Championing the Fab Four

File it under "duh", but the Chronicle discovers today that social media (Facebook in particular) is important to student well-being and retention.

Opportunity to repeat the "Fab Four" developed at Northwestern State to help students gain footholds.  We actively encouraged them to . . .

Follow the university main feed (for news and annoucements)
Follow the athletic department (for entertainment and activities)
Follow their academic area
Follow their social group

Of these, getting the academic areas to understand the need for good content and consistent interaction with students was important for both recruiting and retention was the greatest challenge.  For the non-digitally inclined, it became "why" and "you're not paying me to be their friend."  Uncompensated work, some added.

Look, our jobs revolve around getting and keeping students.  This is just another tool.

Interestingly, the social group was the one that was the toughest for the students.  Sure, if they were greek, that was easy.  But for general student body, what was that -- the rec center?

Luddites with Lumber

So the NHL gets the Gillmor Prize for attempting to fight the future this week.  Teams are banning Periscope and Meerkat as violating their broadcast rights.

Good luck.  Like the Olympics tone-deaf work to try and stop social media in 2012 and 2008,

CBS figured this out several Final Fours ago.  No one is going to choose to use someone's Meerkat stream when they can see the NBC broadcast.  Well, unless the broadcast isn't available.  The days of restricting access are gone.

The value added nature of media is what sells, and will continue to draw subscribers, viewers and advertisers.

Potpourri of Changes

A series of links to things you need to check.  Facebook changes the algorithm again, and it's bad news for institutions.

Personal vent here: if I want to get info from companies, teams or colleges - damn it Facebook, stop jacking around with that.  We all have something we are passionate about, and I don't want you continuing to make it harder for me to see that.

Frankly, I want to see LESS from some of my inane friends (sorry, hugs, but for reals).  And don't tell me, go to Twitter.  Doesn't work well for other reasons.

(Bill steps off the soap box)

Here's the key takeaway:

users who actually want to see content from their friends: "content posted by the friends you care about" will be "higher up in the News Feed." Also, if a friend interacts with a post from a brand or publisher page, it will be less likely to show up in your News Feed.

Read more from the Verge.

The latest Pew usage by teens -- ever so important to those who recruit them -- is out.  Once again, their Facebook usage is down, but it is still such a large number participating that it still keeps it the best place to reach them.

Pew's annual bellwether in this area – and that 71% usage combined with the raw number being so tremendous – confirms where we are as a university:  Facebook is a vital part of the strategy for potential recruits despite continued “buzz” that it’s done.

The key takeaways:  multiple platforms for the message, Instagram continues to rise, and in this survey, Twitter is now down around Google+ (a finding that seems a bit off).  You will want to drill down into this one through all the pages.

http://www.pewinternet.org/2015/04/09/teens-social-media-technology-2015/

Huff Po added more to the teens on Facebook

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2015/04/09/most-popular-social-network_n_7033964.html

 

Social Media Customer Service, Advanced Course

Coming home from Washington DC and the American Association of State Universities and College's Communicator Conference, I noticed former Lady'Back legend, youth author and - dare I say - activist for good Celia Anderson was at it again.

Celia was helping someone out. Gasp.

I'm putting the backstory on as an image - courtesy of Celia - so you can understand where this went in social.

After doing the decent thing to assist Iona, she then decided to let American Airlines know about it on Twitter. Quickly, the script was broken . . . what is the team going to do when we can't contact the original person?

Interesting that one of my major teaching points at AASCU was we as institutions can no longer think that responding in social is an option - because folks like Celia (the 82% of those online according the the latest surveys, BTW) EXPECT an answer.

Notice the hour gap between Celia's last comment and AA's last response.

What would you have done? Serious social customer service food for thought.