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Trench Warfare: How I plan to win the war of visibility on Twitter

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

Higher Education, Social Media, Student Affairs, Twitter

Pinterest: passing fad or here to stay?

February 28th, 2012 | Posted by Gary Alan Miller in Marketing | Online Tools | Social Networks | Web/Tech - (6 Comments)

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.

Pinterest, Social Media

Why Did You Retweet That?

February 22nd, 2012 | Posted by Julie Larsen in Collaborative Learning | Social Networks | Web/Tech - (2 Comments)

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.

Chronicle of HIgher Ed, leadership, microloans, Retweet, service learning, skill building, technology, Twitter

Keeping Your Online Life Secure

September 7th, 2011 | Posted by Ed Cabellon in Web/Tech - (1 Comments)

Over the weekend, at student employee training for our Campus Center, I heard something that continues to be a pet peeve of mine. While talking about access to email, internal databases, and learning management systems, many of my students said, “Oh, I use the same password for everything.” While I have been guilty of this myself in the past, it’s important to change this habit, especially since many of us own a number of online accounts. Here are some recommendations, which I hope spur conversations with students and staff in your own organizations on this important topic:

1. Have FOUR Different, Complex Passwords: What’s worse than having one password for everything? Having that password be not complex. While it isn’t realistic to have a different password for each of your accounts, creating a complex password should be your first priority. Complex passwords are defined by having at least 14 characters, mixed with capital letters, numbers and characters (where allowed.) Microsoft has some great advice on this topic. Once you create your first complex password, create three more and rotate them across your accounts. You may also decide to categorize your passwords for personal, work, merchants, and social networks. Oh, and don’t forget, Windows users may also use SPACES as characters in passwords. It is a great way to mix things up.

A good password is more than just a complex password. It is one that is not easily guessed, but still easy to remember. It should be long, but still easy to type quickly with few errors.

2. Securing Your Facebook Account: If you visit the “Security Settings” tab, you can do a lot to make your Facebook account more secure, beyond your initial password. First, enable “Secure Browsing” so that you always log into Facebook on a secure (https) connection. Second, enable “Email Notifications” to be notified when your account is accessed from a computer or mobile device that you haven’t used before. By doing this, you actively record each device you use to access Facebook, so there is a record in case someone else tries to log in as you. If you are an active Facebook user, I highly recommend doing this.

3. Securing Your Google Accounts: If you use any Google product, want to make it more secure, and you own a smartphone, consider adding the 2-step authorization feature via the Google Authenticator App. All pertinent information is found here. Frankly, once you sell your digital soul to Google like I have, its important to add this extra layer of protection to ensure ALL your Google products (Gmail, YouTube, Calendar, Documents, etc.) are safe(r) and (more) secure.

4. Storing Passwords: Now that you have all your passwords, how will you keep up with all of them? There is not a right answer, only recommendations based on your comfort levels. Some will opt to write them all down and keep them in one or two places. Others will use programs like Evernote, add a super password and store them all on the cloud for access anywhere at anytime. My favorite way is to use a password storage services like KeePass and sync it with DropBox. According to KeePass’ site: “KeePass is a free open source password manager, which helps you to manage your passwords in a secure way. You can put all your passwords in one database, which is locked with one master key or a key file. So you only have to remember one single master password or select the key file to unlock the whole database. The databases are encrypted using the best and most secure encryption algorithms currently known (AES and Twofish). ”

No matter how you choose to keep your passwords secure, make sure you do something and don’t leave this important information to chance.

