Is there a right time to post on Facebook?

This post isn't specific to higher education, but colleges and universities, like businesses or other non-profits, need to use their resources wisely. When it comes to social media, that means posting when and where their audiences — current students, potential students, alumni, donors — are online so their messages are effective.

And when it comes to social media, there is no shortage of advice on what to do and when to do it. Quite a bit of that advice focuses on Facebook, the big kahuna of social media.

In fact, Facebook itself provides a window onto your followers with its Insights feature, which not only gives you demographic information about your audience, but with its "When your fans are online" tab, you can see...well, when your fans are online. There also is a "Posts" tab that can guide you on what types of posts get the best response from your followers.

When you consider that Facebook posts receive half their views within 30 minutes of being published, using every tool at your disposal to be sure you're grabbing as many views and interactions as possible is vital to your social media success.

(Photo from Microsoft Office Images) 
(Facebook logo courtesy of Facebook)

YouTube videos help freshmen adjust to campus life

Starting college means huge adjustments for freshmen, from meeting new people to learning what professors expect in the classroom. There also are lots of logistical issues: moving into a dorm, finding your way around campus, scheduling classes. Colleges and universities increasingly are turning to social media as a way to reach out to freshmen and help ease their transition.

Two of the most recent examples I've seen are from Howard University and Michigan State University — very different universities, both using YouTube videos, though in contrasting but equally effective ways that could and should inspire other schools in their own outreach efforts.

Howard is a private, historically black university of about 10,500 students in Washington, D.C. Its student association put together a three-minute video featuring students answering such questions as "When is move-in day?" and "Where do I buy my books?" The students in the video are really engaging; the video has a very informal tone but is well done (and uses the catchy 1970 hit "Express Yourself" as background music).

Michigan State is a public, land-grant university of about 49,300 students in East Lansing, Mich. (Disclaimer: I worked in advancement communications at MSU for five years. But I would like the videos anyway.) Its "Fresh-Min" series features several one-minute videos on such topics as maximizing your meal plan and taking advantage of the services at the engagement centers on campus. The videos were produced by the university's media communications office and share a consistent theme. I'm partial to the one featuring MSU President Lou Anna Simon:

(Photo from Microsoft Office Images)

Writing well is key in any medium

You may be reading this post on a computer screen or smartphone rather than on a piece of paper, but you are reading words that I wrote — not watching a video, not listening to an audio clip, not looking at a slideshow. The written word remains the backbone of communication regardless of how it is delivered, which means that writing well remains just as important in our time of blogs and Facebook as when newsprint was the only medium of mass communication.

Telling a good story, knowing your readers and writing cleanly and concisely are hallmarks of journalistic writing, but should be the goal of all writers. Your readers want it and deserve it. My years as a newspaper writer were the best possible foundation for my later move into public relations.

Gareth Henderson's recent blog for mStoner, "Old-School Journalism Tips for Online Writers," highlights some keys to good writing, whether it will be viewed in print or online.

(Photo from Microsoft Office Images)

A few stats on social media use

I knew when I decided to write on social media and higher education in my blog that I would have no shortage of source material — a big plus — but I found immediately that searching for, reading and analyzing information easily could take hours a day. So some posts will be longer and more in depth than others, which will be shorter bits of information...like today's.

Quirky/interesting/astounding statistics on social media use abound. Here are a few:

• Facebook says that between 88 million and 100 million of its U.S. users log in every day during the prime TV viewing hours of 8-11 p.m. — and they are engaged. During last week's NFL season kickoff, more than 8 million users posted 20 million-plus likes, comments and shares on Facebook.
• Forty million photos are uploaded to Instagram every day.
• Experian Marketing Services reported earlier this year that in the United States, 16 minutes out of every hour online is spent on social networking and forums — a quarter of the average user's time. So if you're online looking for your current students/future students/alumni/donors, that's where they are, and where you need to be as well.

(Photo from Microsoft Office Images)

Social media open the front door, invite potential students in

Social media can play an important role in how colleges and universities reach out to and attract potential students. Elizabethtown College, a private, liberal arts school of nearly 2,400 students in south-central Pennsylvania, has integrated print, web and social media into a cohesive (and emulation-worthy) campaign directed at accepted students.

Through its "Share the Moment" campaign, now starting its third year, Elizabethtown invites accepted students not only to enroll at the college, but to let their friends, families and future classmates (plus anyone who follows the college on one of several social media channels) know that they're going to E-town. As part of the acceptance package sent to students — attractively done and tied in well with its newly redesigned viewbook — the college encourages them to tweet comments and/or photos using a special hashtag. Check out this year's class on Twitter with the hashtag #etown2017.

Also in the acceptance package are instructions on how new students can navigate the college's web page and access important information that they will need as they prepare for the upcoming academic year.

The college had more than 175 students "share their moment" of acceptance on either Twitter or Instagram, out of an incoming class of nearly 550. In addition, the college found many students following up with additional posts throughout the summer and as they arrived on campus.

So why reach out to students who may or may not attend your institution? According to the Chronicle of Higher Education, 82 percent of students say they want to interact with the colleges or universities where they've been accepted. Making them feel like part of your campus community before they arrive can go a long way toward getting them to sign on the proverbial dotted line.

Logistically or financially, Elizabethtown's "Share the Moment" campaign may not work exactly the same way for other schools, but the ideas certainly can be adapted to fit any size institution.

(Photos from Microsoft Office Images)

Welcome to my blog for Digital Journalism!

Welcome to my blog on social media and higher education for COM 478, Digital Journalism. A few times a week for the next four months, I will cull and assess information on how social media is being used in higher education — by colleges and universities, by faculty, by students, by alumni groups and more. This is an area of great interest to me, and hopefully we all will learn some things together!

(Photo from Microsoft Office Images)