Category: communication

Why it’s important to share your news via social media

More proof that social media is altering the way news is consumed and distributed: A recent study of news consumption trends from the Pew Internet and American Life Project points to the growing socialization of news content.

For people under 30, digital — and social — is the preferred method to share and get news content, according to the Pew study, which says that one-third of people under 30 get their news from social networks. A slightly higher percentage of that age group (34 percent) watched TV news, but only 13 percent read print or digital newspaper content.

Translate this to the higher education sphere. All colleges and universities are media organizations to some degree. Some institutions are more sophisticated than others, but we all generate tons of content, and we push it out through newsletters, alumni publications, our official websites and our social media platforms, to name a few. Since one-third of the under-30 demographic gets their news from social media, it stands to reason that at least that proportion of our under-30 stakeholders — young alumni, current and prospective students, younger faculty and staff — will follow suit. In fact, it’s a good bet that an even greater proportion of the under-30 people connected to higher ed institutions use social media to get their news.

How are we taking advantage of social media to share our news?

Are we leveraging our Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn sites to distribute news from our university?

News-sharing should be a key component of our digital content and connection strategy. Let’s not toss out the good ol’ alumni magazine yet, but let’s think about how alumni news could — and should — be shared via social media to meet the preferences of that under-30 group of alumni. Let’s think about how to reuse content from the employee e-newsletter to communicate with our younger faculty and staff. Let’s remind ourselves that students don’t check email as often as they check their social media accounts.

Let’s start thinking about social media as more than a marketing channel. Let’s look at it as a news distribution channel as well.

Branding in the offline world

With all the daily, even hourly, hullabaloo we see and read about the importance of social media in branding and marketing, sometimes we forget just how important it is to maintain a strong brand identity in the offline world.

It’s a point Ed Keller and Brad Fay remind us of in a recent Wall Street Journal piece, Why Successful Branding Still Happens Offline.

The idea that “online conversations will spread to hundreds or thousands of people (and maybe more) with the click of a mouse” may be “theoretically possible,” write Keller and Fay, but it’s largely false. According to their research, “most links that are shared reach only 5-10 people.” And fewer than 1 percent of a typical brand’s Facebook fans are what we would consider actively engaged with that brand.

Today’s consumer marketplace is highly social, but not because of particular platforms or technologies. The businesses that will be the most successful in the future are the ones that embrace a model that puts people — rather than technology — at the center of products, campaigns and market strategies.

In this regard, higher education should have an advantage. We are in the business of educating people, not pushing technology.

But sometimes I wonder if we become so enamored with technology or social media in our branding that we lose sight of how we can connect with people in the offline context. Sure, social media has its place, and it is growing as a vehicle for connecting with our audiences or customers. But can it replace more traditional word of mouth marketing?