How many passwords do you use for the various accounts you log into everyday? Is your password complex? Do you have a central storage system for your passwords? What advice do you have to share on this?

online accounts, Passwords, Security

Building Our Social Media Emotional Intelligence (EQ)

April 11th, 2011 | Posted by Lisa Endersby in #sachat | Online Tools | Social Networks | Web/Tech - (11 Comments)

I was going to start this blog post on social media in student affairs with a full disclaimer about my admittedly self-perceived lack of technical know-how. After some thinking, reflecting and tweeting, however, I’ve begun to see that it is this seemingly innocent humour and language that may be one of the biggest stumbling blocks to integrating social media into our student affairs programming. Beyond building our technology IQ, perhaps it is time we also invest in nurturing our social media EQ-–identifying and confronting the underlying assumptions surrounding incorporating these tools into our professional practice. One of the many valuable lessons I’ve learnt in my time in student affairs has been the true power of words and language. Slang and other terms used in passing can distance us just as quickly as they can bring us together. In the case of social media, the way we talk about our tweets, Facebook posts or blogging can often do the same.

While facilitating presentations and engaging in discussions around social media at this year’s NASPA conference, one theme that came up rather frequently was the use of social media as a way to build community on campus, across institutions and throughout the student affairs profession. This desire for collaboration and unity is in stark contrast to the effect of several off-hand comments I heard during these discussions. For example, some colleagues I speak to about social media will laugh off their lack of knowledge around Twitter, claiming they’re ‘too old’ or ‘not hip enough’ to engage with this ‘new fangled technology’.

If we want to continue building and sustaining what we claim to be valuable relationships amongst our colleagues and peers, we need to start talking about social media as a piece of the larger community building puzzle. Rather than viewing social media as a separate space for engagement, I choose to view it as an extension of my local student affairs community. This blog post and my Twitter account, for example, do not replace the connections I made face to face at NASPA or even in my office, but they instead help me to sustain those relationships once the conference is over or after I’ve left the office for the day. Social media, to me, is another way to interact and share–it does not take the place of in-person interactions but rather encourages conversations to continue beyond the boundaries of geographic location and time zones.

I am beginning to see the need for a shift in the way we talk about social media from a tool that discourages interaction to a new way of encouraging and fostering connections. I will admit to sometimes being the one who complains about ‘those people who are always on their phones’, especially as an extrovert who craves and enjoys social interaction. However, even those complaints done in jest only serve to further the apparent divide between those who embrace social media and those who seem more reluctant to sign up. As with anything new, the language used to describe and discuss it can often further the fear and hesitation that comes with adopting a new way of doing things. In the case of social media, we often overhear complaints about students and colleagues so wrapped up in their phones that they don’t look up long enough to engage with those around them. These complaints, often voiced as jokes about the ‘digital divide’ between the generations, seem to only push us apart rather than bring us together. If we as student affairs professionals claim community building and engagement as important values, we must begin to reframe how we discuss social media as a tool for fulfilling these goals and examine how the language we use may limit, rather than encourage, connections. The way in which we talk about social media can have a far greater impact on building our technological competency than any online tutorial.

As Thomas Earnest Hulme so eloquently describes:

“Language is by its very nature a communal thing; that is, it expresses never the exact thing but a compromise – that which is common to you, me, and everybody. “

Lisa Endersby is a Student Experience Advisor at the University of Ontario Institute of Technology (UOIT).

Blog Reflections: Student Leader Development

I always hope for that perfect storm of aligned experiences when sending a small group of organization representatives to a conference. In my mind, the students will be empowered with questions and ideas to pursue upon the return home; their energy ignites a new sense of motivation in their group; and they begin to pursue their new definition of the future.

Sound great?

Hasn’t happened for me yet, either.

Sure, our students had some great presentations and excellent experiences but nearly always my student groups struggle to accurately communicate the true picture of what they experienced. They struggle to not use too many “inside jokes” when describing their time at the conference and nearly always ended up engaged in a conversation about “why can’t we send more people next year?” Given that our travel funds are not likely to increase anytime in the near future, we needed a new plan.

So, my insanely talented staff member (that’s you, Matt!) says, let’s try blogging.

