6 Things We've Learned from Social Media Mashups

We've been doing a lot of work in this area with a number of universities at this point, and we've learned a lot. The funny part is that none of what we've learned has to do with how a mashup is managed, designed or created. It all has to do with how it provides VALUE to the university. These 6 things are the biggest factors that affect the success of your mashup.

1. You have to promote them. Like any other page on your university website, if you don't help people get there, they won't. A SMASHUP is no different. You can't create this wonderful interactive page, and not promote it in your website. It just doesn't work that way. You have to TELL people how to get there. Create a cool image like YSU did, and put it in your university website footer. You'll easily promote it from EVERY page!

2. You have to have quality content. Do you care about content that isn't relevant to you? You can't expect students to care either. This kind of goes without saying, so I'll move on to the next one.

3. You have to have a lot of content. It's ok to start small. Maybe you just have a couple official university-wide accounts that are done really well. That's great. But, it can't and won't last forever. Showing that you have a lot of active accounts that provide a lot of content shows that your university is dedicated to social media in a big way. People want and like to see that.

4. You have to have frequent updates. Don't you love Twitter accounts that have a last update of 265 days ago? Me neither. If you're going to do it, do it right and keep those suckers updated. Show how you interact with students. Give away a t-shirt from the department every now and then. Keep people engaged, otherwise, you're doing it wrong.

5. You have to have a plan. Are you going to incorporate more location based social media and have students check in on campus? Are you going to have a Twitter contest? Have an idea of what content works where. For example, maybe for all student organization events, you're going to create the event on Facebook, then use Facebook and Twitter to promote it. But all content does not work in all media. Save the long editorials for blogs. Use photos on Facebook. Use Twitter for quick updates, alerts and reminders. The worst is when schools connect all accounts together, then none are original. Imagine a mashup with a Facebook feed and a Twitter feed on the same page, and all the recent updates are the exact same content. If this is you, you're doing it wrong.

6. You have to have standards. Ever heard of a social media policy? You should have one, especially if your university is one of those that is constantly discovering new rogue accounts from different departments and entities across campus. Some of the schools we work with require all accounts to follow a set of standards before they can be featured on the social media mashup. It's a good way to just set a baseline for acceptable conduct and make sure everyone is on the same page.

What are some of the things you've learned through your social media mashup or just working with social media at the university level in general?

BEFORE&AFTER: Pittsburg State University Catalog

You probably already know that Pittsburg State University recently launched their new online course catalog, which is our first implementation of CatalogM.

What you probably don't know, unless you actually WENT to Pitt State recently, work on the Pitt State website, or you have a really weird affliction for course catalogs (which is another story for another day), is what the catalog used to look like and how that process was managed.

Well, my friends, you are in luck.


Click here to see before and after pictures we posted on our Facebook page.

While the previous PSU catalog didn't really look bad, it was incredibly difficult for the Registrar's Office to keep up with, there was no search, it wasn't managed using a database and wasn't "connected" to the print catalog, and the navigation could have really used some work.

These are the biggest things we wanted to help them achieve were:

• To put it simply, PSU needed a better way to manage both their print and online catalog (previously, there had been quite a long, long paper trail).


• A more automated process: menus and catalog structure should be rendered automatically, any updates made to course catalog content should update the all instances of that item in the catalog, instead of having to go and update each individual item manually, the ability to print the catalog on-demand, etc.


• A catalog website that would fit in seamslessly with the university website.


• Better Navigation. This was a big one.


• Search. PSU needed a way to allow students to globally search the catalog for course and degree information.


• Ability to have complete control over the catalog hierarchy and structure.


• Ability to determine custom fields for each type of catalog item from college, department, program, degree, or course.
  
  And there were a lot of others...

We were able to meet all of these needs - and guess what: instead of updating the catalog every two years, as they had in the past, the awesome folks at PSU will now have an annual catalog.

The good thing is, with our extensive background and experience in other similar academic systems, we are better able to handle the unique needs that come up. Every university is different, so what worked for PSU probably won't work perfectly for another university. But the cool thing is: We Welcome It.

