Colleges and Social Media

A challenging opportunity

Colleges and Social Media

• Introduction – The Social Media Revolution

• Opportunities• Challenges• Social media and Colleges• Social media at VCC• Dialogue

• Social media is a term used to collectively describe a set of tools that foster interaction, discussion and community, allowing people to build relationships and share information

(In other words...social media is a fancy way to describe the millions of conversations and interactions happening online - all day, every day.)

What is Social Media?

• Because two thirds of the global internet population visit social networks.

Why Does It Matter?

The Social Media Revolution

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y4EwCG8Z498&feature=youtu.be

Opportunities• Join the conversation about your brand!

– Broaden reach to a wide, global audience– Expand recruitment– Share content– Respond to questions– Reduce traditional advertising costs– Actively engage with users– Facilitate conversations

Challenges • It’s not as simples as it looks...

– Reputation management – Resources (people, time) – Competition/online ‘noise’ – Relevant content– Security – Lack of understanding/ internal ‘buy-in’

Social Media and Colleges• A study by the UMass

Dartmouth showed that, of the colleges surveyed, 100% of students use social media.

• Colleges need to embrace social media as a way to engage students.

Social Media at VCC

• Our goal: – Inform– Excite– Educate– Engage

Social Media at VCC

• Our channels– Facebook– Twitter– YouTube– Flickr– Linkedin– Four Square

Social Media at VCC • How we manage:

– Social media guidelines– Social media strategy– 1 voice representing the brand (dedicated staff)– Monitoring– Quick response – Comment policy– New content

Questions & Discussion