Recently, I’ve been contemplating a term: change. I started a new position, in a new city and state, at a new institution, moved into my significant other and my first “real” (not the residence hall) apartment, and got a dog from the mother-in-law. Well, I got three dogs; two were his and the third is “ours.” Long story short: lots of change in a short period of time.

A new job, at a new institution, came with a wildly different standards of protocols and procedures (both written and understood), thoughts of “that’s the way it’s been, why change?”,  and growth opportunities balanced with rigid challenges. All of these twisted and mixed together have been overwhelming and somewhat discouraging.

More so, I’ve noticed not only from me, but from the community-at-large, stepping on someone’s toes has happened more than once. I’ve become quickly discouraged at moments and questioning my transition because change is warranted and people are upset with questions and decisions.ed a mindset that I’ve decided to change today: a bad attitude. This attitude has been expressed by not only me but the campus community.

Recently, I was browsing social media and found a quote that hit home on my newsfeed.

How do others deal with the “that’s the way it has always been” mentality when you can see it is time it is time to press forward? How do you strengthen the allies that want change, and foster it within your area?

The following is a guest post from Katrina Anaya, graduate student at Seattle University.

I am a planner.  I like to make lists and fill calendars.  So when it came time to decide what to do after I graduated with my master’s degree in Student Development Administration, I was eager to plan the what, where, when, and how.  Location.  Institutional type.  Position.  These parts of the planning process were relatively easy.  But an essential part of the “how” of getting a job these days is having a network.

My partner and I determined a few months ago that we wanted to move somewhere new, and after Google-ing, Wiki-ing, and finally visiting, we settled on relocating from Seattle, Washington to Austin, Texas.  As an introvert, I dreaded this part of the plan the most.  I already have a good network in the Seattle area, but trying to recreate one in a place over 2,000 miles away seemed exhausting.  I had visions of attending conferences bigger than I’ve ever attended (everything is bigger in Texas, right?) and being lost in the crowd.  A part of me was having second guesses about moving, which I think mostly stemmed from my apprehension to start networking.

One Sunday evening I finally decided to send out emails to higher education professionals in Austin. The first email was to an academic advisor stating I was a graduate student looking to work in the area in June and wanting to learn about the advising system and the culture of the institution where she worked. I asked her to please let me know if she was available to chat over the phone, thanked her in advance for her time, and signed my name.  I read over the six sentences in my email about ten times and reluctantly clicked “send”.  The other emails I sent that night were similar in nature, and I went to bed nervously wondering what these professionals, who had no connection to me, would think.

When I woke up the next morning, I had two enthusiastic responses in my inbox.  I was honestly crossing my finger for at least one response.  To my surprise, every single person I emailed wrote back to me by Monday evening!  I’m not sure if this was just “southern hospitality” or catching people at the right time, but it was encouraging to find professionals who seemed genuinely interested in talking to a graduate student from the Emerald City trying to build a network in the Capital of Texas.

Since that Sunday evening, I have emailed many other professionals in higher education in Austin, and received similar results.  Each time I speak with someone, I am inspired by their enthusiasm and desire to help someone whom they’ve never met in person.  With each conversation, I learn something new about the profession, and I add another contact to my Texas network.  While there is still much of the job search process that worries me, I would encourage planners and non-planners alike to reach out to others in the field.  When I do receive a call for an interview, I will be able to speak confidently about the systems and issues in Texas higher education, and I will have a network I can call upon.  If you are entering into a time of transition, especially the time after graduate school, I would encourage you to take the first step now, put yourself out there, and start connecting.  I learned the pressure and anxiety I felt before networking was mostly unwarranted, and I am now excited to continue to build my network as I embark on new adventures in the Lone Star state.

With 250 million active users and over one billion pieces of content being shared weekly on Twitter, the reality is the realty can be rather crammed. When I started my first advising job back in January, I was unofficially given the reins to the office’s Twitter account. No one else wanted the responsibility. Here I was, first job and already steering the office leftovers. I was rather intimidated at first, because up until that point I had only used Twitter to acquire information- never to create it. So I played it safe. I sent out lifeless Tweets. Guilty as charged!