DePaul Interview About SMASHUP

Recently I had the chance to speak with Kris Gallagher from DePaul University on how their SMASHUP has changed social media for their school. DePaul’s SMASHUP was launched in October and is one of the first live SMASHUP sites. Kris oversees the social media for the school and manages the SMASHUP.

Q: Why did you want a SMASHUP for your university?
Kris: “We had a lot of people doing social media at DePaul. We maintained a directory page but it was not exciting visually. The SMASHUP made a live feed from everything, showed the most recent posts and the video was much more accessible. By displaying content as it is done in SMASHUP someone could immediately say, ‘Yeah, that’s useful to me.'"

Q: What benefits have you experienced from having a SMASHUP?
Kris: “The SMASHUP is a good central place to have all the University’s social media. It has made the maintenance much easier. People really like it. Also with Google Analytics [integrated] on the SMASHUP it’s now easy to track what’s being looked at - how many visitors the site has, which tools are being used the most and where traffic is coming from.”

Q: What do you like most about SMASHUP?
Kris: “It’s easy to update. You log in, put the info in, and you’re ready to go. Even if I’m gone I can turn it over to someone else and they can manage it easily.”

Q: How often do you make changes to the DePaul SMASHUP? How much time would you say you spend on the SMASHUP monthly?
Kris: “We only make changes about once a month. Mostly we just make sporadic changes when we need to add a new group or change the focus on the main page to a different group. On average it only takes about 3 minutes to make a change. “

Q: Are you using your social media sites more frequently because of SMASHUP?
Kris: “No, but we are pushing out the SMASHUP through social media. By using the SMASHUP we are able to gather and promote information faster and more broadly than before. And now people are more aware of our social media sites.”

Q: Have you pushed the SMASHUP out to your students? If so, how have they responded?
Kris: “We’ve pushed it out through Social Media and there have been no complaints. Students are used to seeing things in this way, so no news is good news. They aren’t complaining about how behind the university is. “

Q: What expectations did you have for SMASHUP? Did it meet them? Exceed? etc?
Kris: “One of our biggest expectations was to create more traffic. SMASHUP has exceeded that. We’ve had about 1700 page visits with each person viewing two or more pages, spending an average of 2 or more minutes on each. SMASHUP has increased the exposure rate. Another expectation was to improve on the directory visually and now with a SMASHUP it looks sharp.”

Q: Do you feel that your SMASHUP is unique to your university? Why?
Kris: “It’s unique in a way; there are other universities that have it but it shows how our university is using our social media compared to other universities. The SMASHUP fits well with our website and by working with the design team at AllofE we were able to incorporate our logo and colors to reflect our overall university site.”

Universities Don't 'Get' Social Media....Yet

Well, that got your attention, didn't it? There is so much buzz surrounding the university social media mashup concept, but there is a huge disparity in how universities are actually using social media and promoting those accounts. With all the buzz about social media, many schools make 'Social Media Library' pages or directories, but then do nothing more with them. It's almost as if it's a 'necessary evil.' Glancing at a university site, it often isn’t obvious what, if any, types of social media they use. We know many have some social media, but how much? And are they using it the best way possible?

What is obvious is that more and more universities are opening up to the world of social media. There are a vast array of social media sites that can be used. For example, a university athletics department can simultaneously tweet scores of an athletic game on Twitter, post video of the game on YouTube, and post pictures of the game Flickr. The possibilities of what can be covered, and how it can be used, are endless.

What a university SMASHUP (social media mashup) can do is take this one step further and bring all these forms of social media together. One example is on the DePaul SMASHUP site -- you can check upcoming game times, get updates of basketball scores on Twitter, and view YouTube videos from those games all on one page!



Searching many universities websites to find social media pages is tricky and can become quite frustrating sometimes (especially ones that don't even have a search bar!). But after finding a school has sufficient social media to proceed with, it is very exciting to tell them about SMASHUP. It’s even more exciting when a university already has a social media link page but doesn’t seem to know what to do with it. Imagine what that page would look like within the SMASHUP concept instead!

