Topline Results from CASE/mStoner/Slover Linett Social Media Survey

On Monday, 19 July, Cheryl Slover-Linett, managing partner of our research partner, Slover Linett Strategies, and I presented findings from research we conducted with CASE on how CASE member institutions use and manage social media. Our panel at the CASE Summit included Andrew Gossen from Cornell and Charlie Melichar, who just left Colgate University and will be joining the staff at Vanderbilt University in September.

Scott Jaschik from Inside Higher Ed attended the panel and reported on the discussion on 20 July. Cheryl and I will present a webinar about our findings for Inside Higher Ed in August and we’re working on a white paper that we’ll release in September. Stay tuned for details on both….

The research is the first survey to look at how institutions use and manage social media across the campus and within units. We emailed links to the survey to 18,000 CASE members and received 968 responses. Interestingly, the respondents reflected CASE membership demographically.

The survey represents a partnership between mStoner, Slover Linett Strategies, and CASE. We worked closely with CASE’s social media task force, which is composed of members of the organization’s three comissions (Alumni Relations, Communications and Marketing and Philanthropy).

There’s a lot of data here and some of it is surprising. But it’s a start and provides a benchmark that we’ll revisit next year. As I work with the data and review the open-ended responses, I expect to share a more nuanced perspective.

Slover Linett’s work on the study was led by senior associate Bill Hayward, a veteran institutional researcher who directs the firm’s higher education practice. “This really stemmed from many higher ed professionals asking, ‘What are my peers doing? What are the best practices out there, and how can we improve the way we run our social media?’” Hayward recalls.

“We knew that nearly all organizations use social media to some degree, but this study suggests that it’s still in a growth phase: most organizations expect to expand their social media activities. The tough news is that few plan to hire more staff to do it. So at least in the short run, administrations will be doing more with less.”

Here’s a PDF download of the topline findings from the survey.

Posted by Michael Stoner
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Timing is Everything

Some folks, like my colleague Patrick DiMichele, were mystified by the reaction to the news that Facebook had suddenly revised its privacy controls, making public information that many people thought they shared with only a few people. If you post something online, don’t be surprised if it is shared, Patrick believes.

I, on the other hand, was among those who were really angry. I’ve been online since the 1990s and learned a long time ago to be circumspect with what I shared since it is so easy for anything posted online to be distributed widely. I wasn’t too concerned about personal details in my profile or wall posts being shared with others. But I was angry about the way in which Facebook breached my trust, cavalierly altering an agreement it had made with me about what I could hold back from public view.

Whatever your attitude, I believe this widely publicized incident may make many people more motivated to exercise some control over how info about them is shared. Pew research indicates that already the Facebook generation—those who adopted Facebook in college and are now among its most avid users—are more likely than older adults to “take steps to limit the amount of personal information available about them online” (44% vs. 33% of internet users between ages 30-49) and that 71% of them have changed privacy settings or deleted unwanted comments that others have made on their profiles (47%).

In short, the canard that this generation doesn’t care about privacy isn’t true: they might be more comfortable than older people in sharing information about themselves online, but they’re also more active in managing their reputations.

Takeaways—and taking action

If you maintain a proprietary network of some kind—an alumni community or another kind of social network—this is the time for you to demonstrate that you’re helping your members to protect their privacy or manage their reputations.

First, review the tools in place for allowing members to restrict or share information. Are they clear and easy to use? If not, how can you make them clearer, simpler, more straightforward? Make sure that you have a clear FAQ in place and that people can find it.

It’s also time to review your privacy policy. Make sure it’s up-to-date and outlines what you do—and don’t do—with information that people share with you. And if you don’t have a privacy policy, write one. Now.

Once you’ve reviewed and updated your policy, it’s time to remind users in your community about it. You might want to clarify their rights and responsibilities and remind them to be respectful of what other community members share. And invite them to review what they’ve shared already and to adjust their sharing settings.

At minimum, this approach shows that you’re paying attention to what’s going on in the world of the Internet. And it can reinforce the fact that your own community, unlike Facebook, takes privacy seriously and wants to allow its members to control their own privacy—and reputations. While many people many not pay attention to online privacy issues, some people care about it. Showing everyone that you take it seriously helps to reinforce your cred as a community host and manager.

It’s too early to tell about how this news will affect how people interact with Facebook and what they share (or don’t share) with each other and with you. Only time will tell. But you need to keep up on these developments and pay attention to how they affect your community.

Posted by Michael Stoner
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CASE Awards of Excellence 2010: Report for Category 12, Best in Social Media

This year, CASE created a new category, Best in Social Media, in its Awards of Excellence Program. I led the judging for social media, which was held in conjunction with the judging for websites at George School in Newtown, PA, in early April. [Here’s a blog post containing results, comments, and a downloadable version of the Judges’ Report for Category 11, Websites.]

Eight of us judged the social media category. Judges represented American colleges, schools, and universities, both public and private. The panel included people with experience in design, web strategy, web content development, admissions, student recruitment, social media, web technology, and marketing. Some members of the panel have considerable exposure on social media, including significant number of Twitter followers.

According to CASE,

Gold, Silver, and Bronze awards may be given in each subcategory to recognize best practices using social media within new and established programming. One overall category Grand Gold award may also be awarded for superior work. Eligible programs may come from any area of institutional advancement. Programs may be on-going or new in 2009 but must have been in place long enough to have produced well-documented results. You may also enter best uses of social media in the following categories: Alumni Relations Programs: Creative Use of Technology and New Media and Fundraising Programs: Technology Applications and Creative Use of New Media.

