AGSA - Best Social Networking Sites

The best social networking sites for the Albers Graduate Student Association - AGSA

1. Facebook - Over the past six months the AGSA Facebook page has gathered 127 followers. This accounts for only about 1/4 of the total Albers graduate students. However, the good news is that these 127 followers are our "talkers." They are active participants in extracurricular school activities and competitions, and include the people who regularly attend AGSA events and respond to invites. We have gathered these followers primarily though adding "like" us on Facebook links at the end of every email correspondence sent to the graduate school "ListServ." The hope is to double this number by the end of the 2011-2012 academic school year. Facebook has been the primary medium for interacting, connecting and promoting events to Albers graduate students. However, the content on the page needs to be vastly improved. The page is not very engaging and generally only includes posts about upcoming events. The page needs more pictures from past events with students tagged in those pictures, and should encourage others to upload their event photos. More relevant content should be posted like links to articles about the job market and MBA information from around the globe. Facebook also provides a great opportunity to take polls about potential events. One such example would be to take a poll about whether people would be interested in a graduation cruise. We know the majority of our target audience, Albers students age 25 - 40+, have Facebook pages but we need to expand our reach in order to create awareness and buzz about the association.

2. LinkedIn/Blogs - According to socialnomics guru Eric Qualman, "80% of companies use social media for recruitment...95% of those companies used LinkedIn." If 80% of companies basically use LinkedIn for recruitment then AGSA needs to be a part of helping graduate students leverage this social media tool. I don't know a single graduate student who isn't concerned about landing their ideal job after graduation. Currently, AGSA has yet to utilize LinkedIn as a marketing channel despite that it is included in the overall marketing strategy. No one has taken the time to create and monitor the page. Now is the time to generate some buzz via LinkedIn as it provides an ideal platform for AGSA. Leveraging the network of current students and alumni for potential job leads can be achieved with LinkedIn. For example, the Albers Alumni page is filled with posts regarding job openings. AGSA can provide a platform to also share these types of posts along with discussion boards. Like Facebook, it is a great place to post questions and take polls about upcoming potential events and topics that are of concern to Albers students and offers more room for people to comment on the posts. It is also a great space to inform students about graduate research assistant opportunities, the mentor program and many other events offered by the Student Activities Center and Career Development Center. Reposting links from their pages would help create awareness about AGSA while helping promote relevant SU content. Utilizing LinkedIn like a blog space via the discussion boards to talk about student issues and provide links to the quarterly newsletter would also be beneficial. It will be important to link the Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter pages together so content can be shared on all three channels.

In general the idea would be to assign a social media producer to manage each site. The VP of Student Development would monitor LinkedIn, VP Marketing & Communications would monitor Facebook, and the VP Event Planning would monitor Twitter. This way there would be three people posting relevant content to each site at least once/week so that each site would include a total of 3 posts/week.

3. Twitter and 4Square Check-Ins
Twitter can best be utilized to promote upcoming events and to ask people to help promote AGSA and serve as a Seattle University ambassador by retweeting these events to their friends. It will be important to offer incentives for #RT's like coupons from Capitol Hill businesses or discounts on upcoming AGSA event tickets. It is also a great platform to post a few pictures and video links from around campus and at AGSA events that can be easily shared, downloaded and viewed on students cell phones. Again posts should be linked to Facebook and LinkedIn for even more reach.

Encouraging people to "check-in" via Foursquare is also a great opportunity to generate buzz about AGSA and the types of events that are held since most people who use 4Square link the site directly to Facebook and Twitter. Creating a special AGSA badge that can be earned on 4Square after four event check-ins would be an ideal way to track its use and success. As an incentive after 4 check-ins students earn the AGSA badge and a free AGSA water bottle. Not only do students get the water bottle but they will carry it around to class and it will serve as a visual reminder/advertisement to other students while sitting in class. Additionally the water bottle promotes the SU recycling initiative and no water bottles sold on campus/water fountain bottle refill policy. After 10 event check-ins students will receive 2 free tickets for the end of year graduation cruise valued at approximately $120.