Patrick Powers

The social media landscape is littered with casualties, deserted Facebook pages and abandoned Twitter accounts set up to be the savior of a brand. Walls without posts. Albums without photos. Brands without a fan. Most often these accounts fail for one reason: They failed to set a goal in the first place. Goals focus attention, [...]

There’s a scene in the 1983 classic “Mr. Mom” when new stay-at-home dad Jack Butler attempts to drop off his kids at school. It’s a simple task, really, but as his kids and others are quick to point out, he’s doing it wrong. When it comes to location-based services and how we employ them in [...]

It’s all about the A-B-C’s in education, why should resources for higher education professionals be any different?

Webster University this year partnered with SCVNGR to host a 3-day event to increase participation and enhance the orientation experience. It became more successful than our wildest dreams.

I love it when a university doesn’t take it self so seriously that it forgets the most important aspect of social media — social media is fun. So kudos to you, Oregon State University. The video description puts it simply: “Meet new people, stay up to date on campus events and just generally have fun.” [...]

It could be easy to get glum on the future of Facebook check-in deals — so few businesses seem to take the time to set them up and, in return, so few people use the service to claim them. So why am I still keen on the idea of setting them up in higher education? [...]

Foursquare on Monday made available to all colleges and university badges previously reserved only for those institutions that partnered with the location-based service. It’s a growth strategy long overdue and, perhaps, past its prime. Foursquare previously partnered with 100 universities across the country and made certain badges available to them. It’s a welcome sign to [...]

Fellow bloggers Kanna Taylor and Erin Eschen already posted great recaps of the Social Media Club St. Louis’ panel on higher education last week — that’s not what this blog post is about. This post is about those questions asked but not answered. The panel discussion lasted more than an hour and a half and [...]

Colleges and universities struggling to find ways to pull together a comprehensive social media campaign should pay attention to Texas A&M University. TAMU last week announced a social media scavenger hunt that utilizes YouTube, Twitter, Facebook and Foursquare. It’s a creative way to increase student engagement and give away some sweet swag in the process. [...]

Ever wonder the top three things a small campus should be doing with social media, how to measure the effectiveness of a social media campaign or how to “move the needle” using Twitter? A handful of guests, including me, were invited on Thursday to answer these questions and more during a 1-hour online chat with [...]