Though i’m sure there will always be some who insist to keep the two separate, I don’t think we can assume they don’t want to communicate with us through this medium.
We just kicked off a Facebook/Twitter campaign and it’s been quite successful in attracting current students and alum. That may provide an avenue for potential students to learn more about us, what we are doing and what are students and alums are doing. And yes, it’s a lot of work!
Interesting article in the Chronicle about a University deleting content from their facebook page. Is this censorship if it’s technically the Universities page?
We haven’t had too many people post to our page, yet, but ideally we would like that kind of back and forth communication. I’m sure this particular kind of content would be better left on GC’s page, because as a school we have a strong academic focus on these kinds of labor issues. But when would it be better to take wall posts down? Profanity, yes. Obvious lies or friendly mis-information, yes. But disgruntled student complaining? Not so sure.
Seems like the commenters on this Chronicle article tear the survey apart for validity, but it still makes the point that Facebook is being used by (some) schools for the direct purpose of recruiting.
We are a couple of months into a sustained social media campaign with a dedicated part time person and we have actually had a prospective student ask about admissions using facebook. I guess it’s working? Overall, i think we have more followers/friends who are current students and alumni, but I have to believe that perspective students at least look at how those relationships are playing out in our social media spaces when trying to gain more information about our school.
Looking at how Universities are using social media for pushing out, but not necessarily monitoring the reaction to their institutions. Also there is an interesting infographic at the bottom showing universities use of social media (especially in the area of recruitment.) http://www.centerdigitaled.com/news/College-Presidents-Social.html
