I stumbled onto your article while researching for an article I am writing locally on social networking and college admissions (do’s and don’ts) and find what you have written really fascinating and the benefits to the higher ed side of recruiting and communication.

Although I am on the other side of the recruiting picture, an independent counselor (an ethical one, I promise) I am always interested in learning what is working in the world of technology with the college bound and what is not. I don’t tweet, primarily because I am worried to start something that I can’t keep up with running a fairly busy practice and a working mom so I will confess I don’t know a lot about it.
My question, tags onto Nicolle’s; based on the categories published from @BlueFuego’s research, how do you determine what level of account an institution is using and when would it benefit a prospective student to engage. I would love to encourage my students to sign up with the colleges that are on their application lists to receive tweets for reminders,deadlines, information and even the opportunity to establish a connection but are there certain accounts that would not benefit them information wise and when does it become too much information?

A couple questions remain: what are the students doing? Social media is a two way street. How are students using Twitter? What kind of information are they seeking? How do they interact with higher education institutions?

Not that I expect you to have the answers, but it’d be great insight.

This all becomes even more challenging when you put it in the international higher education context: are international students using Twitter in great numbers? I see international students on Twitter, but a quick, informal survey of international offices using Twitter shows very little engagement with future international students.

Perhaps, the question to ask higher education institutions is “What do you hope to accomplish using Twitter?”

Type 1 is a fairly passive approach, but with value especially given the limited time and resources it requires.

Taken just slightly further, a student worker can be trained to take press release information, write it in a way appropriate for the channel, and post it.

With tools such as Hootsuite, such posts can be scheduled, and also spread across other channels such as institutional Facebook pages. 10 minutes a day at student worker wages, and the effort is taken up a notch. And with tools like Hootsuite, it is simple for a supervisor to review the efforts on occasion, discover mentions, etc.

I found this paragraph interesting:

“Shortly after Paydar started tweeting, the local newspaper’s education reporter wrote a story about it, and in the process created a Twitter profile for himself. The reporter now follows several official IU East Twitter accounts, which has led to an increase in coverage for the institution.”

If an institution hasn’t proactively sought out and followed a handful of relevant reporters (TV, print, etc.) on Twitter, it takes little effort and has potential to return dividends. Depending on the Twitter account, local (and beyond) education reporters, sports reporters, etc.