Finding qualified schools for the SMASHUP project may not be so easy, but once found, I'm not having any problem finding ones that are interested! So far, many schools have shown a ton of interest and I can't wait to see how many more would be willing to join in on this amazing opportunity!

And so the search continues. What universities do you think have great social media? Do any of them have what it takes to become a social media "master" by using SMASHUP?

YSU SMASHUP Launch - The First of Four University-Wide SMASHUPs to Launch

Today is the day! Today marks the launch of the Youngstown State University SMASHUP, the first of four university-wide SMASHUP Beta projects that will launch over the next few weeks.


You may view the SMASHUP website at http://web.ysu.edu/smashup/home.

YSU’s SMASHUP site will help increase interaction between the university and current, past and future students and other stakeholders, bring more attention on their university, and catapult them into a leadership position in university social media, said Ross Morrone, YSU's web developer and creative director for new media.

"With so many options out there when it comes to Social Media, it seems redundant to post the same tweet or status over and over. You also need to understand that with so many departments we have several Twitter, Flickr, Facebook and YouTube accounts." Morrone said.

"Mashups will allow our users to go to one place a read all university tweets, watch our newest YouTube videos and connect with us on Facebook. It doesn't get much easier or cooler than that."

AllofE Solutions worked to design, code, implement and analyze YSU's social media initiatives to create a customized solution to increase the effectiveness of YSU's social media.

Looking forward, AllofE will be launching three other SMASHUPs for DePaul University, Northern Illinois University and Our Lady of the Lake University over the next few weeks.

For more information about the SMASHUP project, please contact Katie Brosious at kbrosious@allofe.com.

We've Chosen Four Universities to Work with on SMASHUP Beta Projects!

We'll be working with four selected universities on SMASHUP beta projects to create a social media mashup site for each university. The selected universities are Youngstown State University, Our Lady of the Lake University, DePaul University and Northern Illinois University. We selected universities that display attributes that contribute to social media success.

We're excited to work with universities that have a pioneering spirit and a commitment to setting an example in university social media and related best practices. Social Media success has to do with flexibility, openness, enthusiasm and ability to make decisions quickly.

The SMASHUP beta project will create custom high-end social media mashup sites that will be branded consistently with the university website. We will work with the university to analyze, design, code and implement the site that will become the central hub for all university-wide social media initiatives.

For more information about this project and future Social Media Mashup [SMASHUP] Projects, please contact Tracy Kemp at tkemp@allofe.com or send us a Tweet @AllofE_HE.

We'll be releasing links to the SMASHUP sites as they go live over the next few weeks - so stay tuned. We're very excited about this project!

Social Media sites get organized with SMASHUP

by Meagan Smith

Social networking has become increasingly important throughout the 21st century. Social media web pages, known as social sites, have been getting more and more attention universally for their ability to help users gain recognition for individual talents, build important relationships whether for their career or personal life, and help them gain valuable networking resources.

For universities, social media has quickly become the focus for marketing and recruiting purposes and can allow students following their university stream to keep up on recent events, news, and announcements happening around their university. Universities can use social sites like Facebook and YouTube as a free source for marketing themselves and increasing their brand recognition to potential students or employees. For instance, instead of having to go through the expensive process of purchasing and burning DVDs to get your school marketing campaigns out, you can simply upload your videos onto YouTube!

University twitter accounts allow students and employees to find people who are key influential members in their community and follow their tweets. If you or someone from your university is an active member in the community you can get your word out to students who are interested in what you have to say. A university blog can help university members find out what their students are thinking about recent happenings around campus which could be a crucial step in your decision making processes. These are just a few examples of the many types of social media sites that can be beneficial to universities. Needless to say, social media has become a vital tool that should be utilized by universities everywhere and ContentM makes it easy to do just that.