Job Fair Tomorrow!…Oh to those poor students who were currently following my drab, dust collecting, antique-Tweets!

Boring right? Never had I paid any attention to strategy or even looked into what others were doing. Over the summer I was finally fed up with getting steam-rolled by the newsfeed. It was time to create some elbowroom.

I now see the utility in social platforms as a means to student engagement. When I first started I was merely pushing out information with no real direction. As I explored what others were doing and really got into social listening, I started to conceptualize how our account could be used as an engagement mechanism.

Through trail and error and the use of simple analytics, I have found a set of guidelines that I feel work for our academic advising office (and perhaps others). While I am still developing my mode of operations I am confident that my guidelines will create the framework for a much more interactive account and will meet my expectations for creating engagement opportunities for our students.

Find common ground:

According to Forrester Research Group  students fall under the category of creators and conversationalists. This means not only are students highly connected, they operate on a higher level of social activity. While they may not create as much content, they are about sharing content. It took me awhile to figure this out, but I believe the key to engaging students has come from finding common ground or unique ways to identify with my student population. While it has been difficult with the 140-character limit, I try to tie in the relevant info with a colorful anecdote. I have found that the bulk of retweets occur when I used something they can identify either personally or experientially.

Know your network:

 I know that not every one of our students follows our account. That does not mean we cannot reach them. Informal networks of offices on campus can be a huge benefit. This is something that I have learned early on.  So create ecosystems of campus partners to help provide information that you may not have access to at all time, along with a great way to increase your potential impressions. For example, I have a great relationship with our student run production office. I know a lot of our students follow their account, because they are involved in some capacity. Through conversations with their account manager, I now have a larger outlet for information, because we constantly retweet or reference what the other is doing. This nearly doubled my reach. I think the ability to nurture our network with students is just as important as this informal network of organizations and offices.

Influence through action words:

 Like many others, I too have seen the studies that suggest word choice can influence actions HERE HERE HERE . What the data will tell you is the use of verbs and action phrases like ‘via,’ ‘RT,’ ‘PLEASE RT!’ will increase the likelihood of retweets or students clicking on your links. It also has been shown that overusing #hashtags and ‘@’ will decrease the likelihood of link clicks. I initially set out to utilize these principles. If I have a clear outcome for what I am sending out, the last thing I want to do is muddle it with #hashtags. If I use a #hashtag it is to file things that will continually that I hope will be beneficial for students (club happenings, involvement opportunities, seminars).

Lesson learned along the way:

I have gained a lot of insight and base my decisions through the use of Crowdbooster and bit.ly. Both platforms provide free analytics to users. I use Crowdbooster as a visual guide to examine the effects of each tweet. I can see the reach it has and how students interact with it. Two good features that are available are the recommendations tab and the ability to time tweets. The recommendations tab highlights positive interactions others have had with you and how you can best address it. You can also set up timed tweets. I know through my data, that our students respond more in the afternoon hours. I can set up a complete timeline for the dissemination of tweets for an entire week based on this data. Secondly, if I find out something is occurring next week, but I do not want to forget about it, I can go ahead and create the content and set it for a more appropriate day. This makes things much easier when I am in a time crunch.

I use bit.ly to see what is happening off of Twitter per se. You can track how students are getting to and from the links you are sending out and how often they are being clicked. Bit.ly integrates nicely with Twitter and you can tweet directly from their site. The bonus is that while students may not be engaged in your Tweet directly (i.e. retweeting or responding), you can examine traffic to and from the links you provide.

I firmly believe that without the use of these tools, I would be running on pure speculation. These platforms have really shaped not only what I am doing, but creating a better experience for those who follow.

The one thing I must remember is that building a platform that students are engaged with takes time. This is a slow process. For an account that has lain dormant for a semester and has little advertising, I am happy with the growth that has occurred.

I hope this post sparks some ideas in others who are struggling with their account and even creates some conversations on best practices. I would welcome the chance to explore further avenues through additional comments.

