Student Clubs and Organizations
Using social media can be a great way to expand the reach of your club on campus or give members a space to share ideas outside of club meetings. While it can be useful and rewarding, no one wants to end up with a page that hasn't been updated in years or that no one follows. This page will help you determine the best way to use social networking to your advantage for your organization. If you decide to create a social media presence for a campus group, contact the Social Media Team in Marketing & Communications for help managing and promoting your work, and also to identify potential points of collaboration with groups that have similar interests.
Is Social Media for Us?
Consider Your Options
Which social media platform is right for your group? Deciding which site to use is much easier if you know what you want to share.
Easily share news, photos, and links for active members and the broader college community. For groups that frequently hold events, makes inviting people easier.
Allows for rapid sharing of short bits of news, photos, or location updates, and can use tags to incorporate local happenings within broader trends.
Don't need frequent text updates but take a lot of photos? Visually-oriented groups may benefit from sharing their images on a club Instagram account.
Performing or debate groups can use Youtube to upload anything from entire performances to teaser trailers for live meetings/shows.
Keeping Your Accounts Relevant
Everything your group posts becomes a public representation of Dickinson. Much more than on private social networking, disrespectful/inappropriate content or an abandoned page reflect poorly on the group and the College.
Have a plan for sharing the login information when group leadership changes. This could be an opportunity to involve your faculty advisor or make sure your executive board keeps records to pass down. More than one person should have access. Getting locked out is the fastest way to kill your progress at building a following.
Know who your audience is and what you have to say. Whether you are using the space to generate discussion between members, to create events and issue invitations, or to attract new members, have an idea of why social media will be useful to the group and use that as a guide for creating posts and initiating interactions.
Have fun! Get creative, be interesting, engage your fellow students. Despite the sometimes dry "do this, don't do that" advice, the purpose of social media is to connect with each other and build communities. There can be a great payoff with a little time and effort.
Dickinson Groups on Social Media
How do some student groups from Dickinson run their social media? Just a few examples are The Dickinsonian, WDCV-FM, and Spectrum on Facebook. The two media organizations have pages that people can like and follow, and Spectrum has a group people can join. Each has a different focus, from posting their own articles, sharing online content, and sharing events and continuing discussions.
