I had the pleasure of spending Thanksgiving with 11 other wonderful family members this year. Two of them were my cousins, ages 14 and 16. The 14 year old is a freshman in high school already actively and excitedly thinking about college, and the 16 year old is a junior in high school narrowing down the pool. They are both incredibly bright, talented girls. Speaking with them yesterday gave me a greater insight into their passions and interests related to college, and how the college search process looks through their lenses.

While having these conversations with them about their subject areas of interest, and then turning to the computer to do some research with them, I found a few things:

• Information architecture on many college sites still below par. How is it 2011 and so many of us still haven’t figured this out yet – or haven’t been able to get the resources to assist?
• Too many university sites were organized by school/college and didn’t have an alphabetical list of majors. Or, better yet, have an intelligent bot that could find ‘majors like this’ based on keywords you type in. The 14 year old has ideas of her interests in the everyday language that she uses — but trying to match that with what various colleges name their majors/minors and trying to figure out what school they landed in? Ridiculous.
• Search on many university sites still returns useless results.
• Using Nintendo DS as a mobile device to access your university’s site is a scary reality.
• Location and your unique selling point may not be so unique.

Naming majors/minors

Organizing academic programs

Search still largely returns unhelpful results

Is your content Nintendo DS friendly?

“Close enough, but far enough away”

Keep digging

I’m honored and humbled to have been asked to be the keynote speaker at the HighEdWeb Rochester Regional Conference on June 27, 2011. I’ve never given a keynote presentation before. And, I’m a tad rusty at conference presentations. I had taken a break from the conference circuit after 20 presentations in one year and wanting to focus my time and energy on my move to Ithaca and Ithaca College. This opportunity is giving me a great opportunity to get back in the saddle again, but I was hoping I could ask you for your thoughts.

Keynote presentations are tough. I’ve sat through dozens of them. Some have been fantastic. Others have tanked. Conferences typically attract people from all different kinds of backgrounds and experiences, and to try to find one broad topic that will appeal to all attendees is tough. In the case of this HighEdWeb Rochester Regional, we’ll have some web programmers, web designers, content strategists, marketers, communicators, and more. I want my talk to be useful, practical, and heck, maybe even inspirational.

My talk is current titled, “Reflect, Repurpose, Restructure, Re-energize: A journey from the last 15 years of the web in higher ed and the road ahead.” That’s a mouthful. I came up with a rough outline prior to accepting the keynote invitation to make sure I thought I could come up with something that might be worthy. The outline is still quite rough, and even though I’ve committed to the presentation, I’d still like to know what you might find helpful (“you” being the attendees – physically or virtually via Twitter or whatever).

In the “Reflect” opening, I thought I’d talk about where we came from, how much has changed, how much has stayed the same or we’re seeing repeat in various forms. In “Repurpose,” I’ll talk about skills web professionals (and marketing/communication types) have had in the past and how they can repurpose their skills into todays organizational needs. In “Restructure” I’ll actually talk about the organizational structure I inherited last summer at Ithaca College and what I’ve done to overhaul it in recent months, and my vision surrounding that effort. I’ll talk about higher ed’s challenges and needs within the web and marcom framework, and thought I’d try to tackle some hot topics (what do we do with magazines online, who should manage social media, is the viewbook dead, etc.). In “re-energize,” I’d like to share some thoughts about finding your niche, and find ways to leave you with some inspirational takeaways.

I have less than an hour to tackle all of this, yet I still find myself wondering if it’s not enough, or helpful enough. What do you think? What would be useful to you?

Who should be responsible for social media? This has been a hot discussion topic on higher education listservs, community message boards, Twitter, and other forums. My answer? It depends. Institution size, strategy, community management, and monitoring are some of the factors higher education professionals should consider in determining where responsibility lies.