Chris Huebner is an academic advisor in the School of Journalism and Mass Communications at the University of South Carolina

Pinterest has shown tremendous growth over the past six months, and is one of the few newer (non-google) social media sites to gain traction. But, is it a fad that will show waning interest, like other recent semi-hit Quora, or will it have a longer shelf life?

First, my theory on why Pinterest gained traction. I believe the visual nature of the site appeals to us for the same reason that photo sharing is such a primary activity in the social space. So, in this way, it shares the same traction that, say, Instagram does. Initially, it also tapped into an interest area and a target market (females predominately), and it “solved a problem,” in a way that many social media platforms don’t do. Many social media platforms fail to gain a core audience beyond the typical techie/early adopter set. Pinterest gave itself a leg up by avoiding that trap.

Now that it does have that traction, it’s being leveraged by others beyond that initial audience. Brands from General Electric (fairly thin page) to Whole Foods (much more robust) are experimenting.  In the higher education space, University of Pennsylvania’s Career Services (and the great work of Shannon Kelly) is setting a standard with their page.  Others like Skidmore College’s D-Hall and University of Minnesota’s Student Union, along with many others, are dabbling.  It will be interesting to see where other student affairs pros take it.

So, to my original question:  is it a passing fad or here to stay?  Obviously, we don’t know the full answer yet.  But, my feeling is that it has taken root, and fills a gap and thus will be with us at least for a little while.  It’s a fun site, and while it will probably continue to be a primary place for individuals to share, it will be interesting to watch brands continue to experiment and develop their space on the site.

What do you think about Pinterest for student affairs departments?

Cross posted on Service Design Thinking, Marketing and Innovation in Student Affairs

Gary Alan Miller is the Assistant Director for Social Media and Innovation at the University of North Carolina Chapel Hill.

Its hard to believe, but two years ago I wrote a post here on the SA Blog about some then outstanding Student Affairs Graduate Students.  Joe Ginese encouraged me to gather information and write a follow up to showcase where exactly those folks are now as working professionals.  Besides asking them what has happened over the last two years, I also asked them share their best advice for those who will be job searching this spring. I’m thrilled (and proud) to share their stories!

Constanza (Connie) Cabello

I spend a lot of time gathering and sharing information with others via Twitter. If I have a lull in my day, I like to scroll through the last hour of my tweet stream and see what new gems I can find. Usually, I end up opening several new tabs, which I then try and read during the rest of the day. (Current tab count for those who are interested is 12, divided among two windows. It’s been a slow news day.) Sometimes I wonder why individuals share the information they do — does it have personal significance? Is it a cause they are associated with? An issue or topic that they are currently researching and learning more about?

Recently, Niki Rudolph shared an article in the Chronicle of Higher Education discussing student organizations who offer micro loans to entrepreneurs in the surrounding community. Niki and I have shared some tweets back and forth over the past couple of years, and we have even worked at the same institution (Go Fighting Pickles!), but I have never met Niki. What I know about Niki is gleaned from her Twitter bio and her tweets. She is a great supporter of women in higher education, she works in the academic affairs side of the house, and loves diet coke. After reading the article she shared, my brain was churning. What a great idea this seems to be, and how empowering it must be for the students! However, my next thought was, why did Niki share this? Sure, anyone who works in higher education can see that it’s an innovative student practice, but I was curious about the heart behind the RT. Does it have personal significance? Does she donate through kiva.org? Is she currently involved in launching a similar project on her campus?

So, I decided to ask. The result? I feel like I know Niki a bit better now. I’ve also adjusted where she sits in my mental rolodex, and know that I can bounce ideas by her that may relate to service learning and student leadership. By taking that step further to ask “why?”, I strengthened my connection with this twitter based colleague.  You can read Niki’s response question below.

