Many thanks to Yong C. Lee and the folks at Social Media Club for starting the discussion of Social Media Policy within Higher Education. The conversation on Twitter and Ning have been both lively and constructive and now there’s a Google Wave, which is open to anyone with ideas for best practices and social media guidelines. It’s all about collaboration. Get involved!
Michael Fienen wrote a superb article about Mobile Web Applications within a Higher Education environment. Fienen includes links to some of the top mobile apps available by universities and colleges, such as MIT and West Virgina University. Remember, by 2015, the mobile web will overtake desktop computing. Are you on board with the Mobile Web yet?
There are many social music websites to choose from, but what’s the best choice? Does it matter? Which service has the best, deepest selection of interesting sounds? Which one is the easiest to share? Which one has the best layout? If you’re not familiar with social music networks, here’s a five of the leading candidates:
iLike is a partnership with MySpace. Remember them? It’s still a very popular home for musicians, as it’s a way to promote their music free of charge. iLike also let’s users create a profile, share music with friends, search concerts, music charts, and create playlists. There are many independent artists found and you can listen or buy songs with just a few clicks. iLike also lets you build your own radio station.
LaLa is no more. From their website, “The Lala service has been discontinued as of May 31st, 2010.” This is soon to be replaced by an Apple iTunes streaming website. Apple purchased LaLa this past winter and rumor has it that this is their plan. Watch the WWDC on June 7th for more information.
Blip.fm offers search results for audio and video. It does a pretty good job finding independent artists, too. When you ‘blip’ a song, there is an option to echo your selection using Twitter, Facebook, Tumblr, Friendfeed, LiveJournal, and Ping.fm. Visitors to Blip.fm can create a playlist to save for later or share with friends. Users will also see links to Amazon and iTunes for purchasing each blipped song. Continue Reading…
Today I was asked, “Are there best practices for Social Media?” There isn’t a yes or no answer. It all depends on who you’re asking and in what regards you’re using Social Media. Everyone has their own ideas, opinions, and ways of doing things – Web 2.0 and the marketing world are no different. There are leaders of this topic, like Chris Brogan, who’s written a few books and speaks to organizations about how to be strategic within the world of social media. But working in Higher Education, the rules may be a bit different… Best Practices are not easily defined, but having a policy will help guide you. Just like the business world, colleges and universities need a social media policy. You don’t want to restrict people’s use of Social Media, but you also don’t want your school or department to appear scattered all over the Internet. Collaboration and creativity are a must, just make sure proper etiquette is followed when using tools such as Twitter, Facebook, Google Buzz, MySpace, or when creating blogs. A good social media policy will not halt creativity, but it lives to keep an organization together by providing guidelines and showing some structure. Mashable‘s Sharlyn Lauby explains 10 must-haves for your social media policy.
123SocialMedia.com has a collection of corporate social media policies, but here are some examples of Social Media Policies within Higher Education:
Are you one of the thousands of NING users frustrated that all free services are about to end? There are some alternatives out there offering both free and paid services if you’re hunting for yet another social platform to use. Create and discover with one of these three platforms listed below. And yes, NING users can migrate their data…
If you’re a teacher or student looking for a NING-like replacement, check out edmodo.com. It includes privacy control, SMS, Calendaring, Mobile applications, file storing, file sharing, and many more collaborating tools – all for free. If you have other suggestions, please let me know.
