PR – Andrew Careaga

Question of the day: Should universities tweet?

Last November, we set up a Twitter account for our university and mildly publicized the fact on our Name Change Conversations blog. But we haven’t done much with it.

At this point, we have 11 followers, including myself and a couple other communications staffers, and we’ve updated eight times. I haven’t yet worked with our enrollment management team to inform prospective students of the site, and we haven’t notified our alumni through our traditional communications vehicles (email and the alumni magazine).

So, it’s been a very low-key campaign — if you could call it that.

I haven’t found any examples of other universities using Twitter for marketing, pr or external communications purposes.

This morning, I asked the Twittersphere how university comms/PR/marketing folks might be able to use this tool, and have gotten some interesting responses. Here are a few of them:

fcmartin3rd suggests that campuses use Twitter for “inspirational messages; connection with high schoolers; following thought leaders; reminders; pedagoguery!”

amandachapel says, “there’s very little value here. Besides, why would any org want to hold an open meeting on a lawless freeway?”

toster tweets: “I can see universities Twittering for comms, but little else. Even then, I would expect it to be only partially adopted.”

vargasl suggests: “What about twittering events at school? Gaining prospective student interest… ” (That’s how she handled the Oscars on Sunday night, live-twittering while watching E!)

You can keep track of the conversation on my Twitter page. But I’d also like to hear from you readers, too. I know some of you see little value in this tool, and I know others of you who use it regularly as a personal/semi-professional tool but not necessarily as an official representation of your school.

So, let’s hear all sides on the matter.

How could Twitter be incorporated in a college/university communications strategy?

Also, if you know of any universities currently using Twitter, please let me know so I can see how they’re doing.

Leave your comments below or, if you’re on Twitter and want to keep it to 140 characters or fewer, drop a Tweet to http://twitter.com/andrewcareaga.

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Now playing: Johnny Thunders – You Can’t Put Your Arms Round a Memory
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A clever way to handle irrelevant PR pitches

Via The Bad Pitch Blog comes The Pitch Blog. It’s Jeremy Pepper‘s clever solution to handling the irrelevant PR pitches he receives. It’s the final resting place for “all the pitches I receive for my blog – hey, they want blog coverage, they got blog coverage.”

Nice.

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Now playing: Malcolm Holcombe – Gamblin’ House
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Scratching the surface of social network news

Lots of social networking stuff in the news these days — more than I can keep up with. Here are a few items that have caught my attention recently. More flotsam, as always, in my shared items.

How to break into Technorati’s top 100: offer free blog templates.
Social media vital to PR success. Lois Kelly points to some good thoughts on this.
Struggling to measure social media effectiveness? You’re not alone. The Institute for Public Relations reports that “As more companies adopt social media, they struggle to find effective metrics for deciding who are the most influential players.” This is one of many findings of a survey conducted last fall and summarized in the news release.
Wikipedia founder says the site has a place in academe.
Facebook alternative Multiply upgrades, looks great. So says Read/Write Web, which calls Multiply “a small but sophisticated social networking service with one of the most loyal userbases on the web” and offers a good comparison between it and FB.
Facebook may get all the buzz, but MySpace is still bigger, with twice the audience.
Colleges try to build buzz with offbeat video. The Chronicle references Karine Joly’s collegewebeditor blog ~~but doesn’t link to it. Not fair. Also unfair: n~~ No mention of our campus’ hello campaign. Apparently not offbeat enough.
The Open Web Awards, sponsored by Mashable, let you vote for all sorts of open social applications — from search sites to news sites to social networks great and small.
Speaking of social search: such sites could challenge the biggies, says Micro Persuasion.
Participation is the key to social media success, according to Chris Brogan. The post is long and ponderous, but as usual, Brogan makes some good points. He lists some good ways to foster participation and cites Lawrence Lessig extensively.
Corporations form group to create blogging best practices. GM, Coca-Cola, Dell and other biggies form The Blog Council. Not everyone thinks the council is such a great idea.
Video: blogs in plain English, another remarkable Commoncraft video, via (dis)information architecture.
Another social media press release unleashed.

