This week’s Campus Celebrity is George Grattan, Bentley University’s very first Social Media Manager. Keep reading to get the inside scoop on the man behind the campus accounts!
Her Campus Bentley (HCB): Since recently starting at Bentley University, is there anything you really like/enjoy about campus or anything you would like to comment on?
George Grattan (GG): I’ve really enjoyed how welcoming everyone has been, from my fellow department members to other staff, to students, to faculty, to the administration, to alumni. People have gone out of their way to help me get to know the Bentley community.
HCB: What is your official position at Bentley and what responsibilities does that include?
GG: As a member of the Digital Engagement team within the Marketing and Communications Division, I manage both the day-to-day content and the long-term integrated strategies for the university’s “macro” social media platforms, which include our presence on Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Google Plus, Instagram, Pinterest, and Tumblr. I work closely with colleagues in web design and development, news and communications, content creation, and marketing to use both web and social media platforms to engage the Bentley community online and introduce the university to prospective students, recruiters, and other interested parties.
HCB: What sparked your interest in Social Media?
GG: With a background in both non-profit communications and management as well as in higher ed, I’ve always been drawn to tools that foster effective communication and help groups of people share resources and come together around shared values and interests.
HCB: How do you think Social Media has changed how colleges connect with students, alumni, etc?
GG: How much space do I have? There are, literally, dozens of great books being written on this topic. It’s potentially a game-changer, and everyone’s still figuring out the right balance—which will be different at each school or institution—between fostering connections among current campus communities, serving the needs and interests of alumni and friends, reaching out to prospective students and their families, etc. It’s tremendously exciting, opening up a still fairly new space in how people think of their relationships to a university, how they express the meaning of those relationships to others, and how all that sharing and activity online is fed by–and feeds back into–the offline experience of being a student, or an alum, or a parent, or employee, etc.
HCB: What advice do you have for students using Social Media?
GG: Another potential book-length answer! Be a person first, a “brand” second, which is to say: be authentic. But there’s a difference between “authentic” and “all access, all the time”: many students (not just those at Bentley) would do well to remember, for example, that Twitter is not texting. Once you’ve asked an institution to pay attention by using their handle in a Tweet: they will. If you Tweet “Hope I get the job with @GenericEmployer! Great meeting you at the @bentleyu career fair! #dreamjob” be sure you’re presenting yourself throughout your Twitter feed in ways consistent with how you did at the interview. Similarly, think twice about complaints: how often, about what, to whom, in what tone. We all love, myself included, taking swings at brands and institutions online from time to time–whether it’s the airline that’s lost our luggage again, the restaurant that had terrible service, or the university that sometimes seems to have issues with its cable TV service (cough). It feels good to snark. But snark is cheap. Snark is not unique. And, often, it’s misdirected and ineffective. Pay attention to the impression you’re creating, and consider all your social media use more-or-less public at this point. If most content you post is negative, combative, or NSFW, potential employers, admissions committees, faculty, family, friends, and even potential friends and partners may decide you’re mostly negative, combative, and NSFW. Social media is first and foremost an amplifier—which aspects of yourself do you want to make louder, and have heard by more people, and which do you want to keep unplugged, for more private conversations?(#sooldfashioned, I know, I know.)