Posts Tagged ‘socialmedia’

* Also posted on the CASE Social Media blog *

Several of my colleagues at other universities raised an eyebrow when I suggested that we would be placing a live twitter feed on Imperial’s homepage for a day. What if people abused the opportunity to get rude content published? Or an over enthusiastic tweeter took over? What if no-one tweeted at all?!

June 13-17 marked Universities Week 2011 in the UK—a national campaign demonstrating the benefits of universities within UK society. To close the week, the campaign aimed to bust some of the myths about 21^st century campus life by inviting institutions and their supporters to contribute to a 24-hour twitter stream sharing what they were doing—using the hashtag #uniweek.

We’d been keen to try something more interactive on our homepage and are lucky to enjoy lively and popular engagement on Twitter, so we jumped at the chance to participate.

I spoke to J-P Jones, our press and communications officer who coordinated the day at Imperial, about how he planned it:

Why did you decide to take part?

We thought the “day in the life” Twitter idea was a good way of building a greater sense of community among Imperial’s regular tweeters and connect with new ones. In addition to providing insight into College life it allowed us to better understand who the other Imperial tweeters are.

Why did we run a second hashtag?

We used #ImpCol in addition to #uniweek to clearly identify the tweets from our own staff, students and alumni, so that these could be pulled into the live stream on the College homepage.

Why the College homepage?

We felt it was important that the entire Imperial community could participate and read the content being generated, rather than just those already engaged with Twitter.

Were you worried that placing the feed on the homepage was too risky?

It was a risk, but preserving the authenticity of a live feed was key to the spirit of the exercise, so our digital team created a homepage design which regularly refreshed to show the most recent #ImpCol tweets, whether they were positive or not. The only moderation was a limited filter for offensive language. Communications staff monitored the feed throughout the day though, and we had a backup plan in place in case it was hijacked—which was to change the homepage to show @imperialcollege tweets only.

How did you engage with the College community to encourage participation?

We created a webpage in advance of Twitter day, outlining our aims and the kind of content we were looking for and promoted that page though ads in College publications and mailing lists. We also pulled together a list of all the tweeters we knew well and informed them, as well as approaching alumni. And, of course, we tweeted!

What did people talk about?

We had a great mix of staff, students and alumni getting involved. People were talking about what they had to do that day—whether it was lab research, lecturing abroad, revision for finals or staying in bed!

What were your favourite contributions on the day?

Two in particular stood out for me:

@limeytweet Half listening to a chap on train (#impcol PhD student) educate communters on physics thesis work. To his credit, they’re totally into it!

@mattallinson: I’ve been working for 6 months in a lab and not once have I accidently turned myself into a superhero #impcol #uniweek

Was it worth it and will you try it again?

Definitely, though we heard that productivity across the College was probably a little lower that day as staff became engrossed in the feed! It was particularly satisfying to see people who never normally use Twitter getting involved via the homepage. We had over 600 tweets using our hashtag and even trended on Twitter in London at one point during the day.

We would really like to try something similar again, perhaps around Welcome Week at the start of the next academic year to engage new students.

Read the full archvie of #impcol tweets from Universities Week 2011

Read a full analysis of #uniweek on Twitter on Brian Kelly’s UK Web Focus blog.

Interested in finding out more about Social Media at Imperial?

Come along to the first Web Forum meeting – Wednesday 14 September 2011, 2pm

A free seminar on the latest thinking in social media marketing is being held on 2 February 2011 at Polis LSE.

POLIS, a journalism and society think tank, is a joint initiative from LSE and The London College of Communication. As well as listening to invited speakers, the organisers hope to hold an open session on the realities of Internet marketing.

To attend RSVP to polis@lse.ac.uk. Find out more via this link: http://www.charliebeckett.org/?p=3848

Here’s an interesting report about College Students on the Web from Jakob Nielsen’s Alertbox. It provides some insight into the way that university students browse the web. It also debunks some commonly held myths and describes some of the differences between the way that teenagers and university students view and use the web.

Summary:

Students are multitaskers who move through websites rapidly, often missing the item they come to find. They’re enraptured by social media but reserve it for private conversations and thus visit company sites from search engines.

Jakob Nielsen is a web usability consultant.

You can sign up for Jakob Nielsen’s Alertbox via this link: http://www.useit.com/alertbox/subscribe.html

The British Library Business & IP Centre is running a “Web in Feb” program of workshops and events throughout February. Whilst mainly oriented towards business, there are some events which may be of interest to those who wish to engage with their audiences using social media. Other events cover topics such as patenting software for the web, online privacy, and Google AdWords.

More information is available from the British Library Business & IP Centre website.

Faculty Focus has published the results of an interesting survey on Twitter usage and trends amongst higher education professionals. Questions related to familiarity, perception, and experience with the micro-blogging technology, as well as estimated future Twitter usage.

35% of 1,400 respondents reported using Twitter in some capacity, up from 31% in 2009, whilst the percentage who never used Twitter decreased to 48%.

Most commonly Twitter was used to share information with peers, and as a real-time news source. Usage of Twitter to communicate with students, and as a learning tool in the classroom, increased from the previous year.

Non-users expressed concerns that Twitter creates poor writing skills, distracts students in their learning environment, and is actually used by very few of their students. It was also suggested that Twitter further complicates communication with students, as there are already too many places to post messages or check for student questions and comments.

The full report is available from www.scribd.com/doc/37621209/2010-Twitter-Survey-Report

Faculty Focus is a US-based website featuring articles and reports on innovative strategies, best practices and fresh perspectives on teaching, learning, and leading in higher education today.