The current debate is reminiscent of the late 1990s, when higher education communications and marketing professionals were having conversations about who should be responsible for an institution’s website. Then, as now, people were calling for policies, guidelines, and rules. We’re in the same boat all over again. Facebook and other social networking sites were so easy to set up and launch that before we knew it, most colleges and universities already had a presence—official or not. While institutions’ use of social media has matured, we’re still working out how to best use our current social media platforms. And now we have to begin thinking about how to incorporate the various location-based social networks into the mix.

Just like the website, social media have evolved to a point where they have the attention of senior-level communications professionals and administrators. And like they did in the 1990s Web era, communications and marketing professionals need to incorporate these new media tools into their overall marketing strategy and ensure that they represent their institutions in the best possible light. It’s yet another area where knowledge, consistency of voice, and customer service skills are imperative to an institution’s online reputation.

An institution’s size, resources, and level of support for social media greatly affect its approach to these platforms, both in terms of what’s possible and what’s practical. Mark Greenfield, an associate consultant with the higher education marketing firm Noel-Levitz, believes it’s important to first understand an institution’s culture as it relates to transparency, openness, authenticity, and control. He uses the “openness audit” (from Charlene Li’s book Open Leadership) to begin the conversation about campus and organizational culture, which helps inform social media strategy planning.

Neil Bearse, manager of Web-based marketing for Queen’s School of Business at Queen’s University in Canada, concurs with Greenfield. “The same individuals who are in charge of setting the overall business strategy of an organization should be responsible for the oversight of strategic implementation of social media—the same way they are overseeing the use of other communication methods,” he says. “No single person should be in charge of all social media channels.”

Having just one person responsible for social media is akin to putting one person in charge of every aspect of the institution’s website. In social media strategy efforts, forming partnerships with staff members from admissions, student affairs, alumni affairs, and communications and marketing is critical.

Listen, assess, and evolve

Social media have provided higher education with an unprecedented opportunity to really listen to and engage with its various audiences. Mentions of your institution in blog posts and on community bulletin boards, Twitter, Facebook, and other platforms can now be monitored, aggregated, and ranked with sentiment ratings, giving you an almost real-time look at what people are saying about your school.

The need for community managers, which has grown quickly in the corporate sector, is beginning to increase in higher education. It’s important to have staff members throughout your organization tracking this information and playing community management roles on your various social media presences. These functions help free up those who are driving social media strategy as well as the overall strategy for other marketing channels.

A committee of about 15 faculty and staff members managed the initial strategy for Emerson College’s social media presence. The group met biweekly to discuss the status of their efforts before launching the Massachusetts institution’s official social media channels, which are now managed by four staff members—three in the communications and marketing office and one in enrollment.

The committee no longer meets regularly, but representatives do attend the marketing and communications office’s weekly news editorial and Web content meetings. Committee members also plan to host monthly social media workshops for student organizations, faculty members, and departments to continue talking about the development of the college’s social media presence, says Mike Petroff, Web manager for enrollment at Emerson. Meanwhile, the overall strategy continues to evolve through new marketing initiatives by the admissions, marketing and communications, and institutional advancement offices.

At Tufts University, also in Massachusetts, a working group of up to 50 social media practitioners representing a wide range of schools and offices meets monthly to share information and examples of work and to discuss emerging services and platforms, challenges, and ideas about how to use certain tools, according to Georgy Cohen, manager of Web content and strategy. While the group is not a governing body, it devised the university’s social media guidelines and is working to develop more social media resources for the Tufts community.

Advise and collaborate

Many departments want to leap into developing their own social media presence, so guidance on the use of social media is often a critical need, particularly at small to midsize institutions. To facilitate such a discussion, Queen’s University developed a social media brief to help departments determine which social media outlets should be used and to address the surrounding strategy.

I adapted the Queen’s document at my previous institution—the State University of New York at New Paltz—and added questions to help me better understand why departments wanted their own social media presence, including a statement of purpose, objectives and goals, target audience, execution plans, and maintenance. The document promoted discussions and helped determine whether a department or office’s website could be expanded to fit the need or whether a specific tool would be more appropriate.

