To build trust and a solid working relationship with a colleague, avoid CC’ng their manager on emails as much as possible. It shows respect. Besides, managers don’t have time to read emails that don’t directly concern them, putting you in danger of getting on the auto-delete list.

1. Out-of-date user experience

Since Google has changed the way the world discovers content on the web with its minimalist one-step search functionality, libraries face an uphill battle to persuade students and researchers to utilize an out-of-date user experience to find scholarly material, and are becoming increasingly less important during the users’ search process.

2. Unmanageable querying

What used to be a luxury for querying is now the standard. Running multiple queries in multiple databases has become an nagging inconvenience for users. The demand for aggregated content from a variety of sources is becoming increasingly popular as the world-leading web services continue to set the standard.

3. Lack of Coverage

It’s widely known that Discovery Solutions must cover a wide variety of content repositories in order to provide a minimum acceptable experience for today’s user. In 2010, it’s rare to find one that doesn’t meet this baseline requirement – because if it didn’t, it wouldn’t have lasted long enough for us to hear about.

4. Poor Quality

Under the “unacceptable” category for most students, researchers, faculty and library staff is the unscholarly content. The need to find scholarly content can’t be compromised, and any discovery solution should enable library staff to influence the quality of results based on their wealth of expertise – thus combating this issue.

5. Inability to Influence Rank

“Your resources are valuable. And if you’re like every other library, you’ve poured decades of time and resources into maintaining the quality of your institution’s content. When aggregating multiple repositories into one, the ration of remote content to local content becomes very skewed, very fast. A good Discovery Solution would allow your team to control how prominent your treasured resources are amongst the ocean of content being harvested.

6. Endangerment of local resources

“Both anecdotal and statistical data show that search engine users rarely go past the first 2-3 pages of search results. If your staff is unable to influence what users see amongst the 600M search results, the institution’s local resources run the risk of becoming less and less important.”

7. Redundancy of content/content overlap

A major point of frustration during a user’s search occurs when the same source begins to show up from different sources. Created to alleviate this problem, Discovery Solutions should include functionality to resolve duplicate links, and prioritize the resources that your library has access to.

8. Too much time spent during searches

Researchers don’t utilize the library for the sake of utilizing the library. Instead, they utilize the library to access quality content in the shortest amount of time possible in order to get back on with their busy lives. Discovery Solutions should save users time where possible – not make an already lengthy process longer.

9. Users searching in a silo

For decades, students and researchers were forced to conduct research on their own, despite the fact that hundreds of people have performed the same queries around the world and over time. Discovery Solutions should leverage the data that other researchers like them generated. When this is done, search time is cut into a fraction, and your library systems become smarter by the minute.

10. Flexibility/options after the discovery is made

Too many articles are viewed where the primary source of that article is buried behind several links, making the discovery unnecessarily confusing.

Since Discovery Solutions are implemented to solve a variety of problems (of which content coverage is only one) it’s important to consider the full gamut during your evaluation process.

At Inigral, the majority of our conversations with colleges and universities are dedicated to establishing the differences between the many uses of social media on campus. The stigma we most often face is rooted in the belief that social media tools like Facebook and Twitter are “checkboxes on a checklist,” and once you create your institution’s Facebook Page, you can check off the “Facebook” checkbox.

This is very unfortunate, and totally misses the bigger picture of what social media is capable of doing for your campus community. As a community we have to begin to look at social media in a more accurate light in order to begin to reap the benefits of it’s power. In this article, I outline five different uses of social media in the university setting in an effort to help us get the most out of social media on campus.

Social Media as a Marketing tool

The most common use of social media in higher education is marketing. The household names that our departments have deeply integrated into strategies are all being used to push out media and information to your community at large. From YouTube videos to tweets, the organization is able to have conversations with the community on mostly an organizational level, and sometimes on a personal level. But for the most part, information is being sent to the community in order to keep them up to date with what’s happening on campus. That is social media as a marketing tool.