Our office now requires any students traveling to conferences sponsored by our department to blog each day while they are there. We create a blogging site for the group’s travels and make each of them the authors. I love the fact that those of us not attending the conference can keep track of their experiences and that we can comment and have dialogue while they are there. We also send the site around to our student affairs colleagues and division leadership so that they can get some insight into student experiences.

This has enabled us to document these travel experiences and now see, in writing, what we already knew about the impact of spending time with other students who are similarly committed to common goals. As one of our student orientation coordinators posted, “I don’t think I ever got completely used to everyone actually understanding ‘Orientation Speak’ and being able to have in-depth conversations about different aspects of their programs.”

The use of blogs has enabled our students to do more active reflection on these conference experiences and has allowed us to use the sites to help other students understand what the experience might be like the next time around. We get pretty active commentary from participants about what they like and don’t like about the conferences and, when warranted, our structured reflection topics allow for some time for them to pause during a busy conference and make meaning of this experience that the university has offered to them.

For our department, we reported themes communicated in these blogs as part of our annual report in hope of illustrating the impact that off-campus professional travel has on our student leaders. Themes of increased pride in our university, increased confidence in their own leadership efficacy, and enhanced sense of community with other student leaders certainly made this student affairs professional proud.

If you’d like to take a look at one of them, here’s a link to the blog from our delegates at the National Greek Leadership Association conference in Hartford, CT this year.

http://bscgreeksgotongla.blogspot.com/

And just for fun…check out the Wordle the blog for our Student Orientation Coordinators’ trip to the regional NODA Conference (at the top of this post) and the Wordle for our Program Committee’s travels to the NACA regional conference (2) pasted below. Looks to me like they had a good experience…and had some fun along the way!

So, how do you facilitate reflection when your students travel? Any interested in blogging? If you are, let’s correspond and if our students attend the same conferences we can cross-promote their sites!

Twitter As A Free Campus, Group Text Messaging Provider (Updated)

August 31st, 2010 | Posted by Tom Krieglstein in Web/Tech - (0 Comments)

In May 2009 I wrote a post on how to turn Twitter into a free SMS alert system for your campus. Back then, the major hang up was people had to have a Twitter account for it to work. With student adoption of Twitter hovering pretty low at colleges, this was a problem.

Last week Twitter recognized the issue and introduced an updated tool called Fast Follow.

"The mobile team here at Twitter has rolled out a new feature called Fast Follow, and its genius lies in its simplicity: text “follow [account]” to 40404 (Twitter’s U.S. shortcode) and you’ll immediately start getting that account’s tweets via SMS—without ever signing up for Twitter."

Eric Stoller, writer for Inside Higher Ed, reported on Fast Follow and how it could be integrated into the campus culture.

"You could place your school's admissions Twitter account name and the Twitter SMS number on your marketing collateral. A school could even have multiple Twitter accounts that could then be included on strategic mailings or promotional microsites. Campaign tracking would be a snap! Prospective students do not have to be on Twitter to use Fast Follow."

Enterprise SMS tools will have a hard time justifying large price tags when competing against…free. I suspect an advantage they will have is back end assessment data. Though, knowing Twitter's history of openness, might be provided by a third party tool soon.

Curious to know if anyone has tried mass, or even departmental adoption of Fast Follow at their campus?

Education and Technology, student activities, TechTip

Party like it’s 1999

In recent news, Prince spoke out against the Internet stating, “All these computers and digital gadgets are no good. They just fill your head with numbers, and that can’t be good for you.” After reading the article, I’ve imagined this is all a publicity stunt to promote his new album (which I’m not going to promote). But his comments do cause me to reflect on the impact technology has had on our learning and development. Can Prince be right about gadgets not being good for you? I also thought to myself, if technology is not good for us, then is what we do in student affairs not good either?

