Recently, Melbourne Business School has started participating in various online social communities such as Twitter, YouTube and Facebook. When I worked at MBS, I advocated using some of these services for different reasons and to see them using all of them at once leaves me with some mixed feelings. I thought I'd drop some initial thoughts on the use of some of these services.
MBS is using Twitter to promote the "Melbourne Experience." This is definitely targeted at international students and tweets point to things like Melbourne bars and breakfast spots (aside: for those considering Melbourne, we have plenty of such venues). I've been using Twitter for a while now, but I have NEVER used them to scope out a future destination and I probably wouldn't. If I was interested in Melbourne, I would follow a known MBS student and if I was interested in Melbourne, I would follow someone (anyone interesting) who lived in Melbourne.
Advice: Tweet for the benefit of current students. Potential students might take an interest.
YouTube
I advocated YouTube as a no-frills way to host video on someone else's server and get maximum exposure. MBS has gotten this one right; now that the videos are on YouTube, they are easy to embed on their web site and someone else can foot the bill for bandwidth.
Advice: Replace existing videos on the website with their YouTube embeds.
Blogger
People's experiences in Melbourne are diverse, and Melbourne has a lot to offer. For example, I don't care much for footy, but I do know a lot about where to eat and the IT industry in Melbourne. I'd like to share, but I don't have a proper outlet.
Aside from this blog, students also have a Dean's Blog and I see no reason why they can't be combined.
Advice: Combine multiple blogs into one. Consider guest authors covering niche topics for potential students.
The most likely to be vandalized or result in some PR disaster (except for perhaps MySpace which I'm not going to cover because I'm not a teenage girl), Facebook is a high risk, high return adventure.
The duplicate content between here and the blog worries me, mostly because if this process is not automated, it can become very difficult to manage. But let's face it, people are Facebook-addicted and what kind of social media experiment would be complete without Facebook?
Advice: Try to synchronize content across the blog, YouTube and Twitter to Facebook. Watch the posts carefully.
The problem with LinkedIn is that it fails to draw a distinction between people who work at MBS and those who study there. This a problem, as students generally don't care about the career path of former MBS employees nor do they particularly care to link up with, say, a former IT business analyst there. New students are not "new hires" and seeing that on LinkedIn just seems wrong.
Advice: Keep LinkedIn for staff. If staff, especially faculty, keep their engagements up to date, this will intrigue potential students who are interested in research and general academia.
Conclusion
This post is really nitpicking. MBS has taken a great step forward and should be commended for pursuing different channels for delivering their message and connecting to current and future constituents.