When I was a hall director, one of my RAs decided to spend a semester in Bangladesh. I cannot say that Bangladesh was a popular destination for study abroad students, but off Robin went. He went to see the impacts of micro-loans, or micro-credit, first hand. It was the first I had heard of such financing, and I was amazed to hear that many of the loans were directed to women, who often reinvested in their communities and were more likely to repay. The repayment of these loans was up in the area of 98%. So, when I saw the article, I began thinking of what amazing potential such programming could have on college campuses, the surrounding communities, and the students involved.

1. Service Learning. Many service learning efforts are day-long efforts, or drives on campus, or having students spending a few hours putting together care packages. I am not discounting those programs, since for many of the students, that may be all the time they have to commit, and those efforts help people. However, what amazing learning could occur when the effort is long term. An investment in the people of the surrounding community, with an end result of long term connections and students wanting to see those people succeed.

2. Leadership. Truthfully, when I first read the article, I thought, “Hey, Cindy and Chris might be interested in this.” What a great way to show students not just leadership in terms of creating nice programs, but leadership in terms of seeing the impacts of service and coordinating group efforts for a tangible end. Can you just imagine what kinds of experience these student leaders can talk about in their future interviews?

3. Skill Building. I would be remiss, as an academic affairs professional, to not discuss the wonderful application of academic learning this kind of programming can provide. Not just the business majors, but the communication majors and social work majors and engineer majors, getting a better understanding of community needs, economics, budgeting, planning, and client service is a learning opportunity that few classrooms can provide.

This is what education should be. Not just learning, but doing something with that learning that has real value, real impact on people and communities, and not just a means to a job. Employment at the end of two or four years is important, but employment with strong citizenship is even better.

I ‘participated’ in my first #SAChat last week, full disclosure I lurked the entire time.

I saw the word storytelling used quite a bit and I really like the idea. If the goal of your blog is storytelling, I think it is important to look at ‘how’ and ‘why’ the idea of storytelling through blogs became an important buzzword.

Content marketers are experts at storytelling. Their goal is to create genuine, thoughtful content that imparts to the reader a compelling reason to act (in some way). This content can appeal to people by establishing one’s self as an expert or promoting an emotional response. The point is to connect these prospects during certain periods in the buying cycle through the content of the blog.

Tom Kreiglestein wrote about the 90/9/1 rule to online community engagement in an old post. As academic advising practitioners, we must be careful not to forget the rule and understand what it means in terms of assessing the success of our blog. While it might be easy to attempt to measure success in terms of the number of comments/conversations/ etc., in response to the blog, I would argue that such a measure will not accurately account for all of the types of engagement we should be seeking . Think about the rule. If we measure success based only on comments, then we are only looking at our success in reaching the top 1 percent of students. Remember Kreiglestein’s point, you cannot overcome this phenomenon we can only influence the curve. We can influence the curve by creating engagement outlets for those who are not our typical commenters (the 90%). This is where the ability to create compelling content (storytelling) comes in.  Effective storytelling involves the ability to weave together the basic blog content along with additional information (e.g., articles, programs, guest speakers) and contact information in a way that encourages audience members to come to our offices.

So what specifically does a successful storytelling-blog look like in Student Affairs? How do we influence the curve?

I believe Ed Cabellon provided a great starting point. He wrote: A department blog allows us to use richer data to measure engagement/participation (e.g., comments, visitors, times, days, etc.). I would also add the element of digital to foot traffic, too.

If you look at a frequent touch point for students, advising offices should create blog content that facilitates more foot-traffic, that is, direct student contact with the office through increased advising appointments or other interactive avenues, (i.e. links visited, emails, etc.). As someone who works in an advising office, I know that the frequency of online interactions is important to measure, but a more comprehensive measure of our success would include the ability to tie-in other opportunities an office provides or even other opportunities on campus that are applicable that the student could potentially connect with.

1. With that said, the question still remains, “What does a successful blog look like?” Here are my three suggested criteria:Does the blog have a clear goal and intended audience? Define your audience and the actions you hope to encourage.
2. Does the blog provide outlets for action? Good storytelling always allows an outlet for action. Once you have an objective in mind, you should provide multiple avenues for students to explore.
3. Does the blog facilitate a variety of connections between the creators and readers of the blog? Cross-pollinate – use this opportunity to tie-in other offices or other streams of interactions. You should be a connector through your content.

