ALL A-TWITTER OVER SOCIAL MEDIA
Youtube. Facebook. Twitter. The RedThread blog. The U has jumped into the sea of social media, so we recently sat down with Josh Paulsen, manager for new media at the U, to find out more about the U’s presence in this new scene.
FYI News: Why did the U decide to pursue social media?
Josh Paulsen: Social media, blogging, and microblogging have been adopted by the mainstream, so we’re aggressively pursuing this communications channel. I’ve always been an advocate of online communications and advertising because of its measurability, low cost, and ability to grow virally. Social media seems to connect most strongly with our student and alumni audiences and offers the most value.
FYI: Which social media platforms does the U currently employ?
Paulsen: A couple of years ago we created a pseudo-profile for Swoop on MySpace and that grew into a MySpace page for the U. Since each platform requires effort, we’re consolidating our work on the most widely used services—Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube. In addition, we have RedThread, the U’s blog. Fortunately, the industry trend is to develop open platforms so that the content and effort that we put into one can easily be “ported” into another. We follow all new services and trends and check out a service when it begins to receive industry recognition, but we like to wait until we’re confident that it has staying power.
FYI: What kind of results are you getting in terms of traffic?
Paulsen: The RedThread blog has roughly 2,000 page views per month. That’s small potatoes compared with the U’s homepage (close to 1 million per month), but we’re happy that our visit duration is several minutes. We’re approaching 17,000 Facebook fans and the U’s Twitter feed has approximately 1,000 followers. Last May our YouTube channel was listed as one of the top 25 for universities (although we no longer hold that position). We want to coordinate with campus departments to produce and deliver exciting and engaging video content. One surprise is that our most popular content has clearly been performance recordings by the University Singers.
FYI: What are you hoping to provide/gain for the U and its students by investing time and energy into social media?
Paulsen: We want to do the following:
- Position the U as one of the few places in the country where you can receive an extraordinary education in a breathtaking setting
- Recognize our faculty and their accomplishments and share this message throughout the social graph
- Engage current students and alumni so they have a stronger affinity for the U and will continue to participate in the future by supporting student scholarships, university initiatives, and athletic/art/recreational events
- Use these services to generate specific leads for student recruitment and fundraising
- Increase our level of customer service by providing forums to answer questions, address concerns, and provide pertinent information about the U
- Unify the internal University community by increasing the velocity and availability of information
FYI: How is the U managing other entities on campus who are “doing their own thing” with social media under the U’s name?
Paulsen: Being successful in this medium requires greater campus coordination. To that end, we have established a social media list serve and an information section on our Web site. We encourage people to subscribe to this list serve (for subscription information contact Paulsen) or our RSS feed and to register their third-party services on the site. We want to provide leadership, and assist in building the tools and resources necessary for colleges and departments to effectively use social media. We encourage them to manage their own pages, but also to keep us informed about what they are doing. If they have a good idea or are doing something better than we are, we want to hear about it. We also want their strong support for official University pages, as these are clearly gateways into the University. They can do this by providing us with potential content and including our URLs on their Web sites and brochures. They can participate in the RedThread blog by becoming a regular contributor (we’ve set up the blog so visitors can follow the college, department, or topic that most interests them). We want to direct our fans and followers to the other micro-networks that exist (the Facebook pages and Twitter feeds for the colleges and departments).
For more information about the U’s involvement in social media, contact Josh Paulsen or call (801) 585-0739.