For example, one department wanted to use Facebook to share more timely information related to events and programming. Using the social media brief to outline their objectives and goals made me realize—and helped me show them—that Facebook was not the best solution, particularly because they didn’t want to engage in conversations about the events. Instead, we added a calendar-of-events module to the department website, which the staff began to promote. In another instance, members of an athletics team wanted to foster community between current student athletes and former team members. Initially, they thought they wanted a Facebook group. After completing the social media brief, I suggested that Ning, a platform in which users can create their own social networks, would be the better tool to help them achieve their goals.

The technology aspect of social media is not an obstacle. The challenge lies in finding the right mix of strategists and executors to manage an institution’s social media communities effectively, which in most cases is a team effort.

This article was written for and appeared in the January 2011 issue of CASE Currents magazine. Copyright (c) 2011 Council for Advancement and Support of Education. All rights reserved. Used by permission.

Reposted from Michael Stoner’s blog so we can collect comments here.

By: Michael Stoner

One of the main reasons I’m looking forward to the AMA Symposium for the Marketing of Higher Education this year (fyi: #amahighered) is because I’m doing an Advanced Marketing Session with Fritz McDonald from Stamats and Rachel Reuben from Ithaca College. Entitled “The Success Conversation: A dialogue about how your institution can leverage its online communications to meet its goals,” we’re hoping that we (and you: see below for how you can contribute) will be able to start a real conversation about how to be successful with an institution’s most important marketing channels.

Here’s the description of the session we submitted to AMA:

Need a moment? It’s not easy, fast, or cheap to make choices when technology is constantly evolving. There’s a staggering array of tools to use, trends to follow, and people urging you to do more. Still, achieving an excellent online presence isn’t a nice-to-have in 2010: it’s a necessity. Building a cohesive, broad-reaching, and successful Internet brand is a marriage of art, artifice, technology, and culture—and a challenge for everybody. In this session, we’ll encourage you to take a deep breath and join a conversation. We’ll pinpoint fundamental questions you should ask, look at what works (and what doesn’t) and explore some significant trends. What you’ll get out of it: a team of multiple, complementary and overlapping perspectives and the opportunity to articulate your challenges and success stories.

This is an ambitious agenda, and we need your help. We’ve posed a number of questions to that we’re going to use to start the conversation. We’d love to have your feedback: please let us know what you’d like to share with colleagues in marketing for colleges and universities. Share your thoughts about one, or all, of these questions that we believe are fundamental to building a coherent online brand:

• What are the primary challenges/issues that are top of mind of people for people focusing on their institution’s online presence (websites, social media, etc.)?
• What are fundamental questions you should be asking about your institution’s online presence in 2010-2011?
• What have we learned that works—and doesn’t work?
• Are there significant trends that marketers should be paying attention to?

Personally, I’m really excited about doing this session with Fritz and Rachel. They’re smart and insightful: it should be an inspiring session. Even more so if we have your help!

Are you overwhelmed by one or more inboxes? Is your todo list a bunch of post-it notes all over your desk? Do you have a pretty good organizational system but could use some efficiency fine tuning? Go read Bit Literacy. (Big thanks to Karine Joly for turning me on to this Friday.) I’m only six chapters in, and I’m already applying the author’s advice and practices. (Side note: This is the first book I’m reading on my iPad, as well as my first Kindle app book. I’m a fan already.)

I’ve become digitally overwhelmed and overloaded. I’m completely in love with my new job, but we sure do use a lot of different systems there. I’m adapting to a new way of managing my calendars (personal+work), contacts (personal+work), and email (work). In addition to these systems, I’ve been trying to integrate my todo list manager, Remember The Milk (still failing on that for work, but active user for personal stuff). Throw in that mix the following that I now use:

• One paper notebook full of notes & scattered action items
• Paper files in a desk drawer and in my commuter tote
• network drive for department file sharing
• network drive for personal files
• myHome (portal) community groups for some committees / working groups (files+discussions)
• activeCollab for web and recruitment marketing projects (project management status, discussions, files)
• FileMaker Pro for print projects
• Google wiki as a repository for some documentation and notes
• Google docs
• Dropbox

To add to this digital overload, there’s also messages coming at me via social media on Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, Foursquare, and via SMS. And, I’ve just started using Evernote as a test to see if this might help me organize. The jury is still out on that one.

