Oh Emerson..still behind the times?

• 33% of all colleges maintain a blog
• 29% maintain message or bulletin boards
• 19% employ video blogging
• 14% issue podcasts
• 39% of colleges reported using no social media technology
• 53% monitor social media for “buzz” about their institution

39% may seem like a low number to some, but with over half of all the colleges monitoring the buzz about them, why haven’t more of them adopted social media for themselves? Here at Emerson College, we happily fall into the other 61% who do use social media. As we continue to bring “innovation to communication and the arts” we better be doing some innovative communicating on a daily basis.

Facebook

Emerson College’s Facebook page is…existent. It’s the only word I can really use for it. By no means is it bad, but it could do for some sprucing up. There are no postings, photos or information that is not already accessible through the Emerson College E-Campus site. There are directions to the campus, but Facebook is not generally used for that. There are also a number notes posted that are not over two sentences in length. For example, the most recent post is a link to a note with the headline “Annual scholarship dinner brings scholarship funders and recipients together” Once the link it clicked on, it brings you to the note page where there are two sentences about this entire dinner. Maybe the annual

scolarship dinner isn’t that interesting, but it warrants more than two sentences. There is also very little interaction between students on the page, and isn’t that what Facebook was made for? In fact since November 1^st, there have been 20 posts from Emerson but only three comments from students. And with only one third of the entire student body as fans of the site, it seems like no one really cares to become a fan of their own institution much less comment on their page. A school who is doing it right is the New York City based New School. People are going onto the page and asking questions about the college’s various programs and the college is answering! There are student and administration videos, photos and other links. What makes this page even more engaging, are the links to both the schools Twitter and YouTube page, something that Emerson College still lacks.

The Class

Being a marketing student at Emerson College, I’ve really appreciated a social media-marketing course. Most internships available in the area are all social media related. Companies’ want someone from the young, hip generation that feeds off of anything social media related to run their blogs, Facebook, twitters etc. Coming from a generation where nearly everyone can say, “I know how to use Facebook.” I feel confident that I can say “I know how to use Facebook to market a product.” See the difference? It’s a pretty big one that I hope all marketing agencies will take into account. With social media being the trend that will never end, taking this class gives me a sense of accomplishment and quite possibly the ability to one up the competition when applying for a job. Nice going Emerson College, thanks for that.

Blog

Emerson does keep a blog, although until I did this posting, I had no knowledge of it. However, once I discovered the blog I was pleasantly surprised to find out that it was actually updated frequently with a variety of different writers. With more advertising on the official website and Facebook, this blog could become more widespread than it currently is. The writers and topics vary from sports to journalism to BFA proposals and everything in between. Another score for the innovator in communications.

Twitter

Emerson College has yet to jump on the twitter bandwagon but we should do so soon! Other institutions, like NYU, have already had great success with their twitter accounts. They post everything from subway slowdowns for off campus students to web comics centered on student life in New York City. There is a lot that Emerson could learn from this account and students would have fun updating the site, and they’d do it for free! If we have a class in how to use twitter as a marketing platform, we should at least have a twitter if not for anything else than to show incoming freshman what they will learn in the social media marketing class.

http://www.nacacnet.org/AboutNACAC/PressRoom/2009/Pages/SocialNetworking.aspx