If you are a current user of multiple social media sites then you know first-hand how many separate links and web pages must be opened to view them all simultaneously. Not only does having that many browsers open slow down your system, but it can quickly become an end-users nightmare trying to figure out which web browser belongs to which social media site. AllofE’s ContentM system is built around web 2.0 functionality and makes it simple to store all of your social media needs on one convenient page using our RSS feed panels. ContentM has prebuilt social networking panels that allow you to simply paste your social site link or username in the allotted area, hit submit, and view your content in one clean, organized location. ContentM allows you to have your Facebook fan page, Twitter feed, Blogger feed, Flickr pictures, and much more all neatly organized on one convenient page which allows viewers to spend less time searching for your social sites and more time actually viewing them!

Having a social media initiative isn’t good enough unless it’s organized and easy to get to. Being a beginner with social media sites myself, I know how frustrating it can be when you want people to check out your social pages but can’t find the right link to it or having your web pages be so disorganized that you don’t know which browser houses which social site. Since I’ve started using ContentM for our social media needs I have just one link to share with everyone and they get our most recent blog postings and twitter feeds. It’s just that simple! Check out a couple of our example pages listed below if you’re interested in what ContentM can do for you.

Click Here to See Example Site #1

Click Here to See Example Site #2

DCWeek SMCEDU Panel Video

This video is from the SMCEDU panel at DCWeek. It discusses a lot about the lack of social media in higher education and how useful it can really be. It works hand in hand with the SMashup we offer for university social media initiatives. Click here to find out more about the SMashup. Social media in higher education is so lacking, and SMCEDU is truly trying to bring change. I'm happy to be a part of it-Watch this video!



It's tragic really, that employers expect new employees to know social media, but universities aren't teaching it in class. Well, I take that back. A few are. Professor Yaros is.The ContentM SMashup will allow universities to pull together all aspects of their social media initiatives. But using social media should go far beyond recruiting purposes. Educators should be integrating social media into the education experience, as Yaros said. There's so much more to social media in higher education than just using it for recruiting purposes. It's sharing, it's collaborating, it's learning, in a community. Social media can no longer be ignored. And universities that continue to ignore social media, in any facet, will learn the hard way.

Jump on the Bandwagon!

The debate as to whether or not social media sites have an educational benefit seems to be never-ending, but as studies continue, there is more and more reason to believe that there is a lot to learn from social networking/media. Sites such as Facebook, Myspace, Twitter, Flickr, LinkedIn, and YouTube are teaching students the kinds of 21st century technology skills that professionals are expected to exude in the real world.

"Students are developing a positive attitude toward using technology systems, editing and customizing content and thinking about online design and layout,” said Christine Greenhow, a learning technologies researcher at the University of Minnesota. “They're also sharing creative original work like poetry and film and practicing safe and responsible use of information and technology. The websites offer tremendous educational potential."

Colleges spanning the country ranging from Stanford to Duke are choosing to use popular social media sites as part of their curriculum. The following is a list of schools that are using social media in a new and innovative way:

At the City University of New York, Professor Jeff Jarvis is teaching a class that focuses on the use of social media for newsgathering. This is a class only offered to graduate students in the Graduate School of Journalism and it teaches students that they can find breaking news with the use of real-time searches.

There have been numerous times throughout my college career when I’ve been given an assignment, but just can’t get the creative juices flowing and can’t seem to get an idea together. But luckily for the students at Stanford, that will never be an issue for them. Faculty and student projects can be found on the school’s Facebook page, so if you find yourself looking for inspiration, the page is filled with videos, pictures, and other previously done works.

The use of Twitter and Facebook is one thing; though incredibly useful, neither requires much effort. But the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill has found a way to take things to the next level. They created their own channel on YouTube and packed it tightly with information and educational videos. These videos relate to topics such as health care, medicine, business, and information technology, all of which serve as aids in the classroom.

Colleges and universities aren’t the only ones hopping on the social media bandwagon. Chris Copeland, a Birmingham language arts teacher at Vestavia Hills H.S., uses Twitter to tweet his lesson plans. Not only does he feel that his tweets make it easier to keep up with what’s going on, but he also feels that sharing lesson plans on Twitter can help other teachers get good ideas for their own lessons. Furthermore, tweeting keeps a record of what has been happening in the classroom, which proves to be extremely beneficial for absent students.

