Walk into almost any living room in America and you’ll see that all of the furniture is angled to face the television. Walk into the living room of my group house and you’ll see a couch and about 5 chairs arranged in a circle around the coffee table. We have no television. No, this isn’t a self-righteous rant about the evils of TV- the truth is that we were too cheap to buy one and it’s a good way to trim the fat off our utilities. We all love TV but we watch our shows online. As such, our internet is a main source of entertainment in the house.
The other day I was sitting in the kitchen with some housemates and friends talking about how dependent we are on our internet. One of my friends referred to a study which found that more people with low incomes connect to Facebook through their mobile phones than those with high incomes- the reason being that their phones are often their sole source of internet connectivity. After going to a presentation about myths in social media she learned that socioeconomic status is often a more important variable than age in determining how people interact with social media. After looking over some of the slides she sent me from the presentation, I was inspired to examine some of the myths I’ve encountered. Over the next few posts I’ll examine seven myths, exploring their origins and what institutions should do to counter them.
I’ll start with the myth of social media as a marketing as a tool to achieve your institution’s end goal. Social media should not be grouped into the same function as tools like direct mail. Sending out direct mail pieces or call campaigns are simply a means to an end. Once the target responds to the mail piece or call by applying or enrolling the postcard/brochure/phone call has done its job. A properly executed social media strategy doesn’t have such an end goal. The purpose of social media is to form a community and lifelong relationships with your constituents.
Wal-Mart learned this the hard way when they last ventured into Facebook. Rather than trying to engage students in a discussion, they talked at them, controlling discussion settings in the Facebook and providing content only meant to peddle their products. Compare this to a new social networking site put up by Muskegon Community College. The site allows all MCC students and professors to put up profiles, interact with each other and even look for jobs- the long-term goal being to facilitate conversation between the institution and students. The administrators that facilitated the site’s creation saw the site as a strategic initiative to open up communications within the school rather than just a short-term campaign.
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