Curious about Facebook? Thinking about starting a blog for your summer research program? Administrators and directors of educational programs in the sciences generally agree that social media have a strong potential to support and advance their programs. But given the wide variety of social-media choices, how does one get started?
The Institute for Broadening Participation, which promotes diversity in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) fields, conducted interviews in 12 undergraduate and graduate programs in the sciences that are using social media. The survey found a number of best practices, grouped according to four common goals:
Encourage outreach and recruitment.
- Get the word out about your program through a Facebook page, ideally in conjunction with your institutional marketing efforts. Post frequent updates on activities, including photos (be sure to get permission from subjects), program highlights, student successes, forthcoming events, and application announcements. For example, the Facebook page for the Sea Camp program at Texas A&M University at Galveston, which introduces children to marine biology, shows young campers encountering penguins and learning about ecology while kayaking. Parents and scientists alike add their comments. Tagging photos with students’ names can help to bring friends of friends to the page.
- Highlight profiles of alumni on LinkedIn and Facebook and in newsletters. Prominent alumni can serve as role models and mentors for current students, and can become valuable recruiters.
- Integrate student blogs into your recruitment efforts. For example, the University Graduate School at Indiana University appoints graduate-student “emissaries’ to blog about their experiences. They offer tips on variety of topics, including networking, local attractions, and balancing work and life.
- Share information like program updates and application deadlines via e-mail lists. They are easy to understand and administer, and work well for those who prefer electronic interactions. Ask around— there may be existing lists you could join to expand your recruitment reach.
Build a sense of community.
- Well before a program begins, create a closed Facebook group and invite all new students and participants to join. Use prompts like photos and icebreaker posts to elicit introductions, and use the group to post logistical information and answer questions.
- Ask program participants to create Linked In profiles before completing the program. That will encourage peer critique and support, along with discussion about career pathways.
Improve student presentation and dissemination of work.
n Integrate blogs into your curricular activities to increase student motivation, track progress, and provide feedback on student work. Blogs provide a convenient and familiar way for students to communicate informally and process what they learn in a longer form than offered by Facebook. They also provide a forum for peer engagement and faculty feedback. Example: As part of a summer research program in emerging interface technologies at Iowa State University, the undergraduate participants blogged about their research projects, final presentations, and extracurricular activities, including a visit to a local farm.
Track your graduates.
- Use Facebook to find and draw program alumni back into the community.
- Leverage your networks by using LinkedIn, and ask alumni to reach out via their professional and personal networks to locate other former participants.
The program directors we surveyed recommend identifying goals and having a strategy in place before starting out. It’s not impossible to figure it out as you go—in fact, many leaders of the successful programs we spoke with started off in just this way—but most administrators reflected that some guidance and planning would have prevented wasted time and effort.
You’ll also want to gauge the success of the social-media tools you use. Give students and others the chance to offer feedback in surveys before and after the program. Many tools provide straightforward and free analysis features that can be helpful in assessing your efforts, such as Facebook Insight and Google Analytics.
Training is also important, since the social-media landscape is constantly evolving. Provide refresher seminars for administrators and faculty and staff members. Even if you think a particular tool or app or Web site is self-explanatory, not all users will agree.
You’ll find that different groups of users prefer different tools. Many faculty members and some students are hesitant about embracing social-media tools because of privacy concerns or questions about whether they will be acceptable for research. If possible, sample your group members’ preferences. If several channels are needed to reach everyone, and you are ready for multiple social-media tools, consider using an app like HootSuite, which allows you to send a single post through all your social-media channels at once.
Once you have a strategy in place, keeping content fresh is essential. Without exception, interviewees considered frequency and relevance of content crucial to keeping their audiences engaged. That can be done most effectively by those who already use social media, know the program context, and are part of the community being engaged. In other words, find someone who likes this stuff!
While it typically takes time and effort to grow a vibrant virtual community, you may find yourself surprised. Starting a lab blog to support research may create momentum and help your program develop a larger following. A quick review of your program’s communication goals, audience, and capabilities will start you on your way to creating a successful social-media strategy.