Although there is no doubt that these social media sites can prove to be more than beneficial, some teachers would argue that they can be incredibly distracting. A recent and very popular trend has been to live tweet in the classrooms. Some say that it is engaging and encourages students to take part in interactive learning who might otherwise sit in the back corner of the classroom and not say anything. However, others say that Twitter is too fast paced; everyone must fully understand it to make it work, and the extreme multi-tasking can be unhealthy for students.

“Students have to ‘get’ Twitter before live-tweeting,” Kris Aylett from Ocean Springs, Mississippi said. “I found it a distraction in class. Students would tweet two times and text or use Facebook the rest of the time.”

The debate will continue to rage on, but where do you stand? Are you a socialite?

"Death is Only the Beginning"

I’ve found that life is always more interesting when you can relate it to either KU basketball or a good movie. And since my last blog was in relation to March Madness, and I am feeling completely disgraced to be a Jayhawk right now, I will relate my point to one of my all-time favorite films, the 1999 remake of The Mummy, starring Brendon Fraser.

The part of this film that I’d like to focus on is when Evelyn awakens the mummified high priest, Imhotep, by reading the words “death is only the beginning” from the book of the dead. After saying this single phrase, the mummy awakens and is more powerful than anyone else in the world, even though he once was dead. So, let’s recap: someone that was seen as dead, awoken and proved that he was far from dead, but actually incredibly capable of literally anything, even things that nobody else in the world could do.

This particular moment in the movie came to mind when I came across an article today that was entitled, “Is This the Year the Propriety CMS dies?” If you are someone who believes this, or is even asking this same question, then clearly you haven’t been using the right propriety systems. If anything, this article should read, “Propriety CMS Mummified, but Resurrected and Back with a Vengeance.”

It is true that open source systems have found a special place in the hearts of several web developers throughout the nation, but that isn’t to say that propriety systems are dead. In a tough economy, choosing the open source route may seem like the more attractive route to take, but there can be a lot of hidden costs and extras that don’t appear right off the get-go. Also, something people tend to consistently forget is that an open source system and a propriety system are NOT the same thing.

The article uses the phrase, “selling your milk when the cow is free” to describe propriety systems against open source, but that couldn’t be more wrong. To make that phrase apply correctly it would have to say, “Selling your Häagen-Dazs Triple Cherry Chocolate Chunk when the cow is free.” Meaning that, yes, you could probably find a way to turn your cow’s milk into that fabulous ice-cream flavor if you were a total expert in that field, but even still, probably not get the exact results you’re looking for. A propriety CMS, if it’s the right CMS, isn’t just milk, it’s a one of a kind frozen dessert that can never be duplicated.

People working for propriety companies are complete experts at what they do. They can customize a CMS to exactly fit the bill for what a school is looking for. They can do all of the behind the scenes technical work, so that the design and all of the fun stuff is left to the university employees (even those with NO technical experience). Ross Morrone, a developer for Youngstown State University and user of ContentM by AllofE said, “I am in love, not only with the CMS but the idea that I can now get back to what is fun about design, I have fallen back into care free mode when it comes to coding because I don't have to do it. I have more control over the look and creating a great user experience rooted with rich media.” How man users of open source systems can say the same?

If you think the propriety CMS has died, remember that death doesn’t always mean the end. If there’s anything we can learn from society’s current obsession with vampires and mummy’s, it’s that some things may surprise you and come back more powerful than anything else out there.

Of Google Analytics and Nightmares

The following post was written by Mark Van Tilburg, the executive director of marketing and communications at Youngstown State University.

Before anybody dreamed up the term “Web-too-point Oh,” when having a fax machine of my own and three buttons on my desk phone made me a state-of-the-science communications executive, I carried myself with such great confidence and a kind of light-footed romantic sense of the world that all problems, great and small, were manageable. I slept every night straight through, certain that the next day’s challenges would be easily conquered.

What a lovely dream.