It’s too much! I can’t remember where virtually anything is saved. I need the Mac’s “Spotlight” feature in my brain! I’m on a mission to simplify and standardize. Reading Bit Literacy is just step three. (Step one was identifying all of these items, step two was ordering a label maker and new file folders for work. Hey, it’s a process.) Once I feel more in control and organized personally, I’m going to attempt to take on these systems at work and see if there’s any way we can simplify and standardize as a group.

Reading this book has also been effective in helping me realize I’m not a total disaster. I actually have some really good organizational practices in place – I just got hit with a whole lot of change at once, and it’s piled up to the point that I’m digitally overwhelmed. Time to take control of all those bits.

Today’s success: I had an email induction ceremony to achieve personal inbox emptiness. I have only one message in my personal inbox that requires me to make a decision on tonight. I’ve never seen my inbox this size. Step two – my work account. Tomorrow.

I think this could be an interesting process, and I’m going to try to keep up with documenting my personal progress with this effort here. I’m always on the lookout for new tools that will help me simplify and be more efficient. I’ve heard lots about GTD and Things. I’ve also read and watched a video about goodtodo.com, which was developed by the author of Bit Literacy. I’m actually not convinced to switch to that, as Remember the Milk has been working just fine for me — it’s integrating the work stuff and keeping track of who I delegate certain tasks too that I don’t have a good process for yet. (Delegation & having a “someday” list are two features I wish Remember the Milk would implement.)

How do you handle digital overload? What tools and processes do you have in place to not let the bits overwhelm you?

It is with great excitement I announce that I have accepted the position of Associate Vice President for Marketing Communications at Ithaca College. I am joining a staff of extremely talented, creative, passionate individuals and will lead the Marketing Communications office to help set priorities for our efforts that align with the College’s strategic direction. We’re about to kick off a brand identity initiative, which many of you know I’ve been integral with in my current position at the State University of New York at New Paltz.

Leaving New Paltz will be bittersweet. I started as an undergraduate transfer student at New Paltz in August 1996, and have been there ever since. I began as an intern in the marketing office in the Campus Auxiliary Services company at New Paltz, did a bit of freelancing to develop many department’s very first Web sites, and then was hired as the College’s first full-time Web professional right after graduation in May 1998. A couple years later I was promoted to Web Coordinator, and then five years later to Director of Web Communication & Strategic Projects. I’ve grown the College’s site from approximately 10 pages to more than 25,000, and have hired two full-time Web Developers to assist with the College’s Web services.

In February 2006 I opened the College’s first Welcome Center, and have continued daily oversight and management of the staff and the Center. I’ve implemented the OmniUpdate Content Management System, two different mass notification systems for emergency alerts, led the College’s social media activity, and have served as an active member of the President’s Brand Marketing Taskforce, and the Emergency Rseponse Team. Last summer I was named Team Lead for the Creative Services Team, which includes the 10 staff members from the Office of Communication & Marketing (media relations, Web services, design services, print services, video services) and Arts Services. In December, I earned my MBA in marketing and management from New Paltz.

My last day at New Paltz will be Friday, June 25 and will begin my new position at Ithaca College on Monday, July 12.

Over on the Intermedia blog, Charlie Melichar recently posted Integration & Separation – print and web. I’d like to expand further on that with my thoughts.

When I was first hired as a Web Editor for a university in 1998, my position was created to re-purpose print documents for the Web. Print drove everything. Twelve years later this is still quite the hot, and rather unresolved, topic. The  transition now seems to be primarily financially driven. Due to budget cuts many are cutting back on printing to save money.

