Dec. 6, 2010

Symphony of Science
Seth Godin on the tribes we lead
Are we in control of our decisions? (Behavioral Economics)
Photoshop Snowflake Brushes
Beloit College squirrels speak

Facebook and Social Networking: Pros & Cons

I just had a nice brown-bag lunchtime conversation-presentation with a small group of folks interested in Facebook and Twitter. The short of it:

• Facebook now has Facebook Pages which are different from personal Facebook Profiles. Facebook Pages are handy for organizations in universities because several administrators can maintain the same page.
• Use mini-feeds, photos, and comments on photos to fuel interaction and conversation.
• Twitter is good for up to 140 characters at a time, perhaps twice a day to promote organization events and activities.

Why should we bother? Because students are regularly spending 2 to 5 hours a day on Facebook. Using Facebook and Twitter gives us a great chance to engage students and other constituents and send ripples through their social spheres to keep us all connected. While we can't directly control our organization's brand on social networks, we can at least participate actively in the conversations.

Here are some social web services that we discussed and some relevant presentations in no particular order:

1. You've Been Facebooked! (short, 14 slides)
2. What is Social Media? (very good, 66 slides)
3. Social Media ROI: Socialnomics (VERY GOOD video explaining why we might want to do Facebook)
4. If we behaved in real life as we do on Facebook (humorous video on some of the CONS of Facebook)
5. Facebook Manners And You (More humorous Facebook CONS video)
6. Trouble with Twitters - Super News!
(humorous video take on Twitter)

The articles we discussed are in this October 2010 NACA Campus Activities Programming Magazine.