The Week in Links

Another week, another collection of links from people who know a lot more about this social media marketing shit than I do.

• First things first, prayers to the Seattle Pacific community. I hope none of you readers ever have to deal with something like this, but its worth checking out their social media presence to learn a bit from how they handled it - they did a great job under horrible, horrible circumstances.

• As always, an insightful post from Ma'ayan Plaut of Oberlin College, in which she give a peak behind the curtain on the performance of the Oberlin blogs. Pay particular attention to her comments on distribution. With Facebook's declining reach and the challenges of being a "brand" in a the social space where most people just want to spend time catching up with friends, I've been thinking a lot lately about how "official" social media pages may be declining in importance and personal sharing from team members and committed partners may be starting to ascend. Oh, to be thoughtful with my writing rather than knee-jerk and spastic. We can all dare to dream, I suppose.

• Justin Ware has a good list on his bog the Social Side of Giving of successful "One Day Giving" days from different colleges. Worth checking out, because some of these giving days are super impressive.

• Good stuff from Leo Mirani on Quartz about how LinkedIn is becoming more an online newspaper than a social network. I always groan when I think about LinkedIn, but lately I've become more and more intrigued with the data the university pages offer. I remembered UP had a young alumna who worked in Senator Ron Wyden's office, but I couldn't remember her name. On a whim, I went to UP's LinkedIn page, did a quick search for alumni in DC, and found her in about 30 seconds flat. I was impressed, and light bulbs started going off in my head. I need to spend more time thinking about how to take advantage of it.

• My most popular post this week: This absolutely wonderful video from Creighton University, highlighting a beloved staff member.

• Some fun examples of higher ed Instagram use from Jennifer Beese on Sprout Social. Clearly, she somehow forgot to include University of Portland. ;)

• I made the decision before I started this blog to never go negative and feature examples from colleges that I don't like - we #hesm folks are on the front lines and need to have each other's backs... who among us hasn't posted really lame stuff sometimes? - but I do think there is value in learning from social media initiatives that don't go as planned, like this example from University of British Columbia. 

• Something to add to your bookmark list: NPR's Social Media Desk blog. Really good stuff on there.

And that's all he wrote. Have a good weekend everyone!

I leave you with a wonderful old-timey classic, which brings me back so acutely to freshman year and being introduced to this song by the cute girl down the hall. Thanks Megan!