Examples:

• Facebook Pages
• Twitter accounts
• YouTube Channels
• Blogs

Social Media for Teaching and Learning

Another popular function of social media on campus was born in the classroom. Teaching may be an intrinsically social activity. And companies have identified opportunities to incorporate social media into the teaching and learning process in order to encourage dialogues to carry outside of the classroom. While this primarily functions as an information exchange for faculty and students, there is a community building aspect of incorporating social media into the classroom that allows relationships to be built around academics. But this is a byproduct as opposed to a primary goal – which defines our next category: Social Media for Community Building.

Examples:

• Blackboard
• Mixable (by the Purdue University “Studio”)

Social Media for Community Building

While it’s proven that there’s an opportunity to build relationships inside of the classroom, a new area of social media is increasing in popularity that is focused on building relationships outside of the classroom. We call it Social Media for Community Building. And it’s the missing piece of the puzzle for Admissions departments, Enrollment Management departments, and Student Services departments that are seeking to engage their audiences using social media.

Examples:

• Schools on Facebook
• Facebook Groups
• Foursquare

Social Administrative Tools

Another up-and-coming use of social media is to make administrative processes around campus more efficient. Just last week, we wrote about Florida State’s use of Hootsuite to streamline communications with admitted students.

• HootSuite
• CoTweet

Integrating Facebook into your Marketing strategy is the easiest way for your community to show love for your brand. This is because the “LIke” button takes the thought out of the process for Facebook users by aligning it as much as possible with real world action.

TextualAds takes your brand deeper into your fan’s offline experience by texting them with announcements, coupons, sales, and other events. But in order to seize the moment, you have to convert your fans from Facebook to Mobile. In this article, learn several ways to make the conversion – keeping in mind that the hard part is already done, because they already “Like” what you offer them.

1. Naming your tab “Mobile”

Upon creating an ad campaign through TextualAds, you have the freedom to choose a name. This flexibility is necessary for brands who have already established a mobile presence on Facebook separate from TextualAds. However, we strongly recommend naming your campaign tab “Mobile”. Within the context of your brand’s page, it resonates within the user’s mind as your brand communicating with them via mobile. From a design perspective, the word mobile is only 7 letters, and is a part of everyone’s daily vernacular. This means little to no education has to be done on your part to increase adoption of opting into your TextualAds.

2. Default Landing Tab

If you are like CocaCola and have more than 10,000 Likes, Facebook allows you to determine which Tab visitors land on when visiting your Page. This affords you the opportunity to make your TextualAds campaign your default landing tab. For more information about choosing a default landing tab, read here.

3. Clear Calls-to-Action Throughout Your Facebook Page

If your TextualAds campaign is not your default landing tab, placing a clear call-to-action on your default landing tab makes it easier to drive visitors to the tab. Whether a large arrow pointing to the tab, or a regularly-scheduled wall posts prompting visitors to sign up for SMS Alerts, this is another method that we consider “low-hanging fruit.”

4. Facebook Ads

Get two birds with one stone by creating a Facebook Ad campaign for your TextualAds campaign. This method allows you to recruit Facebook users to Like your Page, along with getting new and existing fans to sign up for your TextualAds campaign. Simply follow the normal process for creating a Facebook Ad, and link it to the “Mobile” tab URL provided after creating your TextualAds campaign. Learn more about creating a Facebook Ad Campaign here.

5. “Write Something Here” box

As another piece of low-hanging fruit, placing text in the editable box on the left sidebar that prompts visitors to “click the mobile tab”. This is effective because of the large percentage of visitors that view your Page profile picture and the text directly underneath.

6. Promotions on Your Wall

If your Page is like other Pages, most of the action unfolds on your Wall. Offering promotions and incentives for users to sign up for your TextualAds campaign can be effective, especially when posted onto your Wall. This puts the promotion into the news feeds of your Facebook community, and allows them to reach the “Mobile” tab even when they aren’t on your Page.

“Our Registrar’s office uses both Facebook and Twitter to keep students informed about important deadlines and other things going on around campus,” says Sklens. “We also occasionally share articles that we think are relevant to the office body.”

