social media – Page 36 – Andrew Careaga

A lot of bloggers post end-of-year/start-of-year pieces that gives their take on what trends the new year will bring.

I scanned several of these posts. Here are five that are most relevant to higher ed marketing work and definitely worth passing along.

There are a lot of good ideas here, and most of them are well-informed by the authors’ own perspectives, research and experiences. Time will tell which of these trends actually take hold in 2013 and what falls by the wayside.

1. 7 digital trends that will shape #highered in 2013 is Karine Joly’s UniversityBusiness article on the same topic, presented for her blog readers. Terrific insights, as usual.

2. 10 higher education trends for 2013, from The Lawlor Group.

3. Immersive branding, dystopic fascination, manufactured addiction and other top trends for 2013 (video) from Trend Hunter.

4. 5 marketing predictions for 2013, from Mashable.

5. More higher ed marketing and web predictions, an hour-long Higher Ed Live program/roundtable discussion with Oberlin’s Ma’ayan Plaut, Harvard’s Mike Petroff and Bravery Transmedia’s Joel Goodman, all moderated by host Seth Odell of Southern New Hampshire University.

Photo © Greatsky | Stock Free Images & Dreamstime Stock Photos

Facebook’s announcement on Tuesday of a new feature that lets users search for information that has been shared with them could be good news for college and university Facebook pages.

At the least, the new function should give us a reason to keep our Facebook sites updated with fresh content.

Called Graph Search, the new search feature was introduced Tuesday in limited preview, or beta. Facebook’s announcement of the tool notes: “If you have a Page on Facebook, Graph Search can make it easier for people to discover and learn more about your business.” PR Daily’s coverage of the news suggests that the more brands update their Facebook pages, the more likely their content will appear in a person’s Graph Search results.

“It appears Facebook is making a push to further encourage brands to invest in cultivating relationships with their fans online; the more popular the page, the more often it will show up in search,” writes PR Daily’s Michael Sebastian.

Perhaps most important — for all of us, not just brands — is that with this development, “Facebook finally has a search technology that works,” writes Adrian Covert in CNNMoney’s coverage of the announcement.

I haven’t had a chance to investigate Graph Search yet, but it sounds like it could help brands extend their reach within the Facebook universe. That is, if brands use the tool in the right way. Keeping content fresh and relevant on Facebook will be important. Those brands that ignore their Facebook content could find themselves ignored by users who Graph Search for information on their friends.