Nick DeNardis

User experience, code, higher education, analytics and accessibility.

IUE 2009 Social Media Panel Discussion

After the January Refresh Detroit meeting (opens new window) where I was on a panel talking about social media, I was asked to be on a similar panel for the then upcoming Internet User Experience 2009 conference (opens new window). This week I attended IUE 2009 and the panel was a great success!

# The panel consisted of

There was no live stream or recording of the panel but (opens new window) Zachary Spencer (opens new window) rocked out an almost word by word transcript of the whole discussion (opens new window).

In preparing for the panel they asked for a position statement from each of us. I decided to post mine below to get your thoughts.

# Position Statement

Higher education institutions are working to understand the best way to leverage social networks to get the attention of prospective students. High school and even middle school age students are spending more time on social networks interacting with peers and companies they trust.

The more time prospective students spend online the more they ignore traditional media and commercials. DVR's and MP3 players are letting these users bypass traditional advertisements. Companies and universities now need to start evaluating where they spend their ad dollars and resources.

Social media exposes the truths about a company or university regardless if it is good or bad. In the social space users are in control and are not afraid to speak their mind. University administration may not be open to exposing these truths. Because of the traditional nature of universities getting buy in is tough. Spending the already limited resources on an untested and unknown ROI of social media can be a difficult task.

The universities that do embrace this media and can navigate it appropriately, have the ability to tap into a wealth of motivated advocates that can essentially promote the university for them. On the other hand universities that go into the social space without a game plan or by thinking too traditional, have the potential to be pushed out and their advocates could turn into protesters.

The simplest thing for a universities to do is search and discover what is already being said and posted about them. Some administrators would be amazed at the content that is already out there.

Without being present in the social space, any negative comments or posts will go unanswered and all the user's followers will see them as truth. Being in the social space allows universities to control their brand and respond to any misconceptions or answer any questions users may pose.

The best recommendations for a product or service are ones by friends or family. When a user has 800+ friends online and they post a message, it goes out to those 800+ friends as a recommendation. It is scary to think but news that use to take weeks to tell all their friends now only takes seconds online.

With the high spam detector that middle school and high school students have, universities have started creating positions for community managers and social media experts. Ensuring they are using the most appropriate tactics to interact with prospective students. The social space is essential for universities to be apart of, but strategy and experimentation are key to their success.