For the past two days I have been tracking the feed on #highered in the Twitterverse and the various threads and discussions. There were many posts that seemed to take off, but the most common posts were about the issues facing higher education right now such as the sexual assault issues, graduate assistantships, technology, and the decline in college admissions in general.
The ones that got the most views and retweets were sometimes on a different course than the most common threads. These seemed to break up the monotony and change the flow, even if it was just for a little while. One of the funniest ones that I saw was a post about citations and Lord of the Rings. The meme suggested that all of the information still only counted as one, whether it was in battle or in a paper. It got 94 likes and 19 retweets. Being a LOTR fan myself, the tweet definitely made me chuckle and after I recorded the numbers I added to them by liking and retweeting.
One of most popular tweets that I saw was one about sports and racism in colleges and how black athletes were working harder and had to endure more than the white athletes who had more privilege. This tweet produced over 1.3 thousand retweets and more than 2.2 thousand likes. There were 85 comments and the thread went back and forth between the rude and congratulatory most of the comments moved the conversation in a positive light. Some people pointed out a few things that could have been added and the author addressed each and every comment. No matter the comment, positive or negative, the author was polite and directed the commenter to more of the information to help them find their way. I found that to be a great way to encourage the conversation and no matter what the conversation moved forward.
Many companies use Twitter to spread good news about what they have going on and colleges are no different. They share great news about how things are growing as well as exciting developments about purchases and getting started with new semesters, courses, and/or exhibits. They work hard to get information posted that make people want to keep following the information so they “follow” the group on Twitter. Another trending issue is technology and how it is working and not working on various campuses. Since I work with technology on a daily basis, I found this thread rather intriguing. I also took an information technology course through Excelsior which discussed the foundations of cybersecurity and how it can be managed for businesses.
Twitter can be a great social media platform for businesses and colleges alike, though we must be able to address issues from all sides and be willing to confront issues that make us uncomfortable. As there are millions of people on social media, there are just as many thoughts and opinions within the Twitterverse.
Social Media Strategies 