Sklens and his team use Hootsuite — a popular Twitter Management application that offers rich functionality around managing multiple Twitter accounts. At the beginning of the Fall term, Sklens pulled up FSU’s academic calendar and scheduled reminder posts on HootSuite for the important events based on their deadlines. For really important deadlines, like the deadline to drop classes, he set up two reminders. The first goes out a few days before the deadline, and the second goes out the morning of.

“Having all of these reminders scheduled is great. But I think this system really shines when something goes wrong,” Mike believes. What he’s referring to is the inevitable hiccup in the registration windows open, and the system gets overloaded and goes down. This is when they experience the power of using HootSuite. “Typically, students call and let us know. We used to tell them to check in 30 minutes, and to call back if it still wasn’t working. Now we ask them to follow us on Twitter or Facebook. When the system goes down, we post a message letting people know. We post another message as soon as the system is up and running again. This has saved us so much trouble.”

There was an instance where Sklens was able to solve a student’s problem without him even asking for help. The student couldn’t register and mentioned it on Twitter. Sklens spotted the message in a Twitter search that he has saved. His username happened to be his actual name, allowing Sklens to look his file up and fix the registration issue. Once fixed, he sent the student a Direct Message on Twitter to let him know.

“This kind of secret customer service is one of my favorite things about Twitter,” Mike says. “I’d love to be able to do it more often, but FERPA gets in the way. Most problems require that I verify the student’s identity, or discuss private information — neither of which I’m entirely sure are “OK” to do on Twitter under FERPA.”

Atleast in the case of the student mentioned, Sklens didn’t have to verify his identity or reveal any of his personal information to help him out. He was able to solve the problem by sending a message saying “It’s fixed, call us if you’re still having problems.” This was also able to be done privately through DM, and not a public reply. As this becomes the norm at institutions across the country, we can start to see how this is a strong case for social media being more than just a fad.

But Facebook is changing the way we interact with the internet by allowing websites to know who you are before you ever fill out any information on that site. It’s called Instant Personalization, and while it’s not taking the web by storm thanks to Facebook learning from previous poorly-planned product launches, it is surely a representation of the future of the web.

Instant Personalization allows a website to know who you are prior to telling it, based on information Facebook has given that website about you. Some people will view this is a huge improvement to their internet experience because their favorite website can now make it effortless for that person to get the most out of it. Rather than having to register and log in, recommendations from your friends and family will greet you upon visiting the website.

Pandora Internet Radio's Instant Personalization Messaging

Others feel that this is a privacy consideration, and that there’s no reason for a website to know things that we don’t actively tell it. Facebook learned a lesson or two when it comes to privacy. This time around, they’ve taken good measure to accommodate the private person. The New York Times has a straightforward walkthrough on how to opt out of the new feature.

For those of us with reservations, it’s not totally necessary to opt-out at this point. The social networking giant carefully chose three partners to launch Instant Personalization. Only three websites have access to the Facebook tool at this point: Yelp, Pandora, and Microsoft’s Docs.com.

Inigral feels Instant Personalization is going to dramatically improve your experience with the internet, helping you to evaluate new sites and new content by customizing it using information about your friends and interests.  We just want you to know, that way if a story breaks about the next big privacy scare you’re prepared and know what’s coming.

Read about Facebook’s partnership with Y-Combinator to expand Instant Personalization here.

Alongside of this marketing effort, building community amongst targeted groups within your diverse audience is a key goal. It allows universities to make admitted students and current students feel as if they belong at their institution. Typically, colleges have done this through using Facebook Groups for a class of incoming freshman (e.g. Class of 2014, etc…). This is a nice, free compliment to Facebook Pages, and allows a small group of admitted students to come into a centralized place for students to congregate. Here are some other benefits:

• Ability to make group private
• Have discussions
• Upload video and photos
• Easily view group administrators
• Assign different roles to group administrators

While Facebook Groups are a good start to getting more out of Facebook, there are some limitations for colleges and universities who want to use Facebook to impact business goals like yield and retention.

