OrgSync is about to release an eBook on social media and twitter and would like to feature some student affairs practitioners as “Recommended Followers” to get new users off to a good start.

Twitter is a great knowledge community and helpdesk, so let us know who is adding value to your twitter stream by adding them in the comments below.  And there is no shame adding yourself to the list.

Tweet.

Tweet.

Tweet.

The sound of birds chirping or the sound of people talking?

These days, no matter what I’m watching or reading, Twitter seems to be a major topic.  But what exactly is twitter?

Twitter is similar to a lot of things, but unlike anything.  It is like blogging, but there is a 140 character limit.  It is like the Facebook status, but is not limited to just friends.  It is like instant messaging, but all your followers can read it. Simply put, it is a universal status message answering the question “What are you doing?”

Twitter has a strange name and a stranger vernacular surrounding it. People use words and phrases like: “twitterati,” “tweple,” or “I just tweeted.”  Before I decided to try Twitter, I was warned that initially it would seem completely stupid, and as a newbie, it did seem stupid.  I did not and could not see the point of the hype of it; however, now, it is my most used social network.

I first realized the power of Twitter and the power of an online community when a US Airways plane landed in the Hudson River.  Instantaneously, this message was tweeted with a photo of the plane in the Hudson.  It was then forwarded (or in Twitter terms, “retweeted”) throughout the twittersphere before traditional media outlets even heard about the event. 

Nielsen Online reported that at the end of 2008, social networking surpassed the popularity of email. For those of you still trying to communicate with listserves , there is still time.  If you want to effectively communicate with an audience then go to the audience.

Twitter’s capabilities are infinite!  I have a constant twitter search for OrgSync, so I always know what people are saying about us. Comcast and Dell, creatively use Twitter for customer service request.  At conferences, speakers take questions through Twitter and participants are then able to engage in discussion during the session.  Twitter enables you to send notifications, updates, and reminders out instantly.

What are other ways you are using Twitter on your campus?

If you have specific questions please leave a comment and we would love to address them.  It will help guide us in future posts.

Ann White

Today’s guest blogger, Ann White, works as the Web Content Coordinator at Oklahoma Christian University. She manages the content, navigation, and editing of the university’s public website, but in the past year her role has expanded to also manage the university’s social media presence.

I have been a follower of Ann and OCU on twitter for awhile, and I think she does a fabulous job of interacting with their community online.

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Institutional tweeting- now there’s a phrase the old school marketers never saw coming.  But now it’s a reality.

The beauty of this moment is that although you may be unsure in how to go about it, the fact is we all are. This is uncharted territory and we are all learning new lessons day by day.

Although there really is no one who can tell you exactly what to do, there are some fundamental guidelines that I believe will give you the framework to make your own way.

Here are my basic principles, a bit more fleshed out below:

• Have fun
• But don’t be annoying
• Interact
• Use it or lose it
• Make it up as you go along
• Be true to your school

Have fun

I work at a university I love, and because I am here 40+ hours a week, I see many of the stories and events that make this place great. Twitter gives me an outlet to share those little tidbits with others, so they can see the school through my eyes.

For example, whether it’s a video from an alumna of adorable Zambian babies wearing university apparel or a bizarre bathroom fixture that won a toilet contest, I can quickly and easily show people the little pictures that shape my point of view.

If you’re enthusiastic and sincere, it will come across and spread quickly.

Don’t be annoying

Ah yes, the annoying tweeters. Don’t be that guy (or gal).

Unless you explicitly state that you are a news source, don’t run an RSS feed through your Twitter account.

Don’t send mass or auto-direct messages.

Don’t spam tweets- multiple tweets in a row.

Don’t belabor calls to action.

Don’t re-tweet yourself word for word, multiple times in a day.

Don’t ignore basic customer service moments including replies and inquiries.

Twitter makes it very easy to dump you, and people can be fickle enough without you giving them a reason to bail.

Interact

I get a lot of great content from following those who follow the school. As a general principle, I re-follow the following categories.

