. The portal solution worked for a while but about five years ago, we abandoned it and moved to Facebook. For those who are thinking about creating an official Facebook presence for new students or wondering how to turn it up a notch on an already established page, consider this:

Convenience matters. Facebook is pervasive and 18-year-olds are there in abundance. Splashy microsites aside, prospectives are influenced by what their friends are saying about your school. And, enrolling students are more likely to stick around when they regularly and easily see your content. If it's convenient for me, I'm more likely to...

This is how they do it. Raised with online communities, using social media as a support system for one of life's biggest transitions (leaving home and going to college!), is the way it's done. Connecting with potential roommates, remembering to sign up for classes during a particular time slot and beginning to see yourself as a put-your-college-name-here student are just a smattering of the possibilities on Facebook.

Lurk. Yes, the official staff sponsors should be part of a Facebook community for admitted and enrolling students. But think of your role as a mostly silent partner. Offer concrete instructions and reminders about deadlines and, of course, step in to correct the facts. Otherwise, appoint current students you trust, and let the conversation go on without you.

These are paying customers. Student-centered. Period. (Well, actually, a bit more.) Don't underestimate the time it takes to read and respond to Facebook content. Be certain that current students who are employed to participate in the community understand the ongoing commitment. Giving your customers what you promise requires follow through.

Hey, what about me? Your grandmother is on Facebook, so assume parents of your prospective and incoming students are part of the equation. (To the relief of my 20-year-old daughter and her 23-year-old brother, I learned to clip my helicopter tendencies because of my responsibilities for communication related to admission and new students.) The Class of X Facebook page is for the students, but anticipate parent participation and decide early on how to handle their posts and comments.

All in all, I think Facebook is a flexible and powerful way to start a community that effectively recruits and orients students. Luckily, move-in day comes around annually and practice makes perfect.