So there may be awards for social media coming from entries in these other categories: stay tuned.

Results

Here are the number of entries in each subcategory and the awards given:

12a. Best Uses of Social Media in Alumni Programming: 12 entries, no awards

12b. Best Uses of Social Media in Fundraising: 5 entries, one award
Silver: Children’s Hospital Trust Boston Social Media Portfolio: Facebook (English); Facebook (Spanish)]; YouTube (English); YouTube (Spanish); Twitter: @helpkids

12c. Best Uses of Social Media in Student Recruitment and Marketing: 19 entries, 2 awards
Silver: Northfield Mount Hermon School NMHBook
Bronze: Brock University Both Sides of the Brain [url=http://apps.facebook.com/
bothsidesofthebrain]Facebook Application[/url]

12d. Other Uses of Social Media: 25 entries, 3 awards
Gold: College of William and Mary Mascot Search
Gold: Oregon State University, Powered by Orange: Facebook page; Twitter: @poweredbyorange; YouTube; LinkedIn; Flickr.
Bronze: Tufts University, The Beelzebubs on NBC’s The Sing Off: news package and chat.

Comments and Trends

Social media is new enough that there aren’t a whole lot of precedents for great uses of social media. But there are some. Last year, for example, several initiatives that used social media won in various categories, including Flight of the Flyers from Nazareth College and Emory University’s Blue Pig campaign, both of which won awards. [I wrote blog posts about Flight of the Flyers and the Blue Pig.]

So before we began viewing the entries, we agreed that just having a Facebook page or a Twitter account—or even both of them along with a LinkedIn presence—wasn’t enough for an entry to qualify for an award. We wanted to see strategic goals set—and accomplished through the use of social media along with, perhaps, other channels. We wanted to see some evidence of engagement on the part of a target audience—blog comments, retweets, wall posts. And we wanted to see something that was new or different, not something that every other college or university was doing.

Honestly, we didn’t know what to expect and in general, we were relatively disappointed in the submissions. We did see a number of institutions that thought having a Facebook page or a Twitter presence was significant. It isn’t, not today.

From the award-winners, we gain an emerging sense that “best practices” in social media do involve multiple channels. Sometimes these are multiple social media or online channels. Northfield Mount Hermon’s NMHBook mashup is an example of this approach: it aggregates social media feeds into the school’s website. Powered By Orange, OSU’s impressive awareness campaign, mashes up social media with many other channels, including banners, signage, and face-to-face events. [Powered By Orange is an awesome campaign; here’s a blog post I wrote about it last year.] The College of William & Mary used multiple online channels in its search for a new mascot and did it brilliantly.

These are great examples of the kinds of social media-focused programs that institutions should emulate.

In judging social media, as in judging websites, written submissions are essential. Comments in the submissions help us to put what we’re seeing on-screen in context. A well-articulated strategy, supported by results, helps us to understand that social media can achieve institutional objectives. We’re keenly aware that these award winners will serve as models for other institutions and can help to convince reluctant administrators that social media is a safe channel to advance institutional goals. In this context, results are essential.

Here’s a copy of the complete judge’s report for this category, with comments about each of the award winners.

Posted by Michael Stoner
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Why is everyone so upset about Facebook?

There’s been a lot of thoughtful stuff written and said over the last few weeks as Facebook’s privacy policy has continued to erode (including a post by Michael Stoner written on this blog with some great insights about the big-picture implications about Facebook’s new announcements). You can also get a great set of insights here, here and here. But I’m more interested in why any of us are shocked and/or surprised by what Facebook is doing.

First a bit of background: I’m a privacy advocate, a member of the Electronic Frontier Foundation and an optimist. So it’s not like I don’t care about the changes in FB’s policy, how personal information is handled online or have a gloomy outlook on everyday life. Just the opposite actually.

But as far as I understand them, these are the facts:

> Facebook is run by a guy with a history of unethical behavior
> We freely chose to join Facebook (a for-profit entity)
> We individually decided how much personal stuff to post on their servers
> Some of us decided to profile ourselves to a shocking degree of detail
> Some of what we posted we’d prefer not to share with the world
> Facebook realized/knew that co-opting this info is worth a TON of money
> Facebook slowly changed their policies to make it ok to exploit this info

What did we think was going to happen? We shared really personal information with a corporation who’d never really promised to take our privacy seriously. We watched as they incrementally shifted their stance on privacy (and on who actually owns the content we post). Basically, they made a really nifty platform that encouraged sharing and they decided to cash-in on that platform. Can we be collectively outraged at the fact that it’s happening? Yep. Should we honestly be surprised that it’s happening? Nope.

The admittedly flawed analogy that’s been bouncing around my head is to the cigarette industry:

Big tobacco behaved dishonorably and dishonestly in attempting to lead the public to believe that there were no health risks associated with smoking. But regardless of the health disinformation being circulated, smokers had to know on some level that there’s something inherently unhealthy about lighting an object on fire, sticking it in your mouth and sucking on it.

Facebook has behaved dishonorably and dishonestly in their communications about privacy and in the way they’ve repeatedly changed their policies. But on some level we all knew (or should have known) there were real risks associated with sharing our private information with a company that doesn’t seem to give a damn about privacy.

What it comes down to for me is this:
There are known risks associated with smoking. Smoke or don’t.
There are known risks associated with Facebook: Stay or leave.

Ultimately, just like there isn’t a safe cigarette, there isn’t a safe Facebook. If you’re worried about risk you can smoke less and you can share less. Or you can quit.

Posted by Patrick DiMichele
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