The Case for Proprietary Social Networking Sites or How to Prevent Facebookgate
by Kathryn Spruill, Stein | December 22nd, 2008By now everyone in higher ed with an internet connection has posted about the misrepresentation in Facebook groups. (Inside Higher Ed’s summary here.) At the Stein HQ we’ve been commenting that this is a great opportunity to explore the benefits of an institution building their own social network for admitted students.
Exclusive access to the community. If you can invite your admitted student pool with a unique identifier required to register, there’s no chance of any College Prowler interns posing and getting in. At the same time, the students know all their peers have been invited in, vs. facebook where only the over eager beaver types search out groups and join on their own initiative.
Insights and oversights. Look for a product where you can see the discussions and address them appropriately. I’m not advocating that admission officers lead the discussions and that every staff member should have their own profile. But in a worst case scenario, you have the contact information on every member to handle any situation confidentially.
You might be wondering if the “official” presence would hinder the freeflowing conversation we have all seen on institution’s facebook groups and other online forums. Stein has a social networking tool that has been on the market for five years (which actually predates facebook) and in that time, we have seen students discussing everything from their scholarship offers at other schools to what dorm they said they wouldn’t want to live in. Clearly it has not been our experience to see any reluctance from students to talk about whatever they wish.
Boosts yield. We have all seen that the extra excitement built around the school in online forums does help students along in their enrollment decision process. For one of our clients, 75% of the students who used the site ended up enrolling.
Now, this is not to say there isn’t tangible value to participating actively on existing sites like facebook. But to do so effectively, it is important to dedicate resources to maintaining your school’s presence. (See mStoner’s recommendations.)
