Facebook’s Community Pages: A Lesser Evil?
Facebook’s new community pages feature has marketers in an uproar. Basically, this new service adds yet another way for colleges and universities (as well as corporations, nonprofits, and other organizations) to have a presence. The problem is that neither institutions nor individuals have any say in the matter. Community pages are built on aggregated public content drawn from user status messages on individual profiles (they also apparently draw from Wikipedia). What this means is that community pages are born and grow without any effort or direction from either individuals (for an excellent and more detailed take please see Jessica Krywosa’s 5/11/10 post on eduguru). So far, the community pages we’ve seen have been harmless, even positive, additions to the institutions they represent. And although this loss of control has many worried, this may be good thing. For in truth, we’ve all become Facebook-centric, as if it were the only solution to our social media needs. The fact is there is a wide range of tools and platforms available that colleges and universities have barely tapped into like Big Tent, Vimeo, Foursquare (though I’ve seen many people on #highered experiment with it), LiveJournal, Reddit, etc.
Ultimately, however, this is less about specific tools and more about a way of thinking—we all have come to believe that Facebook (and more recently perhaps Twitter) are the only platforms worth focusing our attention on. The main argument—that we should go where students are—makes sense. And yet, it seems passive. It enables us to take a “let’s run it up the flagpole and see if anybody salutes” approach—setting up a page, then waiting for results, then invariably becoming disappointed when nothing happens. This approach has proven to be ineffective as social media marketing. It’s hard to integrate with a marketing communications plan that takes a more aggressive approach in recruiting students—employing techniques and tactics from direct marketing for example, which drive action and response. The wait-and-see approach also limits cross-linking possibilities and brand reverberations that happen when multiple social media platforms connect. Except for those schools who have been actively and strategically managing their social media content and interactions, some institutions are living in a Facebook bubble.
Facebook has always posed challenges to marketers—take a look at some of the comments on Jessica’s blog post. Frustration is constant and it stems from Facebook’s passive-aggressive approach to marketing. From the beacon uproar to limiting brand apps to community pages, Facebook has been all over the map and it’s often hard to tell how they (it?) really feels about marketing. Colleges and universities, on the other hand, are no longer debating the issue and haven’t been for some time. We need marketing help because we need students—it’s as simple as that. Facebook also has control issues: they control copyright and are ultimate owners of your page and while you can do a few creative things to promote your institutional brand, this too has limitations.
The point I’m trying to make here is that perhaps it’s time we got away from thinking of Facebook as the be-all, end-all approach to using social media for recruiting. A number of schools are building proprietary networks: Furman University and Nebraska, Lincoln’s Planet Red are good examples. In the political world, the Ning network for the Pickens Plan is worth taking a look at… and though Ning has had some trouble lately, it’s still a worthwhile service.
Of course, building your own network is not your only option. Maybe it’s time you really started using YouTube as the social network is actually is or explored the community-building features LinkedIn offers. The fact is that you can build a successful, viable community on any number of platforms… all it takes is commitment.
Work of the Week:
As an ongoing feature, I’m going to point you to interesting things happening with social media on various campuses. This week I have two: first, Dan Forbush, executive director of communication for Skidmore College has been pioneering the use of social media for recruiting for a long time. Currently, he’s exploring how to get better internal buy-in through an official Social Media Summit group. He’s offered to guest post on this blog in the near future about his efforts. Second, my friends at Behavioral and Community Health Sciences (University of Pittsburgh Graduate School of Public Health) have just a launched a Facebook page (a “like” page?). Check it out when you get a chance!
Photo by L. Marie
Don’t miss Fritz and other higher education experts at Stamats Integrated Marketing: Technology Conference this October! Or, better yet, are you interested in speaking there? Download the presenter application.
