Some examples of best practice in use of social media by universities

The title of this blog post is, I must confess, a tiny bit misleading. When I say 'best practice' I perhaps should actually just say 'examples that I like'. ROI doesn't really seem to have woven it's way into the mix as yet for social media engagement practices in the higher education sector. However, I suspect that many of the examples I'm about to share here are earning their worth for the organisations behind them. Anyway, this post is primarily being put together as part of a workshop I'm involved in this week at Neil Stewart Associates' Marketing in HE conference (London, 13 October). With no presentation facilities in the workshop room, I have no way of sharing these examples with participants so instead I'm directing them to this blog post so they can check them out at their leisure. This list is by no means exhaustive, and I have many more favorites to share, but here are just five of my favorite uses of social media for marketing and communications by higher education institutions.

• Imperial College London: Interact
  I love this section of Imperial College's site for prospective students. It nicely brings together various interactive elements of their student recruitment activities in a central space. Importantly it opens up a way for prospective students to gain an insight into life at Imperial (student blogs, for example) and a way for them to communicate with the College in their own comfort zone (Facebook).


• The Hartwick Experience
  The Hartwick Experience is a micro-site for Hartwick College in New York State, USA. For me this is how social media should be done for student recruitment and marketing. It's a space where the real voices and experiences of current students can be viewed by prospective students. The space has very little in the way of a marketing voice, but instead acts as a facilitator to introduce current to prospective students. Its simplicity also makes it highly visually appealing.


• University of Strathclyde on Twitter
  There are increasingly more and more good examples of universities using Twitter to communicate with target audiences, but the vast majority out there still use it as a 'channel' to push out press releases or other push-marketing messages. The University of Strathclyde uses it for exactly what it was intended: conversation and engagement, helping to make it useful and helpful to the audiences on Twitter with whom they want and need to communicate.
  
• MIT Admissions Blog
  MIT's admissions team, along with selected 'associates' (alumni and other guest authors) run a large admissions blog providing useful information and timely updates to prospective and incoming students. The medium allows them to be quick to update information, and by enabling comments on each blog post they can save themselves time by responding once to a question rather than several times (if that question were, alternatively, directed to them by private email or telephone call). The only downside is that it's not particularly well set up just to see a list of all blog posts...
  
• IMD Interact

One from a management school this time. The International Institute for Management Development (IMD) in Switzerland has an interactive section of its website for showcasing business knowledge and expertise of its faculty and extended community (partners, alumni, etc). Through the interact section visitors can read short 'coffee break' interviews with business leaders or join in (through the site or social media sites) in the 'Great Debate' questions, featuring topical business and management themes.

I have plenty more examples that I often share with organisations in conference presentations and workshops, but these are just a few of my current favorites.