This topic is far more more than economics and a budget-friendly tactic. We need to be thinking about communication goals, along with the budget, for each project before we think about the mediums. (Strategy, then tools, right??) Once the goals and audience have been established, then we should discuss how to best execute, and which mediums will be best to use for a given project. It’s not just about print — we need to be thinking about how we’ll integrate with video, social media, fundraising efforts, admissions presentations, alumni events, e-newsletters, etc.

The Web should not be an afterthought. If the Web is to be utilized in conjunction with other mediums, what is its unique purpose? You are not taking advantage of the online medium if you just post a PDF of a magazine, newsletter or brochure. I know some may chime in and say they don’t have resources to do more. While I’m incredibly sympathetic to that, I’d argue it’s better to not post it online at all. Better yet, I think more can be done to supplement the print version with fewer resources. Assignments given to writers of the stories should be thinking cross-platform. What multimedia elements could go along with their articles, which can be posted as online-exclusives? Just post these on your site – not the entire article. Make them request a print version so you’re Development folks are sure to get updated addresses. Having online-exclusives drives people to your Web site. While you have their attention, use this opportunity to show them other exclusive things on your site, including a way to give back to your college/university.

I don’t want to interact with a Web page as I do with a print piece. They’re two completely different mediums. Issuu tries to make this experience gel, but that’s just not my personal reading style online — and I don’t think I’m alone. As Charlie suggests, this may change with the iPad (and Kindle, Nook, etc.), but those devices are not computer monitors or laptops. They are designed to be comfortable to hold and read, and applications are still evolving for those devices.

I’ve tried looking for user studies that test interaction with PDFs and PDF-like services, such as Issuu, but haven’t found any, and think this would be very valuable data to get our hands on. Better yet – do your own user study with your readers and see how they react.

So, what am I saying?

• Print is not dead and will not completely die. Its purpose, connection and integration with all other mediums (not just Web) needs to evolve to reflect user expectations and take advantage of the strengths of each of the communication mediums.
• The Web is not an afterthought. It’s an opportunity for multimedia-rich enhancements to print publications.
• I don’t believe the ultimate online experience through my laptop or desktop computer is flipping through PDFs or the like. I want to see something different online.
• It’s not 1998.
• Budgets are tight. Get creative!

This morning I presented to a group of ~80 higher education colleagues who work in creative services offices for colleges and universities across the country. My session, Stand Out! Customize Your Institution’s Social Media Presence went beyond yesterdays Social Media 101 session and got under the hood with seven social networking sites to equip these designers with the specs and knowledge needed to customize their college’s presence.

I did quite a bit of research on these sites, and also had some help from a current and previous co-worker. I know these specs work for us, but I also know there are a variety of specs others use, as many of these sites don’t well document (or bury!) what we can actually do with these tools! Here’s the slide deck:

Whew. Nearly 500 people tuned in to my session, eRecruiting with Social Media and a Purpose this afternoon as part of the CollegeWeekLive/Chronicle of Higher Education eRecruitment Web Forum. There were a ton of questions I didn’t have time to get to during the live presentation (120!!), so I’ve answered the ones I didn’t get to below. Did you miss the live presentation? The folks at CollegeWeekLive have made it available to watch on-demand.

Do you have more questions? Ask me over on formspring.

Slides:

Questions I couldn’t get to during the live session – with my answers!

Tari Blaney: Do we still have to ask permission from students before sending them text messages?
Me: Depends on your college’s policy. We switched to an “opt-out” policy this year, meaning, we sign up all our students by default (and tell them), but it’s up to them to opt-out if they don’t want to receive emergency text messages from us.

Michael Large: What’s Mike’s TwitterID who is tweeting all your links?
Me: Mike Petroff’s Twitter ID is: @mikepetroff

Claire Olson: For Ning social networks, what’s your advice about letting current students join? Once prospectives become current students would you let them continue to be members… if it was meant to be a recruiting tool originally?
Me: I have seen this approached both ways. If your Student Affairs folks are committed and understand the value and potential, I think transitioning from Undergraduate Admissions to the Student Affairs area after the deposit deadline is a good idea to keep it going. Some find this community becomes a ghost town as students are more likely to use Facebook regularly after they’re on campus in the fall, but I’ve known others who have built social tools into their portal and have had great success. It all depends on what you’re trying to achieve, what strategy you use, and what resources you have to commit to this effort.