So I thought about mp3 players – I have several different versions – ones that hook right up to the computer with the USB port and of course, a ipod. Are they no good? Sure, I can load them up with useless songs, but I have found that mp3 players (the same as the old personal cassette and CD players) represent a part of our soul. We put music, podcasts, shows, pictures, and other items on these devices because they mean something to us. When I’m running and a song comes on, it immediately transports me to a different place and time. When I’m listening to a podcast like “Tech Therapy” from the Chronicle, I’m learning and reflecting. My physical presence hasn’t changed – I’m still running physically, but my mind is running all over previous held knowledge and new thoughts and ideas are emerging. I think sometimes, student affairs can be seen as a mp3 player. We provide a menu of options for students to engage in. We have weekend programs, community service projects, student activities, student groups, intramural teams, and the list goes on. Sometimes, we have large attendance and sometimes a program or new initiative fails. As student affairs professionals, we reflect and re-analyze our efforts to reach students and provide support to them. But it’s important to remember, just as a mp3 player, students participate in different college programs as a reflection of who they are. Similar to a playlist on a mp3 player, students pick and choose their engagement on what reflects their interests and what would help them grow. We may not see how our actions impact them in the moment, but perhaps students’ cognitive processes are in motion helping them further in their development.

I also thought of computers. Are they filling my head up with numbers and useless information? Are they leading us to be disengaged with others and ourselves? There are numerous scholarly articles and research examining the effect of technology on disengagement (i.e. Main, Student disengagement in higher education: Two Trends in Technology, and Lindos and Zolkos, Technology, Community, and Education in Neoliberal Society : A Review of Michael Bugeja’s Interpersonal Divide). In these articles, arguments are presented regarding technology’s threat to higher education by encouraging commercialism and disengagement among students. For example, in a survey conducted with 116 students with GPAs below 2.0, one-third of participants acknowledged the impact recreational computer use had on their academic performance (Farrell, 2005). Many electronic addictions are also becoming prevalent on campuses like gaming, gambling, and web surfing (Carr-Chellman, 2005; Farrell, 2005). So how does student affairs practices fit into this new era of engagement? Often, student affairs professionals are seen as the experts in student engagement, being sought out by others on our expertise and talents. We are not limited by time and space. Our business is students, which sometimes requires accessibility at all hours and in various forms. There are arguments out there that state that student affairs is useless to the enterprise of higher education, that we should simply be “house mothers” and let the learning be left for the experts (i.e. faculty). But student affairs, like technology, does have a role in educating students. We can assist students in maximizing their academic goals by developing strategies to reach them. We provide a framework for challenge and support as students navigate through their college experience. Technology does the same, if utilized and directed with intentionality and purpose.

So I go back to my original question: Is technology no good for our brain? I don’t have a clear answer to that, but I know that my mind has been challenged by what technology has provided me. Technology makes me think of my practices. It delivers information to me daily that requires me to mull, reflect, act, and react to. I use a cell-phone to communicate with friends and family. I use a computer to manage all my professional responsibilities. I skype, I twit, I blog, I post, I read, I reflect, and I learn. Technology for the good or bad allows me to grow. So maybe Prince wants us to stay partying like it’s 1999, but I prefer to party it on into the future and let my mind keep growing.

Licinia “Lulu” Barrueco Kaliher, Ed.D., is a Ray Street Complex Director at the University of Delaware.

References

Carr-Chellman, A. A. (Ed.). (2005). Global Perspectives on E-learning: Rhetoric and Reality. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications.

Farrell, E. F. (2005, September 2). Logging on, tuning out: When students lose themselves in online worlds, it can be hard to bring them back to reality. The Chronicle of Higher Education, p. A46.

gadgets, gaming, Higher Education, Prince, technology

Job Search Success via Twitter? I’m a Believer Now

April 21st, 2010 | Posted by Mike Severy in #sachat | Careers | SA Job Listings | Web/Tech - (34 Comments)

Social media as a job search tool? Sure I’d heard about it but didn’t really put much faith into it beyond employer/employee fact checking and social background research. By the time we had a position moving through our HR process in January I’d been contributing to studentbranding.com for a several months so I knew the networking expectations for both employers and candidates in the non-higher education arena. As such, I figured I didn’t have anything to lose by sharing news of our process on twitter.

