How do you use social media in a professional setting to gain an audience? By: Matt Razek
After I gave my presentation last week, someone asked the question about how individuals may use social media across different platforms, so I figured now would be a good time to talk a little bit about the research I did in my previous master’s before starting the MBA at Boston College that focused on how departments, specifically student affairs departments, at universities can create conditions to support social media use.
If you’re looking for some research on a good individual who focuses on effective social media use and how you can use it personally and professionally, you should look at Eric Qualman and Rey Junco. Qualman focuses on the concept of “Socialnomics” and published a book “What happens in Vegas stays on Youtube” that talks about looking out for your personal brand. Rey Junco talks through how we can use social media as individuals. Take a look at the research and videos from each of these individuals as they are pretty cool.
When we use social media, we can look at it in 3 ways as it relates to how we want to form our sense of branding and knowledge. We can look at it through an epistemological lens, which focuses on “How do I know” what I am saying; an intrapersonal lens, which focuses on “How do I construct relationships with others”; and interpersonal lens, which focuses on “Who am I”. Each of these are important to consider as they elicit difference responses in each of us. Students arrive to campus with technology devices for social and academic purposes and are using technology almost on a daily basis. Most of this technology is through social media. There has been a shift in content being published that now focuses on content focused on interaction with others and observing that more students engage with peers on social media before ever stepping foot on-campus as discovered by conducting research with 10-12 college/university offices who work to engage students via social media in various ways.
The research that we did conducted was able to be defined in the following chart as to the “Social Media Life Cycle” in working with students:
One of the tactics that we (myself, specifically) noticed schools talking about was this concept of an “Instagram Takeover”. In order to boost their following, Ohio State discussed this concept of using a hashtag for their first year student orientation and allowed an orientation leader to be in charge of social media throughout the summer. Can you imagine being an incoming student and being the centralized part of the university social media account? Talk about brand promotion and sharing! Another concept I researched was how universities and individuals with large followings will engage with others via social media. If you ever have a chance, you should look at how Indiana University engages their followers via Twitter. Individual university employees also engage in positive ways. One individual was Kenn Elmore, the Dean of Students at Boston University who would engage in both humorous and serious ways with students, meeting them where they are at with publicity.
When you work on an individual or departmental level with social media, you need to think about who is providing the voice. Is it the voice of a specific person, of the department, of someone taking over the account, etc.? Many universities have specific guidelines for what type of content is aloud to or should be posted. In general, we found that universities with policies (University of Michigan being one, in particular) said that each platform should have an intentional purpose for engagement and information dissemination. They also talk about the fact that this needs to be beyond event promotion. Think to social media accounts of offices/universities/departments that you follow. How many of them actually engage with and respond to individuals who interact with them or who promote general student information besides those things that engage directly with their department. My guess is that you will find few schools doing this.
When you look at university and departmental social media accounts for any office/department, but in this case, higher education, you need to look at when your campus is most active on different platforms. Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter each tend to have their various “time of the day” so it is important to be consistent with them when you use it and what you choose to post. Capitalize on what happens to be trending vs. trying to be reactive and cause the trend to occur. You also need to work to create a social media plan and have learning outcomes that your business/department/university has come up with to set the tone for how you want your brand to be on specific outlets. If inappropriate content arises, you should have a plan for how to address it. I think that some schools do this better than others (i.e. some schools are honest vs. others, like BC, tend to brush it under the rug and point to the positives of the institution; but who wouldn’t want to do that?). The last take away we discussed was to give constituents a voice. Don’t forget the individuals you serve in your social media accounts!
Overall this is pretty interesting stuff and I’m happy to talk through it more as I am pretty particular in how I think individual offices and others at universities/colleges should engage with others.