If we can answer yes to all three questions, then I believe we have created a successful blog.  I hope this provides a starting point for those interested in starting a blog. I would like to flesh out some of my points in a later blog, so I encourage those interested to comment or follow along.

Chris Huebner is an academic advisor in the School of Journalism and Mass Communications at the University of South Carolina

I recently read an article in the Harvard Business Review and was curious to gain some much needed advice on how to advance in the workplace. The Ambition and Gender at Work study conducted by Europe’s Institute of Leadership & Management concluded women have lower confidence in the workplace compared to their male coworkers. The study also indicated women in management positions are more likely to doubt their performance and are hesitant to seek out promotions.

The study identifies four ways in which women create barriers to their own success:

1. Being overly modest.
2. Not asking.
3. Blending in.
4. Remaining silent.

The article indicates that men are more likely to speak about their accomplishments more openly than women. I was speaking with a colleague about seeking promotions and he asked me was I self-promoting within the office. For a moment I had to think about the last time I consciously sought out opportunities to brag about myself. Sometimes I feel I’m so involved at work, how could anyone not realize this level of involvement. However, the article states your boss and colleagues will not know what you are capable of if you do not tell them. But we don’t want to play the martyr, now do we?

I had a supervisor that used to say, “You don’t ask, you don’t get.” The article states that some women are passed up for promotions because they do not ask for the promotion. When we job search we are told to “ask,” for the job, so it makes sense to “ask,” for the promotion. Asking for a raise or promotion will accomplish two things: 1. You will have communicated your interest and intentions the organization; and 2. Their reaction to your request will determine where you stand with the organization. Ah, but we do this for the students; it’s not about the money or the prestige.

According to the article some women would prefer to blend in and remain silent rather than stand out in meetings or at events. Blending in hinders anyone’s chances to leave a positive impression on a supervisor or colleague. I can recall times that I have sat in meetings silent because I thought what I had to contribute was not important, but I also can recall times when I have spoken from experience on a topic and inherited a project and a committee to assist. But why would the Vice President want my opinion about alternative approaches to student programming?

I realize this study grazes the subject of gender roles; women are not characteristically assertive while men are asserting at all times of the day. What are your thoughts on this topic, considering that student affairs is a heavily female-dominated field? Are women deficient when it comes to self-promotion? Do we fail to speak up for a promotion out of fear of judgment?

Carla Finklea Green is a residence hall director at Old Dominion University.

Hope that was enough hashtags for you!

If you’ve always thought about taking the Twitter plunge in the name of professional development, we’ve got some great things in store for you this week in conjunction with the NASPATech conference in Newport, RI.

In addition to our regular Thursday #sachat this week we will feature a “special edition” chat in conjunction with our “Behind the #sachat” presentation at the conference. Please join us for an open discussion from 4:30 pm – 5:30 pm CST and feel free to recruit some new participants who may want to test the waters a bit.  In addition, for those attending NASPATech we hope you will join us at our session! Bring your laptop or mobile device and participate in #sachat while we discuss the potential that social media has to enhance networking and (free!) professional development opportunities.

Hope you will join us!

NAME:
Booshaka

URL:
http://www.booshaka.com

WHAT IT DOES:
Attaches a point-scoring system to the activity of your Facebook Fans to help you discover your Top Fans through an engagement dashboard.

MY TAKE:
Long time readers will know that I’m a fan of the 90-9-1 rule when it comes to community engagement, so to have a tool that really brings this rule to life is a big deal and something I’ve been waiting for. It’s not perfect yet as it seems to only track month-to-month, but I’m sure in due time, they’ll have a full data dashboard.

The actionable outcomes of having a visualization of your Fan’s engagement will be huge. You’ll be able to identify your trending leaders. You’ll be able to reward the top engaged users every month. You’ll build a game layer ontop of engagement. You’ll be able to…what else? How do you see this being valuable to your work?

SCREEN SHOTS: