social networking – Page 6

Mike Petroff, web and technology manager for Emerson College in Boston and a member of the .eduGuru crew, has been working on a new online tool to help the higher ed community further collaborate and learn from one another.

Called FollowEDU, the tool is a searchable directory of higher ed people in the social media sphere. FollowEDU is still in beta, but a public launch is planned for next week. Meanwhile, you can sign up for an invitation at the website or follow the site’s Twitter account, @WhoToFollowEDU.

I asked Mike via email to share a little bit more about this project. Here are my five questions and his replies:

1. FollowEDU is billed as “a searchable directory of Twitter users in higher ed.” Why do you think such a searchable directory is necessary?

Mike Petroff: The higher ed community on Twitter is incredibly collaborative, supportive and creative. I’ve found it to be a great resource for reaching out to thought-leaders on specific education topics.

Typically, I’ll use a variety of ways to try to expand my network on Twitter and find new users to follow: reading blogs, asking followers for advice, joining in on new hashtag chats, and following the backchannel of education conferences.

Directories like wefollow.com and twellow.com were helpful for broad categories, but I found that there was a lack of niche lists to search through. I found it difficult to browse through several categories within education and find users sharing good information.

2. What inspired you to create FollowEDU? How did it happen?

Mike Petroff: I have always had a passion to connect people, whether it be on Twitter or at conferences and events. While walking around Boston with Michael Fienen before the eduTweetup Boston 2011 event, we discussed the idea of a better version of Twitter’s “suggested users” list. It got me thinking about building a platform where Twitter users could attach their profile to specific interests within higher ed. The platform would then be sortable and searchable, helping new (and seasoned) Twitter users connect and network.

I reached out to a few friends and developers and eventually worked out a partnership with Stamats Catchfire to do the development work on FollowEDU. The team there was incredible to work with. I’m very fortunate to have their designers and developers join in and be part of the project. We’ll continue to work together to build new features into the site.

3. I see FollowEDU members can be listed by “rank.” How are these members ranked?

Mike Petroff: In the beta version of FollowEDU, we played around with the concept of ‘rank’ as a sorting option for our list pages. The concept is still under development and may be very basic for the launch. We have a variety of data points to point to and pull from, but it may take more time and data to create a realistic ranking for certain interest areas within higher ed.

4. We often hear a lot of flack about social media sites like Klout that use a ranking algorithm to rate users. How is the ranking mechanism on FollowEDU any different?

Mike Petroff: As we develop the site and add more features, we will look for data points in Twitter, Klout and other sources to help us develop a ranking system to show a user’s impact within a topic or interest in FollowEDU. Personally, I feel that a user’s Klout score should not be the sole factor in determining their resourcefulness or impact within a certain topic, so with FollowEDU I hope to include a variety of data.

5. Finally, what are your future plans for FollowEDU?

Mike Petroff: After launch, FollowEDU will continue to evolve with new features for users. There’s already an extensive list of features we’re exploring. I can’t give away too much just yet, but users can expect more Twitter integration throughout the site, a growing list of Interests to join, and other features that make finding (and creating) lists of influencers much easier.

My goal is to have FollowEDU continue to be a resource, directory and networking platform for the higher education community.

Here’s one certain to stir differences of opinion among the decentralized communicators of the higher education world: Ragan’s PR Daily piece outlining 4 reasons the PR team should handle social media.

Of course, Ragan Communications focuses on corporate PR, where things are much more centralized and hierarchical than they are here in higher ed land. And in the business world, the messaging (theoretically, at least) is more controlled.

So I can understand the desire for PR to want to be in charge of social media. We are control freaks by nature. (I say this as a PR guy.) But I’m not sure the model suggested Andrew Cross, who wrote that post for Ragan’s, would work for colleges and universities. At least, not for all colleges and universities.

And I don’t agree with all of the reasoning put forth in that article. (Keep in mind that I’m a former journalist-turned-PR guy-turned-whatever it is that I am now, and our department, which is not strictly PR, handles our main social media accounts. But our electronic marketing folks, which are a part of our department, also coordinate with other campus social media outreaches through a hub-and-spoke approach as described in Charlene Li’s book Open Leadership.)

But I do agree with some of it. So let’s break it down to see where the gaps lie.

Cross says PR should handle social media because:

The PR agency or team is best equipped to respond to inbound media requests

OK, that’s probably true.

But honestly, how many requests that come through your social media are media requests from journalists? A scant few, I’d bet.

In higher ed, I would guess that most requests come from students, prospective students and alumni. That’s the case for us. We do get occasional media requests via social media, but since our social media presence is coordinated by our department, the people who respond have some understanding of media relations. If the people handling your institution’s social media presence are not familiar with PR or media relations, some cross-training might help.

PR understands the organization’s messaging

“Whether it’s the typical ‘say this, not that’ that stems from the corporate legal department or subtle messaging tied to the product or service,” Cross writes, “the PR team is already adept at communicating in the organization’s style.” The PR team is also “best equipped to incorporate the unique tone of social media into the organization’s many other communications channels.”

Well, I hope that this is consistently the case. But have you read some of the news releases that come out of higher ed PR offices? Oh, sure, the author may have approached the messaging with great aspirations of clarity and even hopes of enlivening the document with some human tone. But after they’ve made it through the clearance gauntlet and a wooden quote has been created for every person who somebody thinks should be quoted, the thing becomes lifeless at worst, unreadable at best.

I’m probably being too harsh here. Many bits of PR prose that don’t require incessant review emerge relatively unscathed by the administrative review process. Still, “the organization’s messaging” isn’t always the best thing for connecting with real human beings through social media channels. People in social media like to talk — as in converse, conversationally — with real people, rather than being messaged to by the organization.

The PR team is trained in reputation management

Again, I hope this is the case at most highered institutions. The best of us are trained in crisis communications, which isn’t the same thing. And the best of us are pretty good at monitoring what’s being said about our institutions in the mediasphere (social and otherwise). But connecting the dots can be tough at times. I do agree with Cross when he says that “the PR department should have close ties to other departments with a horse in the race (read: everyone).”

PR strategy, in part, dictates social media strategy

I do agree with Cross on this point. Only I would expand “PR strategy” to encompass all communications, including marketing, customer relations, etc. PR is too narrow a focus, and in too many higher ed institutions, implies “media relations.”

* * * * *

I suppose the biggest issue I have with this article is the assumption that PR is siloed off from the other aspects of strategic communication for an organization, like web, marketing, customer service, etc. I guess that’s the case. And when we are engaged in silo thinking, we are always thinking about who should control what. In a Twitter discussion about this topic this morning, I think Andy Shaindlin of Alumni Futures said it well (in abbreviated tweetspeak):

PR team should lead, yes, but constant input/collab with other units (alumni, devel, academic, student aff.) is critical.

Again, I go back to Charlene Li’s hub-and-spoke model of social media coordination, as set forth in Open Leadership. (Great book. If you haven’t yet read it, you should.) I think that model probably works best for the decentralized nature of most colleges and universities.

It’s about coordination and collaboration, not control.

So, should PR “handle” social media in higher education? If that handling facilitates openness and is in the institution’s best interest, yes. That is, unless some other department within the institution can do it better — and until we get away from the silos of communication roles and realize that PR, marketing, enrollment management, development, alumni relations and student affairs can and should all work together.