[Marisa Panzani (she/her/hers)]

Should we be claiming our placeholder names in social media spaces, even if we aren’t ready to do anything with them. Anyone can start a group called “CUNY” or “Brooklyn College” in facebook. Should we HOLD that group name to prevent anyone else to claim it?

Similarly, on twitter … anyone can sign up with the username “CUNY” or “The Graduate Center” and then post as if they are representing the school.

What do you believe we should be doing in these arenas?

[Laura Jack]

Hi! For about a year now we’ve been building our presence in these arenas. Its been slow to grow because its so time consuming but I feel like if we don’t start, the opportunity is just going to pass us by.

The idea of placeholders is probably more of an issue on Twitter, because as you said, anyone can sign up with the username “CUNY”. If it hasn’t already been taken, you’re right – it should be held…

In terms of Facebook, institutions typically set up Fan Pages, while students create groups. I might have it wrong, but I don’t believe you can set up a Fan Page if you are not officially linked to the institution. But anyone can create a group called “I Love CUNY” or “I hate CUNY”. The fact is, we can’t control everything written about our institutions. And I think if CUNY administrators are seen trying to sensor what is said, it could hurt us. We have students who have created groups around their particular degree program. While we’ll look to see what’s being said, we haven’t tried to insert ourselves in any of the conversations.

[Marisa Panzani (she/her/hers)]

Laura, thank you for your comments. It’s certainly an issue we should be talking more about.

We found some facebook groups created by students that were presenting themselves as “graduate admissions” seemingly for the whole university. We are going to be talking more about how we handled to ask them to take down that particular page and the marketing issues in our next GRAD (Graduate Recruitment and Admissions Directors) meeting. We meet every last Friday of the month at 10am in The Grad Center if you would like to join.

[Laura Jack]

I’m curious as to WHY a student would want to do that. I thought we’d sooner have to worry about “bad press” than someone impersonating an office. Definitely something to talk more about. And possibly, reach out to the social media website to see what, if any, guidelines they have for handling things like that.

I’d love to attend your GRAD meetings and will follow up with you.

[Marisa Panzani (she/her/hers)]

Here is the latest negative press i’ve seen about CUNY. Someone on twitter has an account called CUNYfail where they seem to be aggregating all the negative tweets anyone makes about CUNY or any CUNY schools.

Their bio reads: We really love CUNY. But some of the tweets about CUNY’s failures are too funny not to retweet.We really love CUNY. But some of the tweets about CUNY’s failures are too funny not to retweet.

[Hernan Sierra]

I had someone look into the site. She says that most of the negative commentary was aimed at Baruch, Hunter, and Queens College. Most of these complaints seem to be about CUNY bureaucracy. It doesn’t seem to be something to worry about, but it could be useful in the future if more substantive complaints begin to appear.

[Marisa Panzani (she/her/hers)]

Another article on social media use by Admissions. It’s mostly talking about undergrad, but these will be our applicants in the next couple of years.

http://campustechnology.com/articles/2010/06/25/social-media-pervasive-in-admissions-practices.aspx

[Marisa Panzani (she/her/hers)]

http://chronicle.com/blogPost/Admission-Officials-Tweets/25254/?sid=wc&utm_source=wc&utm_medium=en

Maybe Twitter isn’t the best platform for recruitment?

[Marisa Panzani (she/her/hers)]

Here is an interesting article about aggregating all the different avenues of your social media presence. Could we be further behind on this issue? I mean we have no sanctioned social media presence at all. What a waste of free resources.

http://chronicle.com/blogPost/Colleges-Build-Hubs-to-Track/27284/?sid=wc&utm_source=wc&utm_medium=en

[Marisa Panzani (she/her/hers)]

Staffing is holding colleges back from social media? Wouldn’t this be the perfect student employment opportunity?
http://chronicle.com/blogs/wiredcampus/social-media-efforts-are-hindered-by-inadequate-staffing-colleges-say/30970?sid=wc&utm_source=wc&utm_medium=en

And

four colleges who are using social media well.
http://www.convergemag.com/policy/4-Universities-Use-Social-Networks.html?elq=603205dbf0684e9f9a3e104fe45d8ee9

[Marisa Panzani (she/her/hers)]

Can’t help but thinking this is worth posting. It’s definitely the way we are “trying” to go. So, far though, we haven’t been able to get a dedicated student worker.

http://chronicle.com/blogs/wiredcampus/social-media-efforts-are-hindered-by-inadequate-staffing-colleges-say/30970?sid=wc&utm_source=wc&utm_medium=en

[Marisa Panzani (she/her/hers)]

Anyone else following “CUNYfail” on twitter? If you haven’t seen it, someone uses that account to aggregate all the comments that are on twitter from people complaining (often very bluntly and with a great deal of profanity) about CUNY. Thankfully, i haven’t seen GC specifically mentioned, but i’m sure it’s out there somewhere.

[Marisa Panzani (she/her/hers)]

In looking to develop some “best practices” on social media use for Higher Ed, I’ve come across the following resources that you may also be interested in.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/higher-education-network/blog/2011/jun/01/universities-social-media-internal-communications
https://wikis.utexas.edu/display/socialmedia/Guidelines
http://socialmediabestpractices.wordpress.com/
http://www.bobjohnsonblog.com/

Additionally, i’ve attached a general “best practices” whitepaper produced by HootSuite (the service we are using to schedule our posts across social media services.)

I’ll post more as i come across it!

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[Marisa Panzani (she/her/hers)]

Two interesting articles regarding social media policy by educational institutions. Both deal with the limits to put on social media use. Too much limitation becomes a question of free speech, while on the other hand … the idea of managing brand/messaging from institutional accounts.

http://chronicle.com/article/Worried-About-Message/141773/?cid=wb&utm_source=wb&utm_medium=en

http://www.centerdigitaled.com/news/Social-Media-Policies-First-Amendment.html

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