Redefining Social Skills
With the mounting number of online information resources, it may be more important than ever to choose the most effective method of reaching a specific audience.
About seven years ago, SMU Business Services created a 16-member student advisory panel to provide input before implementing student-related projects, according to Ed Ritenour, Business Services marketing director. Divisions that function under the Business Services umbrella include Park ’N Pony, dining services, the bookstore and the campus police, among others.
“We’ve found that students don’t want more e-mails – they usually won’t read them,” Ritenour says, “but they will go to Facebook for information.”
First-year student Jordan McCurdy, a member of the student advisory panel, admits to automatically deleting e-mails. “When you’re getting six e-mails every half-hour, it’s overwhelming,’ says McCurdy, a double major in English and mathematics. “I think systems that allow you to opt in, like a Facebook group that’s concentrated on a specific topic of interest, are more effective.”
Ben Alexander in Public Affairs notes that most SMU schools have their own Facebook pages and Twitter feed that can be accessed by clicking on icons – usually an “f” button for Facebook and a “t” button for Twitter – on the school’s home page.
“Facebook and Twitter allow us to keep in contact with key audiences in a brief, up-to-the-minute way,” he says.
Twitter differs from Facebook in that it’s not so much for wordy back-and-forth exchanges as it is for transmitting ideas and information concisely. Tweets, or Twitter messages, are limited to 140 characters.
Yolette Garcia, assistant dean in the Annette Caldwell Simmons School of Education and Human Development, teaches the class “Consuming News in the Digital Age: From Traditional Media to Citizen Journalism” in the school’s Master of Liberal Studies program.
In the class, students learn by doing. “Students are required to set up Twitter accounts and send Tweets as part of the class,” says Garcia, who administers the Simmons School’s Facebook page (facebook.com/smusimmons) and Twitter feed (twitter.com/smusimmons). “It’s not enough to just talk about it; they have to jump in and use it to really understand it.”
“Oh, no” was Trisha Mehis’ first reaction to Garcia’s Twitter requirement.
“I wasn’t a Twitter user, and I thought it was just another thing to have to check, in addition to e-mail and phone messages,” says Mehis, a senior project manager with SMU’s Office of Planning, Design and Construction, whose primary project is the new Annette Caldwell Simmons Hall.
After a few months of using Twitter, she’s a believer. “It came in handy during the snow day [the SMU campus was closed Feb. 11 after an 11-inch snowfall],” she says. “I didn’t have power at my house, but my cell phone had power and got the Tweet about the campus closing.”
What’s Next?
Morgan Stanley, a global financial services provider, released a 424-page report in December 2009 that predicts more people will access the Internet through their smart phones than their desktops by 2014. And that presents another opportunity for SMU to connect with the University community and external constituents.
“We’re increasing our efforts in the mobile Web arena,” Alexander says. “We’re working on ways to offer content for the broadest population of users. One example is iPhone applications, but we also want to be accessible and open to other devices as well.”
– Patricia Ward
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