• Lots of work
• Students (or administrators) have to manually create discussions
• Students have to stumble upon others like them
• Administrators have to manually check the Group often for maintenance
• Facebook has access to and owns all data within the group (dorm addresses, class schedules, phone numbers, etc..)

Speaking with hundreds of administrators across the country has given us great insight into administrative concerns. A reoccurring theme we hear is around saving time, and having less work to do when managing social media. As a result. we’ve designed Schools on Facebook to do everything that Facebook Groups does, in a more efficient way, plus much more. Here are some key differences between Schools on Facebook and Facebook Groups:

• Your institution own all data generated inside of the application, not Facebook
• Students are automatically introduced to other students like them
• Advanced moderation capabilities (keyword alerts, private messaging) to save your staff time
• Campus-specific Facebook profiles for students, faculty, and staff
• Intelligent support for majors, dorms, and other official campus affiliations

To learn more about Facebook Pages, Facebook Groups, and how they differ from Facebook Applications like Schools on Facebook, check out our Frequently Asked Questions.

1. Sharing where you are
2. Seeing who’s around you
3. Seeing what’s happening where you are

Check out this video explanation of Facebook Places called “Why to Check In?”

If a friend of yours stops nearby, Facebook will send you a notification. This allows you to have a serindipitous meetings more often, taking the online power of Facebook into the real world. Facebook hasn’t released Places until now because they wanted to nail down a good set of features separate from what location-based pioneers Foursquare and Gowalla offer. The tagging product that the team came up with is very different from anything you’ll see elsewhere.

Features Overview

• Checking-in
• Tagging friends
• Seeing other people
• Claiming Place Pages (for colleges, universities, and Page administrators)
• Removing check-ins

Checking-in and Tagging Friends

When you check-in, you see a list of places around you. Another unique feature is that Places sorts the list based on what is most interesting to you, not just what’s nearby. At the same time, you can search for specific places nearby, or add a new place.

The privacy settings are set to “friends only” by default. You can always change this. Also, you can only tag your friends. And you can only tag your friends if you are checked-in at that place as well. You can remove any tag as well. They added the ability to let you opt-out of any person tagging you. Set the setting to “disabled.”

Mark Zuckerberg and Chris Cox made it clear that Places is not about broad activity with the world. It’s about sharing where you are with your friends. Checking-in at a place creates a news feed item on that place page. People don’t need to have an iPhone to take part in Places. People can tag their Facebook friends when Checking-in.

Place Pages

Each place page has a recent activity section, and has a news feed for each place, letting users interact with each story. On the web, there’s a “facepile” for each page, that lets you know all of your friends at a specific place.

Availability of Facebook Places

It’s available on the touch.facebook.com website and an iPhone. It is rolling out gradually from in the US first. iPhone app and Touch website. Not available to all 500M people initially. Get there as soon as they can. It will be visible on the web to everyone. If you’re not in the U.S., you can still see if your U.S. friends are using it. You just won’t be able to check-in.

Integration with Other Location-Based Services

Scott Raymond of Gowalla spoke about how Gowalla has had Facebook Platform and Connect support from day 1. For Gowalla users, the experience will largely remain the same. Stamp your passport, and choose to publish to Facebook or not. Your friends will be able to see the position on a map. Gowalla also allows you to add a photo to your check-in, and count towards the Facebook check-in as well.

Holger Luedorf, Mobile & Partnerships VP at Foursquare, spoke about the gaming element, badges, point systems, and familiarizing people with the concept of the check-in. Checking-in is at the core of Facebook Places, and they are excited to see it grow.

Eric Singley, Mobile Products Director at Yelp discussed the success of Yelp’s iPhone and Android App, and how they are pulling Facebook check-ins into the Yelp app.

Resources

• Facebook’s Announcement of “Places”
• Learning about the Facebook Places API
• Connecting your Facebook Page to Facebook Places [PDF]
• The Sociological Context to Location-Based Services
• Controlling your privacy settings in Facebook Places

(for hi-res version of this image, reply to @inigral on Twitter with #GroupAnatomy in the tweet.)