Javier Garcia: How are some schools tracking the enrollment and matriculation?
Me: I’m not sure if you meant specifically related to the online communities? At New Paltz, we used Ning last year and took the e-mail addresses of the members of the community and matched them with our student records system to run a report that told us how many paid their deposit and enrolled.

Jane Fu: What’s your Web site address? http://rachaelrubin.com?
Me: http://rachelreuben.com

Patrick Booth: What tools do you use to track specific database?
I’m not sure what database you’re referring to? Can you post a follow-up?

Heather Morba: How do you suggest staffing the social media team that will create, manage, and maintain the sites? (In reference to earlier comment about students being used to run social media.)
Me: It really depends (I know! I hate that term!) on which sites and how they’re going to be used. For our university’s Facebook Fan Page, we have two people from Undergraduate Admissions, one from The Graduate School, one from Student Affairs, my intern and me behind the scenes. For monitoring using our “listening post” I talked about, we have three of us that tackle various aspects. I think it’s critical that the social media love is spread — not dumped on one person or one office, and definitely not on one student.

Jane Fu: Are there taboos for using social media as an organization that you have learned from your experience that weren’t immediately obvious?
Me: Using it just to promote events is a big no-no and turn off.

Cliff Jenkins: fan pages vs groups … which do you prefer or is new paltz using both
Me: It depends (there’s that word again!). What are you planning to do with them? How do you want to communicate with them and them with you and others? Groups are for more affinity-based presences. Groups are for “class of 20xx,” and actual student activity-type groups. Fan pages are for the official university presence, and maybe some other key functions within the university. Again – depends on the purpose for setting these up. See the Social Media Brief I talked about in my presentation for for framing the purpose.

Stephanie Null: Can we get your powerpoint?
Me: You betcha! See above.

Merrissa Uchimura: How do I convince my university to move/merge to our one main fan page for the university? Our recruit team decided to have own separate admissions fan page? Do you have research that I can share?
Me: Share the story I told during the session about the interaction between alumni, parents, current students and prospective students on the one main fan page. Alumni, parents and current students won’t hang out on the admissions fan page. I don’t have research, but the research gods over at BlueFuego might? :)

Billy Springer: Being that you can’t communication as a fan page admin when browsing news feed on FB, how do you go about engaging as the university to those current or prospective people? Do you pay students to blog & do you review the content before deploying?
Me: Yikes, that’s a tricky question. I don’t think counselors should engage prospective students on Facebook. There are others that strongly disagree with me, however. No, we do not pay our student bloggers, and we do not moderate their posts. They go through quite the selection process before they are “hired,” and sign a contract.

Gina: If you have campus location worldwide, should you have a blog for each campus or one consolidated one on the home website?
Me: I’d recommend having one blog that has representatives from all of the different locations.

Heather Shaner: To clarify, are you against “Class of” pages on FB?
Me: Not at all. I’m very much for them. I just don’t think we (marketing/communication/admissions folks) should be heavily involved with it.

Ronna Johnston: We are considering using just YouTube for all our videos rather than duplicating on both YouTube & our streaming server. Is there a disadvantage to using just YT? Credibility?
Me: I can’t think of any disadvantage. YouTube is a household name and comes with credibility these days – especially if videos are posted by an official university account.

Moamer Qazafi: Why should admissions be separate on Twitter but not on Facebook?
Me: By having one main Facebook Fan Page for the university, prospective students will benefit from reading comments posted by alumni, parents of current and prospective students, and current students. If the university has a separate Fan Page for admissions, only prospective students will be there, so you miss the opportunity for unsolicited comments and feedback by alumni, parents, current students, etc. Twitter, on the other hand, can have a separate purpose. The admissions Twitter account will have a revolving follower base in theory, as the prospect pool changes annually. Check out this tweet from @NPAdmissions. This is a great way to use a separate account that is more focused. The main university account may want to RT (re-tweet) some things the admissions account says, and vice versa, but can keep their stream very focused on prospective students. Other people won’t see who is tweeting to the accounts unless they’re following each other, so that is the primary difference.

