During the NAFSA08 presentation last Friday, we presenters talked about Facebook as an example of a social networking tool that can be used for outreach and marketing to students - both international and domestic.
If you are considering exploring Facebook, here are a few suggestions to get you started:
- Create a professional (not personal) Facebook profile for yourself using your work email address as the login/contact point. This the profile that you will use to link to students. It will be public.
- Do not upload a photo or put a lot of identifying information in when you begin.
- Before you do anything else, set your security settings to be as private as possible. Once you understand how Facebook works, then you can decide if you want to remove any of those restrictions.
You can also find information on how to create a Facebook profile at WikiHow. If you have questions, ask me by posting a comment below!
There were a number of questions about using Facebook Fan pages. So, to help demonstrate, you can take a look at two fan pages I've set up:
- Facebook fan page for The Manitou Heights Group
- and the Facebook fan page for my band (I wasn't kidding when I said I had one!)
I will be using the Fan Page for The Manitou Heights Group to demonstrate what can be done with Fan pages.
If you're interested in MySpace (where my profile is more personal than professional because that's the kind of social network tool MySpace represents), you can friend me there at:
http://www.myspace.com/rmsylte
In fact, you can locate my profiles at a number of major social and business networking sites that are listed on every page of this site -- and "friend" me. My profiles are meant to be examples of what you can do as a professional at each of these sites. The point is to be professional and personable without giving out too much personal information.
What kind of information do you think it's important to have on a social networking site when you are connecting with students?
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I don’t add students as friends on Facebook (although I occasionally interact with them in Groups or elsewhere) but I think the Where I’ve Been application might be a useful one. That way if students have their choice of adviser, they can choose one who’s been to the place where they want to study.
srah’s last blog post: Get up offa that thing/ And walk ’til clothes fit better
I am at a crossroads with my Facebook profile. It used to be strictly professional, but when I left New Paltz, it became more personal.
I actually do have former students as friends–they were my peer counselors and I wanted to keep up with them while they were working for me. Our office had a distinct family atmosphere and we would do various activities outside of work together (movies, dining, haunted walks, etc.). I wouldn’t have friended students going just going on our programs–I referred them to our group page.
In my case, I’ve decided that my personal life and work life are almost one and the same (in a good way). I’ve got too many profiles and memberships already, so creating separate pages isn’t an option for me. As I sincerely doubt I’ll ever have a ‘girls gone wild’ moment I am not worried about my page becoming too personal.
My recommendation is to use your status line to inform students of your office hours or when you are out of town.
I have a Facebook page and it is both professional and personal and I don’t put any information on there that I don’t want people to know. I usually don’t add students as friends.
What I have done instead is to create a group page for our office and invite people to join and have promoted the group on campus. I can also create events from this group page and invite all members of the group.
I have found it to be pretty useful. It has been a little slow to grow but it is a quick and easy way to let people know about events especially since our students don’t seem to be reading their email or the flyers we post around campus.
I don’t know how others feel about the group pages but I would be happy to hear if the group pages have worked for others or if anyone has any tips on how to have the group pages work more effectively.
I’ve been asked where to find information on creating Facebook Fan pages:
Here’s how Facebook explains it:
http://www.facebook.com/business/?pages
The page manager is usually the first application listed in the far left column on Facebook, under the the “Search” box.
I have one profile for both personal and professional too, as there’s nothing up there that I worry about people (students or staff) seeing. In fact I like people to have a look around! Conversely, I quite like to see what people do, out of work!
A word of warning for anyone who’s thinking of setting up two profiles on Facebook – one for work and one for personal stuff. Facebook don’t like it! My colleague Mary did it, and they found out (long story…), and they told her in no uncertain terms to close the 2nd one down, or she’d lose both. Needless to say, she complied very quickly, and is now an expert in privacy settings for different groups of people. That seems to work very well.
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