Reading: “Social Media in Higher Education for Marketing and Communications”

“The Use of Social Media in Higher Education for Marketing and
Communications: A Guide for Professionals in Higher Education”
by Rachel Reuben

This guide is worthy of more than just a re-tweet this morning, so I’ve linked it here.

And for those not interested in reading the whole report (shame on you!) here are a couple of choice quotes from Rachel;

“What if we opened up courses for student reviews on our site? New students would be able to view reviews on classes when trying to make their selections, especially for general education courses. Courses with great reviews will likely receive higher enrollments, without any additional cost to market these classes. Administrators would likely worry about the classes that would receive poor reviews – but whether you enable this feature or not, these conversations are happening elsewhere, likely on sites you have no control over.”

“Social media comprises of activities that involve socializing and networking online through words, pictures and videos. Social media is redefining how we relate to each other as humans and how we as humans relate to the organizations that serve us. It is about dialog – two way discussions bringing people together to discover and share information.”

Admittedly the guide is slightly old now, written in 2008, it talks about “the two most popular social networking communities are Facebook and MySpace” which we know is not the case as it is Facebook or Twitter now (reports of 10 million users leaving MySpace a month have been seen recently) but it should not be discounted just because of it’s age. We may be better at thinking and using Social Media than we were three years ago, and the world of Social Media and Social Networks have changed with Smart Phones and Tablets allowing us to be more mobile with “when and where” activities, but we all have a responsibility to check and re-check our online activity, individually or as an organisation.