1.      Real people (Sounds silly, but it’s obvious when they’re not)

2.      Other academic institutions (Great for seeing what other schools are doing)

3.      Local businesses (Good to build ties and relationships with them)

It’s always fun to re-tweet those who write about us, because it is a credible testimony to your school’s value and also is flattering to the person you re-tweet. It shows them that their opinion is important to you, and you build a positive bond.

Use it or lose it

I think this is a key difference in institutional tweeting and personal tweeting.

If you are putting time and energy (university resources) into creating quality tweets, you have to use them somewhere besides Twitter, or they will be by and large lost within an hour because of the volume of tweets.

Thankfully Twitter gives you the RSS feed, so you can run your feed through another website. Whereas a tweet may only last a short while with limited views in a follower’s tweet stream, it could last for days if run through another location.

Make it up as you go along

When I started tweeting for our university, I looked to other schools for ideas. However, there weren’t many doing it in a way that I felt would be authentically transferable to our university, so I had to improvise.

Granted, I started off rocky with infrequent tweets, boring content, little interaction. But once I decided to just dive in and try new things, the response has been great.

One example of this is OC Oldies. I have a lot of great, vintage photos from our university at my disposal, so I have started Twitpic-ing them with the hashtag #OColdies. People seem to get a kick out of it.

Don’t be afraid to try new things! Everything is a new thing right now. Embrace the freedom of it!

Be true to your school

This is the key point where Twitter is not just a hobby but becomes another outlet for your brand’s platform.

Your school has a personality, and Twitter is a place to let it shine.

Are you a large research institution? Then share stories of innovation and accomplishment.

Are you a business school? Then highlight your moguls who are rocking their industries and taking over the world.

Our school is a close knit community equipping people to serve the world in creative and powerful ways, and social media has given me a great platform to breathe live into our mission.

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Hopefully this will inspire you to take some chances and go try something new. Help us all figure out what works and what doesn’t, and share what you learn!

Kate Klingensmith

Today’s guest blogger, Kate Klingensmith, is Director of Research for Inigral, a San Francisco-based education startup company.  With a degree in Cognitive Science and four years experience with teaching high school biology and physics, Kate has a strong interest in college matriculation, technology integration in the classroom, and student engagement.  Her blog, Once a Teacher, is a record of her quest to research and collaborate with others to find ways of incorporating web 2.0 tools into both education and administration.

What is a PLN?

If I had to define what a ‘Personal Learning Network’ is, I would keep it simple and broad:

n. – the entire collection of people with whom you engage and exchange information, usually online.

Personal Learning Networks, or PLNs, have been around forever. Originally, they were your family and friends, maybe people you worked with, but as the internet and web 2.0 tools have become nearly ubiquitous, PLNs can include tons of different communities – social networking sites like Facebook, Twitter, social bookmarking tools, LinkedIn, and so many more. Basically, anyone that you interact with is apart of your PLN, whether they are social contacts, professional peers, or experts in their field. Most of the ‘learning’ takes place on-line now, because it is simple to find and connect with others with similar interests from around the world.

PLNs have immense value!

So, why bother thinking about your PLN? Whether you’re a full-time mom, a full-time administrator, or a full-time student, your PLN can be extremely interesting and helpful. The beauty of people communicating online is the ease of finding and sharing information and – if you ask for it – the group feedback that you get on ideas and projects.

Here are some ways that people are using their PLNs:
- Professional development – learn from experts in your field
- Locate free resources, such as websites and software
- Get event and marketing ideas
- Learn about new technology and how to integrate it into your role
- Find collaborative solutions
- Find interesting links to higher ed news

When you have a large group of people combing through vast amounts of information and collectively identifying the most useful, entertaining, or valuable parts, it makes a lot of sense to tap into this collective knowledge!

Build Your Own PLN

If you’re interested in expanding your PLN, here’s a directory of some of the best web 2.0 tools:

What to Expect – Stages of PLN Adoption

There are certain stages that most people seem to go through when building their PLN before settling into a comfortable niche. It may take a little time, but you’ll eventually find that a rich PLN can elevate both your personal and professional life to new heights.

If you’d like to connect with me, click here.

You have an online space even if you do not claim it. A student of the McCombs School of Business (probably an alumni now) created a Facebook account for Red McCombs the namesake of the school 4 years ago. Red McCombs is a brand, he did not claim his space, so someone else did.

