Social media sites went crazy with the death of Osama bin Laden. People shared the news as a status update, blogged about it ad nauseam and tweeted until it trended.
Some celebrated, some worried for American soldiers’ safety and others condemned the need to kill a man as punishment for killing men. Regardless of personal opinion, the world event was cause for discussion.
So why were so many colleges and universities absent from the conversation?
This post is not to say all institutions needed to take a stand on the death of bin Laden; but that they should realize their potential role to foster a greater dialogue. Trivia contests and T-shirt giveaways are great but social media sites have the power and potential to be so much more.
What better place to promote the free exchange of ideas than through a social site moderated by an institution of higher learning? Doesn’t this action align better with a university’s mission than post-game party pics? Social media can provide a perfect platform for civic debate and difficult discussion.
The trick to treading into murky waters is trust.
Trust the plan.
If a university does not have a plan to navigate such sticky issues, stop reading this post now. Go write a plan. Talk about tough issues and how one might appropriately respond. Work through scenarios. Draft a policy for comments that clearly spells out how the university will respond to questionable posts. Once the policy and plan are in place, trust the plan.
Trust the people you put in place.
Social media management should not be left to an hourly intern who comes and goes with the ebb and flow of an academic year. The community manager coordinating these accounts should be a communications professional trusted by administration.
Time flies fast in a social world. Community managers need to be able to act and feel confident their actions will be backed by the people who sign the paychecks. Conversely, administrators need to know the university’s brand is in good hands. Appoint trustworthy social media managers and let them do their job.
Trust the community.
Posters, for the most part, are an amazingly self-correcting bunch. Those with more level heads are often the first to challenge those who post bad information or drone on in a negative tone. An anonymous poster standing up for the university is worth far more than a university standing up for itself. People are good. Trust them to do the right thing.
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Patrick,
Good post. Have you seen (or created) examples of great social media policy document outlining the parameters you’ve noted. I’ve been charged with creating such a document for Washington & Lee University. Your assistance is much appreciated.
Enjoy following your tweets and posts.
Ryan
Good topic, Patrick, and great points about the different dimensions of trust at play.
I myself was nervous about how to acknowledge the issue. On FB, I posted a blog entry by one of our professors talking about the psychology of closure in the wake of Bin Laden’s death. On Twitter, I tweeted the following – “On a day like today, the words emblazoned on the university’s seal come to mind: Pax et Lux” (http://twitter.com/#!/TuftsUniversity/status/65060634420711424) which got a bunch of RTs. One person questioned what this meant (was I saying he deserves peace in the afterlife?!?), and I explained (http://twitter.com/#!/TuftsUniversity/status/65060634420711424). The person responded, “Thanks!”
I thought these were proper ways to acknowledge the topic and spur dialogue without taking a stand or expressing an opinion, since there were lots of mixed views on the news that day. Maybe not a perfect approach, but it worked out.
Ryan, some great university policies can be found here:
http://socialmediagovernance.com/policies.php?f=5
Georgy, thanks for the great example. We took a similar approach on Facebook, highlighting actions students initiated on their own (They placed nearly 3,000 American flags across campus). The actions spurred the conversation and all I had to do was moderate. The page recorded tons of traffic and garnered several new likes.