The Week in Links

Whelp, I missed the boat on posting this on Friday, so I'm posting it on a Monday instead. Consider it helpful way to start your week - reading lots of cool articles instead of diving straight into work.  :) 

• Big, big, big ups to the great Cara Rousseau of Duke University, whose work with Google hangouts and admissions was featured in Time magazine. AWESOME!!!

• Really enjoyed this CASE Twitter Chat on "Social Video Storytelling." I always say this, but I'm particularly bummed out I missed this one because producing videos has become a big part of my job. (Here's a short playlist of some of the things I've worked on.) I feel video is a crucial part of social media engagement, but a very misunderstood one. Everyone seems to always want a video for everything, but it's only the right medium in very specific circumstances. Anyway, it was a really great discussion - definitely check it out.

• Speaking of video - my most popular post this week was on University of Connecticut's charming puppet video.  

• "Authenticity as Opportunity." Sign me up. Love this post from Jessica Krywosa on her blog that digs deeper into some of the big, meaty, philosophical questions that challenge us as social media managers in higher ed.

• Good stuff from Robert Bochnak on his blog Social Media Matters about ways to increase engagement on Facebook. I really enjoy how he compares and contrasts different posts - a scientific approach! - and emphasizes the importance of cross-promotion among platforms.

• I really enjoyed this post from Ma'ayan Plaut on the always-great Oberlin College webteam blog, discussing a simple, yet so powerful, way to encourage new student bloggers by commenting on their posts. I love this idea! My girlfriend works for a really cool organization called World Pulse that connects women across the globe and encourages them to tell stories from their communities and be citizen journalists. As a standing rule, staff members and volunteers comment on every single post (they even assign them, so that none get missed) and pay particular attention to new posters. Some of the women from the network recently spoke in Portland, and all of them mentioned how powerful it was to know that someone out there was hearing their voice.

• Awesome article from Keith Hannon on his blog Social Matters, reflecting on his truly great work with Cornell's crowdfunding efforts.

• Interesting article on the Educational Marketing Group blog about how EMG worked with the Colorado Community College System to start a social media presence from scratch. As someone who just took a leap of faith and launched a Facebook page for alumni of a specific study-abroad program last week, I definitely appreciated reading through this.

• A new listing of the Top 100 Social Media Colleges by Student Advisor. Congrats to all the great schools that made the list! Of course, there must be a typo... somehow University of Portland didn't make the cut!!!  ;)  (Remember, those that can't do good higher ed social media work write blogs about higher ed social media work, or something like that.)

• An oldie by a goodie: "Recruitment is everybody's job. So consider this: If you are not active on social media, if you are not contributing to the recruitment of the incoming Class of 2014, you are probably not really doing your job, as I (and a growing number of others) see it." Spicy stuff from Dr. James Michael Nolan, president of Southwestern College, in an article on Huffington Post that is a challenge to everyone - not just marketing peeps - working in higher ed.

Hate to end this post on a sad note, but the world lost one of its most brilliant musical talents on Sunday. RIP Lou Reed. "Satellite's gone, up to the sky..."