Recently there was an article in the Chronicle about fake twittering presidents from The University of Texas and Georgetown University which leads me to think who is monitoring your universities brand? Have you claimed your space? Are people not only talking about you, but talking for you?

William Powers Fake Twitter Page.

Cindy Royal is an assistant professor in the School of Journalism and Mass Communication at Texas State University in San Marcos.  Cindy and I met on Twitter, when I volunteered to be interviewed by one of her student bloggers during SXSW Interactive.  You can view the OrgSync SXSW interview here.  We were excited to see social media being taught in the classroom and were even more excited to help students get hands on experience using social media!

As another SXSW Interactive comes to a close, I am pleased to be asked by OrgSync to provide some of my observations from this year’s event. I have attended the festival for many years, and this was the second year that I invited a team of student bloggers to cover the event. Our coverage, including photos, videos and archives of live stream interviews can be found at www.sxtxstate.com. SXSWi is such a fantastic opportunity for students to engage with concepts we discuss in the new media concentration in which I teach at TX State University in San Marcos. It is the most important conference that I attend each year, introducing me to new ideas that will be affecting media in the future.

This year’s programming was outstanding. From impressive keynote speakers like Chris Anderson, editor of Wired and author of two important books, The Long Tail and Free, and Tony Hsieh, the CEO of the online shoe retailer Zappos to outstanding panel discussions dealing with the future of social media, trends in journalism, Web design concepts and the direction of overall online experience, SXSW once again proved that Austin is the place to be in March. Additional highlights for me included discussions by Gary Vaynerchuk of Wine Library TV and Kathy Sierra. Their enthusiasm for online endeavors is infectious and inspiring.

Overall, I think two broad themes emerged from this year’s festivities.

The first is the focus on the user experience (UX). Where five years ago content was considered king, now it’s about what your users get to do on your site. The interaction must be two-way, and it must be relevant to the communities you support. The second theme has to do with the ubiquity of social networks. In her talk entitled “The Future of Social Networks: Social Networks Will Be Like Air, ” Charlene Li explained that we are moving to a universal identity and single social graph in our usage of these networks, and that we will eventually no longer use fragmented platforms and identities. This goes beyond a mere aggregation of existing platforms and requires a few major players to emerge as focal points of this interaction.

In regard to the activity of my students at the festival, I am very proud of the work they did on the blog. I was energized by their enthusiasm coming out of panels and discussing topics, asking questions and interacting with attendees. They worked extremely hard to not only gain knowledge for themselves, but to share that knowledge in the various ways that they have learned in our program, through blogs, video, photos and social media; lots of simultaneous learning and practice. The weeks prior to SXSW included the design and development of our site, promotion via various social media platforms including Twitter (@sxtxstate) and Facebook and the creation of content in the form of previews and tech news updates relevant to SXSW topics. While this activity was supervised by me, the students were completely in charge of the direction and execution. For this, they have a lasting archive of their experiences and something they can reference in the future.

We even tested live stream capabilities by doing a live interview from the convention center each day. You can find the archive of these interviews under the Live Stream tab on the site. We met Jeff and Eric of OrgSync on Sunday, and they were kind enough to spend some time with us talking about their collaborative online campus offerings. In addition, we interviewed panelists from The New York Times and Chicago Tribune, as well as business owners who were in attendance to gain new insight into technology trends.

The SXSWi team, of which several of my former and current students are a part, put on an amazing event each year, and continue to improve with each successive year. I don’t know how they’ll top 2009, but I’m already looking forward to March 2010. If you deal with technology and media in any manner, I highly recommend attending SXSW. And, if you can stick around for the second part of the week, the music’s not too shabby either. See some of the pictures and videos I shot during some of the music showcases at www.onthatnote.com. Hope to see you in Austin next year.

Tony Hsieh, CEO of Zappos at SXSW

This past March, the SXSWi opening keynote speech, presented by Tony Hsieh, CEO of Zappos, highlighted the importance of developing a strong company culture and explained his company’s revolutionary vision of customer service.

As I listened to Tony’s presentation, I found myself inspired by the fact that Zappos’ adherence to company culture and core values helped land them on Forbes list of Top 100 Best Companies to Work For in 2009.