Leslie: why do you feel admissions should have a separate twitter account? is it bad to group with other school offices?
Me: See the question right before this for my complete answer. I don’t think it’s always bad to group with other offices, but depends on which ones, who their audience is, and what their purpose is.

Becca: If I am the only one maintaining my Twitter account, should the profile photo be of ME or a school logo/important building?
Me: I’d vote for a combo of your photo with a university symbol of some kind on it. Makes it far more personal, yet official/professional.

Kristina Velarde: What is EyeFi?
Me: See Eye.fi

Nav: re flickr live stream/uploading – how do you deal with privacy issues at a campus event & uploading images of guests & the events?
Me: Our photographers make general announcements that the photos they’re taking will be used in a variety of ways, so they should not pose for photos if they don’t want to be used in publicity materials.

Allison Hudson: How did your school decide which social media tools to use?
Me: Listening and trial and error, basically. I wanted to see where our audiences were first, then determine how we could best use each tool, and then focused of our efforts on the results.

Jordan Stevenson: Do you see LinkedIn as being viable for undergraduate admissions?
Me: No, I don’t. LinkedIn is intended and used as a networking tool, and most don’t have accounts until they’re well into their undergraduate years in school. It’s great for alumni groups for colleges, though.

Stephanie Graham: Does your university heavily control branding and how does this work with YouTube, Facebook, etc.?
Me: Stay tuned after we launch our new brand identity system at the end of April! The answer will be, yes, we will follow all branding guidelines in all of our outposts, and enforce those that are done outside of our office as well. It’s extremely important for a consistent, cohesive message and image.

Bob Moinar: What are the differences between using social media for undergraduate admissions and graduate admissions?
Me: Depends on your goals, and the tools you use may be different – but that also depends on what type of students you attract for each.

Brad Jones: Do you know where I can find an example of a good blog done by a student for an admission office?
Me: I’m not sure what you mean “for an admission office.” Do you mean for recruiting purposes? See slide 15 of my presentation above for some of the examples I discussed, and I think Brad J. Ward had more examples in his blog-focused session after mine.

Sarah: How do you get your contacts into your campus database for recruitment from flickr, Facebook, etc.
Me: There are third party tools that will make that possible/easier for Facebook, but otherwise, there’s really no way for those two particular tools. For Ning, you can export member data (names, e-mail addresses, etc.) and import them in to your student records system and/or CRM.

Melissa Evans: What is your education background?
Me: I have a Bachelor of Science degree in Organizational Communication with a minor in marketing, and just received my MBA in marketing and management in December.

Stephanie: Do we need media release signatures from prospective students to post their photo online?
Me: It’s best to check with your college’s legal counsel for a call on that. We tend to only get releases for people under the age of 13, otherwise posing for a photo is considered consent. But, I’m not a lawyer and am not offering official legal advice here. :)

Michelle Smits: How do you handle/monitor risk management factors on Facebook?
Me: I’m not sure exactly what you mean by “risk management factors.” Can you follow-up with me?

[null] hi– Can we borrow from your Facebook content plan? :)
Me: Sure, as long as you’re not in our direct competitor set. ;)

Anne Marie Guthrie: What are the themes for Thursdays and Fridays
Me: Thoughtful Thursday (we’ll ask them “thoughtful” questions), Photo Friday. Now, you also might wonder why we’re not doing the weekends, especially since I preach social media is not a Monday-Friday 9-5 job… it’s 365/24/7. My answer? We’ll get there. It’s a resource issue at this point, and I’ve also seen this Monday-Friday model done and work well for other companies with Facebook Fan Pages, so we’re giving it a shot. We may have other things to share that doesn’t fit into this neat little content plan, and that’s ok with me.

