Kent State woos students through social networking sites

In a Web 2.0 environment where tech-savvy individuals consume every possible multimedia resource, universities are soon tapping into some of these resources to reach out their targeted audience.

With a large undergraduate population turning to numerous Web spaces, the need to communicate with this group through such sites has become a necessity. That’s the reason why Kent State launched its YouTube and Facebook pages recently.

Flo Cunningham, director of University Communications and Marketing, said such an effort is important as other universities have already begun using social networking sites.

“This is about connecting people,” she said.

The university’s UCM made the recommendations to use social networking sites as the Web is increasingly becoming the main source to obtain information. While the YouTube videos present the university’s academics and facilities, the Facebook pages have photo albums, announcements of upcoming events, stories from KentNewsNet.com through RSS feeds. UCM hopes that this will “allow future and current students to feel more connected to the school.”

comScore.com reported a surge in Facebook use last year with the maximum use from the age group of 18-24 years when it opened to addresses other than the .edu accounts. This college-going population use numerous sites that UCM plans to incorporate.

Lin Danes, electronic communication and Web content manager, believes that this initiative will also attract potential students though this is not used as a marketing tool.

“We don’t see this much as a recruitment tool so much than as an engagement tool,” she said.


Why social networking?

Many students who use such social networking sites see this as an opportunity to meet their peers and associate with their interests groups in the virtual world.

As a freshman Nick Allison, 18, Spanish major, joined Kent State’s network to find people he could go out with as he did not know anyone in the campus.

“Facebook helped me a lot. I met my best friend through Facebook,” he said.

Allison is a fan of Kent State’s page, but is unaware of the YouTube page.

Many students are unaware that these pages exist. The UCM has taken an integrated marketing plan to make these sites popular. Manager Danes said that if the UCM’s media team picked up something interesting, chances are that it will appear in the homepage, online magazine, and print magazine. There is an effort to tie these contents into the social media sites.

The social media ratings and report services, developerAnalytics, says more than 128 million people use Facebook in nearly 60,000 networks. Kent State network has more than 36,000 unique users including alums and part-time students. The university’s Facebook page is registering an average of 70 fans per week. The largest university in the state, Ohio State, has the highest number of fans with more than 10,500 people joining the page since its launch in December 2007. However, it has not enabled the Wall for comments much like the Ohio University.

University authorities seem very cautious at what type of contents to allow on such pages. Despite its large fan base, officials at Ohio State believe that they might not have enough control over the messages.

The cost of maintaining these pages is another factor why the university is reluctant to activate the Wall for more interactivity.

Ted Hattemer, director of New Media at Ohio State said, “At present we don’t have the resources to maintain social media sites.”

Like Bowling Green State University, even at Kent State, only content administrators have the option to post photos and videos as a separate unit of staff has not been assigned to manage the social networking site. Danes, who also moderates the Wall, hopes people will “respect the space.” The privilege to post also comes with a warning that comments will be edited for “profanity.” Since it’s too early to determine how people will abuse these pages, parameters on content management have not been formulated.

The university had banned the use of Facebook profiles in the past. Student-athletes were asked to withdraw their profiles in June 2006 as the university felt it compromised the university’s image.


UCM’s future plans

Corinne Galvan, 18, undecided major freshman, says there should be interactive features to visit these sites. Though she has been using Facebook for two years now, she was unaware of the university’s page. She believes the pages should have videos and pictures that reflect what it is to be like a student at Kent State.

“I’d like to see videos about campus life outside of the classroom,” she said after watching some of the YouTube videos and becoming a fan.

As the pages are template driven, manager Danes feels that the contents they produce should be more appealing than the page itself. All contents on YouTube and Facebook are now produced by UCM’s media team with some student support. Prior to launching these pages, UCM relied on its past research with high school students on what kind of contents appeal them, but the viability of social media pages have not been tested. Usability testing on social media sites, using the resources of the university, is planned for Spring-2009. Until then, UCM will continue to add other social networking sites such as MySpace, Flickr, Twitter, Del.icio.us, Digg in an attempt to offer alternative platforms to both current students and non-students.

Danes said it may be too early to establish whether these sites actually help in the promotion of university and keep the student community vibrant on the Web space, but she is optimistic of the benefits.

“It’s very early in any kinds of return on investment with social media…but not trying getting into those niche areas would also be a pitfall,” she said.