Group Name

First things first, naming your group is key. It’s the first field when you’re creating your group, and it’s one of three required steps. So far, there’s no real standard for how to name your group, mainly due to the varied use cases of creating a group. Including your institution’s name is generally a good idea however.

Group Type

Typically, you want to choose “Student Groups,” which will allow you to drill down to choose the specific category your group falls under on your campus.

Facebook for college admissions: Group Type

Profile Picture

Many Facebook Groups around campus use a customized image that includes the name of the Group in the image. While everyone may not consider this a best practice, it is a common one that helps each user achieve instant recognition of what the Group is for. The better quality the design of this Profile Picture, the more official the Group seems.

“Write Something Here”

Similar to a Facebook Page, your Group has a box dedicated solely to describing your Group in 250 characters. Think of this box as the second thing you would tell a person about you that you just met, after telling them your name.

Tabs

Different from Facebook Pages, Tabs within a Facebook Group are more limited. Here are the tabs Facebook installs by default:

• Wall
• Info
• Discussions
• Photos
• Video
• Events

Group Privacy

The biggest difference between Groups and Pages is that Facebook allows you to make groups “open,” “closed,” or “secret.” Examples of “closed” groups are clubs, organizations, or departments that have membership or staff that are not as simple as an “opt-in” policy. Groups set to “secret” could range anywhere from classes to scholarship recipients who don’t want their identity disclosed.

Facebook for college admissions: Group Privacy Settings

Officers

Another difference between Groups and Pages is that Groups allow you to appoint “Officers” for the Group. This is done simply by choosing members from the Group on the “Edit Group Settings” page, under the “Officers” tab. And removing officers is as simple as adding them – one click.

Information (Info)

Called “Information” on the sidebar tab, the Info tab also lives at the top of your Group, and is used to provide basic information about your college both on and off of Facebook. Institutions typically use this as an opportunity to post links to important websites, an address, and a main phone number to call with any questions.

Wall

Next to Discussion Pages, the Wall is typically the most active part of your Group. You are able to customize what your Groups members can and can’t do in your Group, including whether they can post on the Wall or not.

Share

The last part of your Facebook Group worth noting is on the bottom left of the Group. It’s a “Share” button, which allows visitors to share your Group with their Facebook friends, or anyone with an email address. As an administrator, you don’t have to share using this button, because you have the capability to use the “Invite” feature in the Group.

A Win for Inigral’s Marketing Team

When our marketing team would log into CoTweet, it was typically a waste of time. Not that the people we followed weren’t tweeting about interesting things. It’s just that it’s difficult to browse those tweets efficiently when you’re following 800 people. So we are currently conducting an experiment to curate lists for each of the departments that our company is interested in. Rather than combing through the tweets of 800 people (90% of which are not in First-Year Experience departments), I can now go to our nifty Student Life Twitter list, and get targeted tweets on that topic.

A Win for Higher Ed Staff and Faculty

Twitter Lists are also great because they provide great exposure to people who we are following. When we used to follow 700 people, it was unrealistic to expect someone to comb through dozens of pages to get a feel for who is who in higher education on Twitter.

Since Lists are available to public view, anyone can visit http://twitter.com/inigral/student-life to see the Student Life champions that Inigral thinks are important. Before this, people would have had to comb through 800 folks to find Ed Cabellon, Eric Stoller, or Pete Pereira. And trust me, there are people who want to discover the who’s who in each college department. We just want to make it easier.

(Sidenote: We made a conscious decision not to make a list called “social media”. As ironic as that sounds, we felt it just wouldn’t be productive, nor accurate. The truth is that every department on campus is involved with social media now. And from an organizational perspective, we will need to start to rethink what each of our departments means as the dust from the social media gold rush continues to settle. Rather than it’s own department, it is becoming a thread inside of each department – allowing people to begin to focus on their department’s business goals, and how social media will help them accomplish those goals, as opposed to how their department’s business goals can justify their use of social media. More on this topic to come.)