Tweet…tweet…. anyone out there?
Here on campus we are recovering nicely from a busy orientation season and are starting to reflect on our successes, failures and ideas for the future. One of the biggest new things we tried this year was use of Twitter for orientation in a few different ways.
First, we set up a Twitter account that we used as a staff communication tool. This was a closed account where only our orientation leaders and department staff could “follow” and we just used it for quick and simple communication, announcements, reminders, etc. Next, we set up an “Off2BSC” account that was posted for freshmen, transfers and their family members to keep up to date on the orientation program and issues that are important during the transition.
We had a great outcome from this work and ended up with a good number of “followers” on the public account after very little publicity. We’re on top of the world with a great success and came up with a bunch of new ways to use Twitter for our office’s functions. I even recruited a student for one of our programs by Tweeting about it! Congrats to us, right? But…
I had the “opportunity” to be with the groups of students as they were doing their final course registration steps with their advisors so I used it to ask them about Twitter. Group after group of 20 people came through that room and no more than 1 student in any group even had a Twitter account.
So, what next? Are students on your campus interested in Twitter or is no one out there going to hear our “Tweets?”
Source: nope