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Now playing: The National – Mistaken For Strangers
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Job opportunity at Missouri S&T

If you’re interested in working in a dynamic, sometimes stressful, often fun, communications department of a technological research university, then have I got a deal for you.

I’m currently searching for an assistant director of communications to help us move forward as we make the transition from the University of Missouri-Rolla (UMR) to Missouri University of Science and Technology (Missouri S&T). The communications department coordinates all PR, marketing and branding for the campus, in consultation with several other internal groups.

From my perspective, the ideal candidate will be someone who can manage the processes, work flow and staffing allocation for projects that involve small teams of staff across disciplines (i.e., graphic designers, writers and editors, and web designers/coders together). We need someone who can invigorate and inspire as well as “manage” people and processes. Although we’re a small enough team, with enough collaboration, that we don’t require a lot of managing.

The person doesn’t necessarily have to have a higher ed background. At this point, I’m leaving options open so we can get as large a pool as possible.

Interested? Drop me a line (andrew DOT careaga AT gmail DOT com) or log on to UMR’s Employment Opportunities site to register and search for the job.

Recommended reading for tech-savvy PR

Thanks again to all who responded to my call for books that might benefit PR folks interested in learning more about how public relations might function in the emerging social web. I’m going to share your recommendations with participants in Academic Impressions’ Advanced PR Institute, which begins tomorrow, in addition to the four books suggested by my co-presenters and me.

Here are your contributions to the list:

Kevin Guidry suggests we consider portions of Yochai Benkler‘s book, The Wealth of Networks: How Social Production Transforms Markets and Freedom (wiki | PDF version of the book). “It’s a hefty tome,” Kevin writes, “but it’s a tour de force of the impact of the Internet on…everything.” Kevin also mentions James Suriowiecki’s The Wisdom of Crowds as a possibility.

Colin Fast offers two recommendations:

1. The New Rules of Marketing & PR, by David Meerman Scott. “Picked it up recently based on positive reviews from many of the 2.0 folks I follow. Still reading, but I’ve already picked up a few useful bits of advice. It’s very tactical, which might provide some balance to the more theoretical books on the list.”

2. Citizen Marketers: When People Are the Message, by Ben McConnell and Jackie Huba (better known, perhaps, for their Church of the Customer blog). “This is a great introduction to the world of social media. Would probably be better as part of a remedial reading list for those who haven’t already been playing in this space.”

Judy Gombita seconds our recommendation of Wikinomics, mentions Chris Anderson‘s The Long Tail and We Are Smarter Than Me, another book on crowdsourcing/peering.

Boyd Neil suggests a couple of older books: Connected Intelligence, by Derrick De Kerckhove, and Steven Johnson’s Interface Culture. He also recommends any of Lawrence Lessig‘s books, and I would have to agree.

Heather Yaxley suggests that, rather than talk about books, we “have a ‘speed-dating’ style list of blog posts to visit and ideally, engage with.” Interesting.

Lois Kelly also endorses the David Meerman Scott book as “especially pragmatic” and suggests Paul Gillin’s The New Influencers.

Karen Miller Russell, who teaches PR at the University of Georgia, notes that she’s using The Long Tail and The New Rules of Marketing and PR in her class next semester. But I’m also including a couple of chapters from Andrew Keen, The Cult of the Amateur, to provoke some discussion.

Gary Schlee adds his support for The New Rules…

Abigail Hunter gets the last word: “But does anyone think it strange that in this day of incredible technology, we are still reading BOOKS written on PAPER? Are we not ignoring the technology we are trying to exploit? The greatest info I have received, BY FAR, on promoting my online ventures has come to me online. It’s the most up-to-date, and the ability to contact the author (and get a reply!) is far greater. I came across James Brausch (www.jamesbrausch.com) which gave me more info than any of the above books – simply because it’s always up-to-the-minute and focused on what I’m trying to do.”

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OK. I’m off to Austin for the conference. I’ll blog or tweet from Austin when I can. Until then, be safe.

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Now playing: Various Artists – Shoulda Oughta – Tim Barry
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