Five Steps to Developing a Powerful Social Networking Strategy Creating web communities can help you build relationships of value with your most important constituents. Here’s how. H By Fritz McDonalD sometimes have startlingly few friends. to gain any benefit from the social web, institutional social networks need to build sustainable communities that grow and significantly expand their reach. simply throwing a page up on Facebook or pulling together your own online network is no guarantee of success. if you build it, they may or may not come. colleges and universities would be wise to develop networks that have the same kind of power that commercial networks like twitter or Myspace do—the power to attract members who will broadcast network benefits throughout the digital ecosystem, attract other members, and create an ongoing community that feeds marketing and recruiting efforts. These steps can help you establish a powerful institutional social network. May 2009 | 43 igHer eDucation is juMping on tHe social media bandwagon. a 2008 UMass-Dartmouth center for Marketing research study states that colleges and universities are adopting social media tactics faster than Fortune 500 companies. More than 700 institutional Facebook pages were launched by December 2007 shortly after the site opened its doors to corporations and nonprofits. But a review of edustyle’s gallery of social sites reveals a strong similarity among Facebook school pages. They typically include the kinds of photography and images available from campus marketing sources, don’t necessarily make the best use of outside applications and other robust Facebook features, and universitybusiness.com
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Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of University Business - May 2009