Connecting With Students, One Tweet At A Time

I officially love Twitter. Over the summer, I dove into the Twittersphere and have fully adopted it into my professional life. Even though I've been fortunate to gain a small following on my @edcabellon Twitter account, I've really wanted to grow our Campus Center Twitter account as well. I still believe that students are out there on Twitter, I just needed to find them. Well last night, I did just that.

I signed onto my "@BSCCampusCenter" Twitter account, knowing that First Year students had moved in and many returning students were about to make their trek back to campus. I went through "http://search.twitter.com" and typed in "BSC". As the search completed, many of the results turned in the tweets about the "Hertha BSC" German Football team, but a few turned back some Bridgewater State College commentary. One student's tweets though, stood out:

So I started following her on Twitter, read a few more lines of her Twitter feed, and then started reading her Blog that was linked from her Twitter bio. She had a video blog post up and some very insightful, and well written blog posts. Within about 15 minutes, she started following our @BSCCampusCenter account and then Tweeted:

Well, that got my attention So I read more of her Twitter feed and noticed some BSC references, but nothing too out of the ordinary, so I decided to send her a Direct Message (DM), which is a private message through Twitter that only she would be able to see:

Thinking nothing of it, I went along and continued my search for more BSC students. Within minutes though, I got a DM back, that just blew me away…..

At that moment, it dawned on me. That simple act of connecting and communicating from a BSC office made her feel more a part of the community. Then, in her Twitter feed, I noticed that she had tweeted to everyone:

I was beyond excited! Twitter had given us the opportunity to connect in such a unique way. We hadn't even met in person, yet she felt more engaged with the college. Her view of BSC changed in that one Tweet, at least enough to accept my invitation to come in and meet me and our staff to further our conversation. Her reply?

I will continue to use Twitter to connect with more students in this way and encourage you to do the same! Share this story with your colleagues who still may be weary about using Twitter to connect with students, because it can work!

Best wishes on a great opening for you all!

Tags: College, Connections, students, Twitter

This entry was posted on Sunday, August 30th, 2009 at 10:46 pm and is filed under Social Networks, Technology and Programming, Web/Tech. You can follow any comments to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a comment, or trackback from your own site.

http://www.useyourhed.wordpress.com Amy Kim

Interesting…I’ve been a bit skeptical about using Twitter to connect with students, but this is a great example. Thanks!
http://profile.typepad.com/edcabellon Ed Cabellon

Thanks for the feedback comment Amy! Much appreciated and please share any stories if you do decide to use Twitter to connect! Best wishes!
http://profile.typepad.com/edcabellon Ed Cabellon

Thanks for the feedback comment Amy! Much appreciated and please share any stories if you do decide to use Twitter to connect! Best wishes!
http://thesabloggers.org/2010/02/simplifying-twitter-use-for-your-department/ Simplifying Twitter Use For Your Department « The Student Affairs Collaborative

[...] account (@uwmreshalls) and I’m sure may of yours do as well. Ed Cabellon has provided some great recommendations to use twitter to connect with students. I faithfully practice one of his recommendations: [...]
http://www.fenixnordicgroup.com/simplifying-twitter-use-for-your-department.html/ Computer & Internet » Blog Archive » Simplifying Twitter Use For Your Department

[...] account (@uwmreshalls) and I’m sure may of yours do as well. Ed Cabellon has provided some great recommendations to use twitter to connect with students. I faithfully practice one of his recommendations: [...]
http://micahvandegrift.wordpress.com/2010/03/17/academy-meet-pr/ Academy, meet PR. « Micah_2.0

[...] new media PR tactics to connect with students (the SA (Student Affairs) Bloggers come to mind). This article by Ed Cabellon, Director, Rondileau Campus Center at Bridgewater State College illustrates [...]
http://www.ubervu.com/conversations/thesabloggers.org/2009/08/connecting-with-students-one-tweet-at-a-time/ uberVU – social comments

Social comments and analytics for this post…

This post was mentioned on Twitter by edcabellon: @rachelreuben If a University brand has same goal as business brand, we can’t miss opportunities to connect with them: http://ow.ly/119he...
http://edcabellon.com/tech/socialmediaplan/ A Student Affairs Social Media Plan | On The Go with Ed Cabellon

[...] a conversation over Twitter with a new student that made me realize that I had been missing out on connecting with students over Twitter. As you begin to use Social Media, use the search engines in both Twitter and Facebook to find [...]
http://twitter.com/Ian1225 Ian Martin

Ed,

This is such a great example. I am going to use it to show the power of social media to our programming board and to the Division of Student Affairs in a few weeks. Thanks sir!
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Great Site……

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http://lizgross.wordpress.com/2011/10/24/when-campus-social-media-management-is-not-all-about-unicorns-rainbows/ When Campus Social Media Management Is Not All About Unicorns & Rainbows | Liz Gross

[...] tool for my campus, my mind always wanders back to Ed Cabellon’s 2009 story about how he reached out to a student who was having a poor experience on his campus. While managing departmental and campus social media [...]
http://edcabellon.com/tech/newnewtwitter/ New, New Twitter & Higher Education | On The Go With Ed Cabellon

[...] Twtpoll (e.g. Halloween Costume Contest) c. Share Pictures and Videos from Events d. Provide timely customer service and solicit feedback for future events. e. … and many more (just ask Student Affairs [...]

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