While I had been engaged in the #sachat community not much came of this tweet (note no #sachat hashtag) until we progressed as a community into discussions on job searches, of course triggered by Ed Cabellon. Here is a sequence of tweets than ensued over the course of sixteen minutes.

As promised, when our position was finally approved right before #NASPA10 I sent a tweet sharing the news and our process from that point forward. I didn’t have a live link yet so several people requested the job description as a result of these tweets:

Several members of the #sachat and twitter community requested a job description after these tweets. Anyone who expressed interest in the position or had asked questions about the job, university and location via twitter was on the radar for us. As we progressed through the search, all search committee members, including me, unfollowed all of the twitter candidates to maintain the integrity of our process. Communication with candidates became more formal and traditional – email and phone – but by that point the networking had reaped its rewards.

Twitter can change the search process

While unexpected, twitter and the #sachat community fundamentally changed the search process by decreasing the size of an already small profession. Certainly candidates still had to successfully navigate the gauntlet of our search process but our knowledge of them through social media outlets was very informative.

As an employer our engagement on twitter, whether individually or through our office account, helped us put information in the public domain that we wanted to share about the future direction of our office and our work environment. Knowing that I was being followed by several candidates didn’t change how I interacted on twitter but it did reassure me that when we got to the point of fit questions that these candidates were probably better informed about us than those who were not accessing our information.

As a candidate you need to think through how you use twitter and what degree of access you want to provide. It can be hugely beneficial for employers to triangulate your professional perspective and network connections. On the other hand it can also be detrimental, particularly related to candidate authenticity and consistency in different settings if your interviews and application materials don’t align well with your presence in social media.

Social media expertise will be a required job criteria for all future searches

Our job description listed social media expertise as a preferred requirement. It became a more prominent factor in our search every step of the way as our discussions to balance expertise and needs within our office became more focused. In our next search social media engagement will be a required component.

In response to:

You may be asking:

Based on our candidate pool and how they identified their skill set as it related to our job description I would disagree that most people in gen-y have them in some form. Facebook doesn’t cut it anymore. That is now below the minimum – fan pages, connections, etc. Different institutions will measure social media skills differently based upon their needs and the expertise currently on staff. We were looking for someone who had the interest in and ability to give us traction in areas where we knew we needed to be engaged but were spinning our wheels – Facebook a bit, twitter, and blogs. (Again social media served as only two of thirteen criteria in our search process.) In particular, we were looking for a solid knowledge base of how to use twitter and, ideally, high quality engagement in the student affairs community and #sachat in particular.

Very few candidates provided social media information on their resume or in their cover letter (the best approach for me – hyperlinked to your profile in a PDF resume). Even some of the candidates we knew were on twitter didn’t identify that knowledge in their application materials. If you are engaged in the #sachat community your knowledge base sets you apart from the general student affairs community and you need to market that knowledge. Again, different institutions will measure social media skills differently based upon their needs and the expertise currently on staff but why make the hunt for that information difficult and allow employers to make inaccurate assumptions about your skill set?

In January I never would have guessed the impact social media would have on our search process. I’m a believer now though. Without getting into further details of our search I’d be glad to discuss your process as it relates to my perspective on social media and the role it can play in a successful search process for you.

What do you think? Make it a good day.

Mike Severy is the Director of Student Involvement and Leadership at UNC Pembroke. You can connect with Mike via Twitter.

#sachat, candidates, Graduate Students, Job Search, professional development, Social Media, The Placement Experience, Twitter

Keeping Your Online Life Secure

Blog Reflections: Student Leader Development

Twitter As A Free Campus, Group Text Messaging Provider (Updated)

Party like it’s 1999

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