Zappos’ philosophy of success is similar to that of OrgSync’s in many ways. Above all, we believe strongly in adhering to company culture and core values. At OrgSync, our success is driven by three core values: 1) Giving the customer the largest stake in the future of the OrgSync platform, 2) Empowering organizational leaders through technology, and 3) Making positive contributions to our communities.

First, as a hosted solution, we believe that development of a premiere product is best accomplished by giving our clients the largest stake. Every month, we encourage our clients to meet with our in-house development team to discuss new product ideas and trends. Through this method of communication, our development team is able to quickly design and implement new features for the entire client base to use. Moreover, OrgSync recently released an Application Programming Interface (API) that will provide campus IT departments the flexibility to create automated processes based on the needs and requirements determined by the school or organization. OrgSync also has a 24/7 customer support line that clients are encouraged to call whenever they need a question answered.

Eric and Jeff at NCLC

Second, OrgSync seeks to empower organizational leaders through technology. The OrgSync team has a strong background in higher education, and involvement in campus organizations. In fact, the very idea to create the OrgSync solution was generated from our co-founders’ experiences in running multiple student organizations at The University of Texas at Austin. Members of the OrgSync team are also regular attendees of the International Leadership Association Global Conference, the National Collegiate Leadership Conference, which is hosted on OrgSync, and the Lone Star Ruby Conference. OrgSync’s involvement in these conferences expresses commitment to innovation and leadership that will best serve OrgSync’s client base.

Lastly, OrgSync aspires to make positive contributions to the Austin tech community, and the communities of its clients. In February, OrgSync sponsored the Austin Twestival hosted by media maven Michelle Greer. Also, earlier this year, our company organized a daylong social media campaign on Twitter to raise over $1500 for Clean Water, whose objective is to provide sanitary water to natives of Africa.

OrgSync’s Cayce Stone uses the phrase “Everybody wins!” to summarize the OrgSync philosophy. By adhering strongly to these core values, OrgSync to provides a solution that makes management of your organization more efficient.

That following Monday morning, I received an email from Tony detailing where I could find more information about Zappos culture. He informed me that a copy of the Zappos Culture book I had requested would be arriving at my doorstep soon, and also extended an offer to visit the Zappos headquarters next time I am in Las Vegas. Thanks again Tony for being an excellent role model!

OrgSync is excited to sponsor the 3rd Annual Higher Ed MeetUp/TweetUp on Sunday night from 6:00-10:00pm at Buffalo Billiard’s on 6th & Brazo’s. Catch up with your colleagues in the education field and meet new friends at this great networking event.

If you get lost call Jeff at 512-970-6585

Map to Buffalo

Also be sure and attend Brad J Ward and Dylan Wilbank’s panel on the “The Web In Higher Education: What’s Different?” this year at SXSWi.

This is the first part of a multi-part blog series on social media and higher education. I realize when discussing social media, individuals come to the conversation from many different backgrounds. Some are early adopters and are self-proclaimed “social media gurus”; others may be familiar with the platforms but not the uses and benefits, while even others have no concept of the term. What we would like to do over the next few weeks is explore some basic terms and useful social media platforms and discuss how they can be effectively used by colleges and universities.

Before we go too far, let’s take a step back and answer the question of the day: What is social media? There are many different definitions for social media depending on who you ask, so for the purposes of these posts we are going to define social media as a method to communicate, build connections, connect with groups of people, and share knowledge using a variety of online tools and platforms. Social media allows you to create your digital identity with which you can use to interact with more people than you could touch in the course of your day!

I like to compare social media to a cocktail party to simplify things. Similarly, at a cocktail party you meet new people, get reacquainted with old friends, maybe learn something new, and of course have fun! And just like at a cocktail party, inappropriate actions hurt your chances of all of the above.

In the upcoming posts we will discuss a few social media tools including the newest tool Twitter, the social networking giant Facebook, the professional networking giant LinkedIn, the importance of blogging and everyone’s favorite, YouTube. More importantly, we will dig into each platform to discuss how higher ed can benefit from these strangely named tools and challenge you to get started with a set of easy to follow steps.