Academia meets Twitter: Part 4 - Georgia Southern University

This is Part 4 of a series entitled Academia meets Twitter, where professionals took part in a short e-mail Q&A session to discuss Twitter incorporation in an educational setting.


Georgia Southern University  
Twitter Handle: @georgiasouthern
Participant: Christian Flathman
Georgia Southern University, Director Marketing & Communications

 
From which department does the Twitter profile run?
Currently, the Twitter profile is set up in the Office of Marketing & Communications

How often do you monitor the profile?
Regularly. We may update the profile multiple times each day depending what is going on.

What applications do you use to run Twitter?
Multiple people monitor so these vary. I am updating using the Google app as we are considering switching to Google Apps for e-mail and other utilities at the University.

Have you determined if more, students, alumni, prospective students, staff, or community members are following?
Our profile is still relatively new, but it looks like the majority of followers are current students.

What communication goals do you hope to meet using Twitter for your institution?
I wanted to primarily use this as a means to provide an additional avenue to communicate with current students. When I arrived just over one year ago, the University's student communication efforts were very limited. I do hope to expand this to alumni, prospective students and staff.  We are still evaluating the tool for long term use, but have seen interest grow quickly.  I came from outside academe (previously worked at GE and Michelin).  When I first arrived here, the University knew they needed to change, but this office was primarily a traditional public affairs operation still using press releases and posters to communicate activities.  University communicators need to embrace these tools and learn that traditional communications activities are becoming low reach/impact. [emphasis added]

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Vedo's Thoughts: This is an example of a broadcast-only profile in that they have chosen to use Twitter as a tool through which they can send out the relevant information to their audience. I think that as long as they follow some basic rules for broadcast-only profiles, Georgia Southern's Twitter presence will grow and they will ultimately reap the communication benefits. [Thanks to Barbara Nixon for pointing me to her school.]

Academia meets Twitter

• An Introduction
• Part 1 - TCU
• Part 2 - Butler University
  
• Part 3 - Thunderbird School of Global Management