You might have been expecting a post about how my week has gone, but don’t be confused, be excited. It’s high time I started writing about the things I’ve been doing, namely communications and social media in academia. You might have guessed that from the title. But before I get into what I do and how to do it yourself, I should talk about who I am and who I’m not.
During my undergraduate degree, I focused on the philosophy of community, learning about how communities fit together. From a historical perspective, a sociological one, a feminist one, an ethical one, etc. I’m fascinated by the way we organize ourselves and the kinds of communities we create. I’m not an early adopter. I stuck to forums and online communities, posting under pseudonyms, until I realized that there’s no way to look at social media from the outside. In order to really understand the communities that exist there, you have to be a part of those communities. I got Facebook in 2010, and Twitter and LinkedIn soon after. I started blogging after my graduation in 2011 with Concept Crucible, a project originally designed to help me overcome my apprehension.
By the time I was in my Master’s, I was entrenched, so much so that one of my final papers was on authenticity and its relation to the online spaces, especially Twitter and LinkedIn, which are interestingly unlike any other space I’ve found. I began working with the University of Waterloo Department of Classical Studies, blogging for them and helping them not just with social media strategy, but in refining their goals and vision and turning their communications focus toward student engagement, one of the most important areas of higher education. I’m still a reviewer for Tiresias, their undergraduate journal, and for now I maintain Labyrinth, their blog. I also began consulting for the Research Group on Manuscript Evidence, planning their communications strategy and more recently helping them with fund development, now that I serve on their Publications Committee.
Most recently, I’ve been hired by the University of Waterloo Faculty Association as their communications coordinator. I’ve been helping develop engagement strategies both on social media and off, working with the board and the communications subcommittee, in addition to a number of other administrative tasks. The most interesting part of it, for me, is really needing to work with other people. When I’m consulting, I get to play the mentor, training people to maintain engagement themselves in order to ensure that it’s sustainable, but working within an organization, I have to work with committees and boards, passing ideas back and forth before implementing them. Still, it’s something I’m excited about, and I’m learning a lot.
That’s who I am. In short, I’m passionate about higher education and its importance, and that’s where I’ve focused my work in communications.
As to who I’m not, the first thing I’m not is the last word on anything. It’s my intent to make good arguments about how social media can be used to further engagement in higher education. With students, with faculty, with staff, with parents, and with the public. There are huge opportunities here, and some of them can only be explored by diving into them, rather than dipping our toes. I’ve only been doing this for a few years, and in a relatively focused field. there are a lot of people who know a lot more about communications and social media than me, and whenever possible, I’ll direct you to their work on the matter. But most social media experts are focused on business or building personal brands, not on the demands of an educational institution or academic society, who are entirely different beasts.
I’m not a marketing guy. I’m a blogger and a writer, but my degrees are in philosophy, not marketing or business. I didn’t design a campaign or look at case studies during grad school, I did research, wrote papers, and presented at conferences. Instead of taking graphic design, I studied Latin and ancient Greek. I’m going to do my best not to talk about marketing or campaigns, because they’re not things I’m an expert on, which puts me at a bit of a disadvantage. What I lack in marketing experience however, I make up for in academic experience. I bring the to table a view from the inside, first as a student, then a student leader, then a graduate student, and now as a mentor to students.
Finally, I am not full of crap. I wrote a piece on advice some months ago on Concept Crucible, and I meant it. there’s a lot of what I’d call wishy-washy advice on these kinds of things, statements loaded with buzzwords and jargon. It doesn’t have to be that way. It’s not some new phenomenon that no one really understands. It’s the same way you connect with people anyway, over different media. That’s all. I’m going to devote half my time here talking about the technical aspects of it and how the nuances work in higher education, and the other half talking about various communication strategies, how they work, and why. My goal is to create a resource for universities and their associated companies, as well as students and student societies. That involves clear writing and explanations. I will never say “The secret to Twitter is following your heart.”
With that said, class is in session. The first lesson will be that social media is like scuba diving.
