universities are increasingly realizing that social media can do much more than create an online community for prospective, current, and alumni students…and they’re jumping at the opportunity. at first glance, it seems obvious that facebook and twitter are great platforms from which universities can market their schools and activities, but some schools have gotten much more creative than that. stanford has used facebook to showcase projects and some professors have implemented facebook office hours (that means not having to brave the cold to go ask your professor one or two questions anymore), stockholm university is streaming seminars, and both duke university and georgia tech are making it easier to check school e-mail and perform certain university related internet tasks via mobile phone.

social media networks give colleges the ability to broadcast news to and connect with millions of people in a matter of seconds (making it a great emergency contact tool), all while decreasing other media and marketing related costs. the pints know the future already: schools will transition from posters and brochures to flickr and youtube to inform and engage. newsletters and flyers are turning into #events on twitter, and networks like facebook will replace off-campus housing websites sponsored by universities. and why not? with the majority of students spending copious amounts of time on social networking sites anyway, it makes sense that universities are reaching out through these outlets.

universities have even gone as far as to integrate social media into their course offerings and staff meetings, simultaneously educating students and teachers about social media as a form of digital marketing and teaching aid, respectively. and while the pints aren’t surprised, these types of decisions are changing the way some view social media. no longer a hobby for procrastinating teens or a way to get ‘back in touch’, social media technologies are being studied as communication and marketing tools.

but beware, universities aren’t just using social media to reach out to students some admission officers have used social media networks to research potential scholarship candidates. social media has become a two-way research tool, with students getting to know universities on a more intimiate level using their websites and social media outlets, and admissions officers getting to know their students on a more personal level by researching their social media presence.

here are some cool examples that show how different universities have been using social media:

harvard on youtube

biola university bogs

stanford on itunes u

however, while some institutions are embracing social technologies as a crucial tool, there are still thousands of universities that have little to no presence on these networks. the blupint team shares some insight below on the relationship between universities and social networks including some findings and personal experience.

also, meet our great intern team if you haven’t already!

This entry was posted on Tuesday, December 15th, 2009 at 5:59 pm and is filed under blog.. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.