In academia it seems as though organizations are scrambling to implement some sort of social media plan.There is widespread recognition that social media is an effective way to reach people. Like any business, colleges and universities have customers they need to reach (students) and goods they have to sell (degrees). The problem however is that universities don’t act like businesses. Sometimes they don’t even act like everyone in the room is playing for the same team.

First an organization that is looking into social media needs to ask itself is why they wan to make this move and who are they trying to reach? They also need to consider the pace of change in technology. You can’t treat social media like you would a stapler or a three hole punch, it’s not a durable good. In education, planning typically moves at a glacial pace. That new computer lab that just went in is using funds that were approved last year from a proposal that happened the year prior. That’s why you seldom see anything resembling state of the art in any educational setting (unless the school has very deep pockets or the project was something that came from a donation or endowment). Something as straight forward as a new website design can go from fresh to outdated before it’s even finished because of the multiple levels of approval that projects such as that can face.

Look at the speed with which an item like the smartphone has developed. In a little over 5 years the smartphone went from being an expensive novelty to an essential object in many households. Social media poses the same sort of problem only the pace of change is even more rapid because unlike hardware there are no inventories to clear out. When planning how to integrate something as changeable as social media into the classroom it is vital to avoid locking oneself into any particular tool or service. Tools change but the basic thing you are trying to accomplish does not. If you know what you want your end result to be going in then the tool used to accomplish it is immaterial. Social media gives you a way to push out tour message and a way to get information from your clients. You need to be clear on what message you are sending and what data you want back in return. Unfortunately in the meetings I’ve witnessed the thinking doesn’t go much further than “we need a Facebook page” or “we need to be posting to Twitter”. You may as well try asking financial advice from your dog or expect your cat to write you a heart felt eulogy.

Saying you have a Twitter presence or groups in Facebook, Linkedin or whatever is the social media flavor of the week doesn’t mean shit without a plan for what to do with it. Understand what you want to say and why you want to say it. Then once the message goes out know what feedback you are looking for and what you plan to do with it when you get it. Once you’ve done that, then choose whatever tool is best suited to the task and be prepared to completely change it up because that awesome tool you’re using got bought by someone and they’re going to either kill it or completely screw it up.