Yes, my days as an Olympic-class sleeper (able to log a solid 9 to 14-hours in nearly any circumstance) are now but a distant memory, lost to the cold sober reality that one of my jobs as a university marketing director is to manage the never ending development and deployment of the university’s website.

I fear that those halcyon nights of yore, will likely never be mine again, because everybody is looking to me to ensure that the institutional branding goals and web content integrity meet their expectations. Every one of our faculty, all alumni, donors and current students (not to mention the universe of web surfers, IT geeks, high school students, parents and grandparents) has 24/7 accesses to monitor our progress.

It’s no wonder, me thinks, that many days I just want my pillow and a couple – seven stiff shots of Black Jack. As John Keats (the greatest English poet of all times, period!) so aptly put it:

O, for a draught of vintage! that hath been

Cool’d a long age in the deep-delved earth,

………

With beaded bubbles winking at the brim,

And purple-stained mouth;

That I might drink, and leave the world unseen,

And with thee fade away into the forest dim….

Is anyone else out there suffering, even mildly, from flights of fancy and distraction or similar symptoms?

Web 2.0 and Why Educators Can't Afford to Live Without it.

There's a lot of debate about whether or not social media sites like Facebook, MySpace and Twitter should be blocked at schools. However, is there a way that teachers could use this type of media to their advantage? Not that students should be allowed to Facebook on their laptops during class, as so many college students do today, but is there some good that comes from social media?

For one example, this post on TechXav says that social media sites, such as Facebook, actually increase literacy rates and confidence in writing. Who knew?

And the best part? The author is a 15-year-old student.

If kids can see the benefits, we should listen. Blogs allow us to write freely, with a purpose all your own. And isn't that the best, most exciting, and rewarding way to write? It's no wonder that students who blog have increased confidence in writing. Blogs and social media/networking sites allow us to be creative, no strings attached. They allow us to create something all our own, that represents only us.

Although there are some dangers involved with letting kids run rampant, with all the unhealthy sites out there, I believe the good outweighs the bad. If teachers can use things like message boards, blog posts, etc. to foster learning and discussion, students will respond in a positive way. It will allow them to develop their thoughts and type them out, giving them practice in critical thinking and writing skills.

Another very interesting report about social networking in higher education states that:

"Web 2.0 is not remarkable; it describes simply the background structure of media and socialization."

And what follows is Learning 2.0. If used constructively, students will read, write, and collaborate with each other, teachers, and the virtual world. In today's society, Web 2.0 isn't new anymore, it's not innovative. It's reality. Any educators must take advantage of it or they will miss out on a huge opportunity.

Research: CMS Enhances Recruitment for Universities

This blog is a summary of a Noel-Levitz White Paper.

Content Management Systems make it easy for anyone to update a university Web site, keeping the information as current and as relevant as possible. Lately, it seems that college Web sites have become the key aspect for recruitment, so it is now a necessity to put the most relevant information in the spotlight as easily and as quickly as possible.

The cooler the Web site, the more likely it is that students will become interested in your university. So college sites must become interactive and include more Web 2.0 aspects than ever. Videos, flash-based design, and other like media can organize information in a cool way that will grab students’ attention.

However, the content of the site is still the most important thing. Noel-Levitz found that 80 percent of college-bound students said that content is more important than design, and 57 percent said that they wouldn’t consider going to a school whose Web site seemed dated or incorrect. So it’s essential to implement an easy way to update and make changes to the content of your university Web site.

The relevance of information is especially important when it comes to admissions and financial aid information. Your university site must answer all of your potential students’ questions while promoting your university’s brand, while encouraging the students to come back for more.

The problem with not having a CMS is that, usually, only one or a few people are qualified to update the university site. CMS makes it possible for even non-technical users to update content without any training. Now a large group of people will be able to constantly update the Web site content with ease.

The main goal of CMS is to increase the amount of communication between the university and its stakeholders. CMS makes it easier to get the most relevant information to its end users, and current information is the most valuable when it comes to recruitment, as potential students need the most up-to-date information of all of your Web site viewers.

Click here to see the full Noel-Levitz White Paper.