Kristi Garcia: What site did you use to create Cafe New Paltz?
Me:

Corie Martin: What incentives did you give the students to join your Ning group? What differentiated it from your Facebook groups?
Me:

Chad: Was your social community on Ning? Or private other network?
Me:

Theron: Do you work for SUNY or are you a consultant?
Me: Both! I’ve worked for SUNY New Paltz for 12 years and officially started a part-time consulting business on the side last month.

Kerry Salerno: Are these proprietary communities (i.e. not Facebook groups/pages)?
Me: Since this was one of the last questions, I’m pretty sure this question was in reference to the two examples I was talking about, Café New Paltz and Lounge on Lex — am I right? If so, yes, these are private communities, not in Facebook. Café New Paltz was in Ning last year, and this year uses SocialEngine. Lounge on Lex is using Ning.

Khyati: Which site was that – the one you got good testimonials for?
Me: Café New Paltz, our online community for accepted students at SUNY New Paltz.

Whew!

Last August Facebook gave Pages administrators the ability to publish their Facebook updates to their Twitter accounts automatically. Administrators can decide whether to share updates with their Twitter followers at all, and if so, which type of information to share, such as status updates, links, photos, notes, and events.

This, my friends, is what my friend Chris Brogan has coined “robot activity.” I agree and would go further and say you shouldn’t do it.

This post is not focused on personal profile status updates and their link to Twitter. Though my opinion about that application doesn’t vary all that much, the focus on this post is for Fan Pages for organizations/colleges/celebrities (wouldn’t that be neat if celebs were reading my blog?).

Need some convincing? Let’s start here. (Note: Protecting the names of the not-so-innocent)

This shows up as a tweet on Twitter. Makes perfect sense to the Twitter audience, no? (Please note the sarcasm.)

The folks at Facebook seem to think they’ve built a tool that will “make life easier.” I’ve spoken with several small business professionals and higher education colleagues in recent months about this topic, and most don’t see anything wrong with it given how overwhelmed many are in the social media space. Using this feature would indeed make their lives a bit easier.

But-

Think about your audience. How would someone you’re trying to reach feel if they read that tweet above on Twitter, especially if they’re not connected to you on Facebook? Different people, different tools (usually). I think this makes the company/organization/college look amateurish. Let’s think about the reverse. Your Facebook Fans see your status on Facebook now as: [RT @username something rather random and unrelated to what's going on on your Facebook Page]. People on Facebook don’t necessarily understand what Twitter is, let alone the “RT” and “@” monikers.

Need more convincing? How about volume.

• The average Twitter user is used to seeing a higher quantity of tweets in a given day.
• Effective Facebook statuses usually aren’t updated more than once a day, sometimes not even more than a couple times a week, therefore not expecting the higher volume typically seen on Twitter. (Your mileage may vary.)

By linking the two together, you overwhelm, and can come across as spamming, your Facebook fans.

Looking to make your life simpler? You can SMS (text) your status updates to your Facebook Page (as well as Twitter) and you can also use a desktop tool such as TweetDeck to update your Facebook Page status separately from your Twitter status, but in the same program without having to open multiple windows. There’s also a Facebook application called Selective Twitter Status, which will enable you to link only those tweets that end with the hashtag “#fb.”

Still need more convincing? How about duplication.

• How many of your Facebook fans are also following you on Twitter? Gets a bit overwhelming for them to see the same updates in multiple locations, potentially making them less interested in what you’re saying. They may end up auto-filtering you out.

And the icing on the cake?

Let’s say you update your Facebook Fan Page status, which then gets pushed to your Twitter account. People reply to you on Twitter — but you’re not necessarily there. Or, vice versa.

If I’ve managed to convince you to remove the link between your Facebook Fan Page status and your Twitter status and you’re dying to know where to go to make that change, then head on over to http://facebook.com/twitter. They hide it well once you’ve linked them together.

Sound off in the comments. Am I missing some key points? Do you have a compelling argument for linking your Facebook Fan Page status with your Twitter status? I’m very open to being convinced otherwise, as long as you’re not a robot.