Blogs and Social Media
Do you have a social media strategy? Is it working?
Social media refers to online content that allows users to quickly and easily interact by:
- Responding to it
- Contributing to it
- Sharing it with others
- Customizing its format/delivery
Popular social media include blogs, social networking websites such as Facebook, status updating tools such as Twitter, online forums and chat rooms, commenting features, and more.
Many Dalhousie faculties, departments and offices use social media as part of their communications or marketing efforts. While some of these media exist within the Dalhousie web presence, others are external websites or services.
Social media strategy
At Dalhousie, we use social media to:
- Enhance the university's reputation by supporting our communications and marketing goals
- Provide opportunities for two-way communication and interaction with key audiences
- Make Dalhousie content available across the multi-platform web
If you are interested in developing a social media strategy to support your communications and marketing efforts, contact our social media communications officer for assistance.
Blogging
Blogs (short for ‘web log’) are online journals that allow for the quick and easy posting of news, events and other information to the web. They also offer an opportunity for a less formal and more personal writing style, and generally allow visitors to comment on posts. Find out more about how blogs work: Introduction to Blogging by Wordpress.
Why you might want a blog
- Blogs offer a very quick and easy way to publish content to the web and are incredibly visible in search engines.
- Blogs use RSS feeds to share content on other websites, including your own.
- Blogs are ideal for publishing project news and updates, for commenting on external events and issues, and for linking to and interacting with content on other blogs.
The university’s blogging platform allows Dalhousie units to host their own blogs on university webspace. Visit blogs.dal.ca to learn more. If you are interested in starting a blog for your website, please email blogs@dal.ca for more information.
External social media
Many university units are starting to use external social media tools such as Facebook and Twitter. These value-added services can help share your content around the web and build stronger relationships with key audiences, but they should not be understood as a replacement or substitute for good web content. A study done by usability experts at Nielsen Norman Group indicated that:
"Students associate Facebook and similar sites with private discussions, not with corporate marketing. When students want to learn about a company, university, government agency, or non-profit organization they turn to search engines to find that organization‘s official website. They don‘t look for the organization‘s Facebook page."
If you are looking to start a Facebook page, Twitter account or similar social channel for your department, faculty or office, you can contact the social media communications officer for assistance. You will also want to review the university's social media guidelines.
