Master Handling Social Media for Your Education Needs
Social media isn’t just for staying in touch with your high school friends anymore.
Professionals use it to network and promote themselves and their businesses, to find new jobs and follow careers. Students use it to find colleges and programs, follow teachers and work on projects.
It’s also helpful in furthering education and can be a smart tool to use when looking for the best schools to complete a master’s degree.
Colleges and universities nationwide are expanding their social media to promote their master’s programs, and anyone looking at specific colleges should check out their social media.
What are colleges doing to promote themselves?
- University of Georgia Grad School – When you open UGA’s page for graduate school, you’ll see those oh so familiar icons for social media. There’s a flickr button, a twitter and Facebook button and a YouTube button, too. You can follow graduate students as they tweet, watch their YouTube videos or flickr streams. You can friend them on Facebook where you can get study tips and organizational advice. If you’re thinking about school here, you can get a taste of graduate school life from their social media.
- University of Wisconsin – On Joe Kuffner’s blog, Social Media for Colleges, dedicated to college social media he shares with us a contest the University of Wisconsin held. As we know, Wisconsin is cold so the contest was the best bridge faces, #bridgeface, of chilly students crossing the bridge. The winner got a student bookstore gift card. Not only does it involve students, and offer a university related prize, but prospective students who follow will see that there is some fun involved in school!
- University of Texas – Along with the other social media sites on its graduate page, UT also has a link to a blog. On Gradnews, you’ll find posts about taking your professor to lunch, student outreach and much more. It’s a great way to get a taste of graduate life.
What should you do?
Once you’ve narrowed down some grad schools, follow them. Like their pages and subscribe to their blogs. Be careful about friending, though, unless you’ve cleaned up your page and it won’t hinder your acceptance if you decide to apply.
You can follow professors’ pages and feeds, read the student blogs and see for yourself as best as possible what classes, requirement and life are like at a particular school.
When it comes time for an interview, take a look at the professor’s LinkedIn site. With a quick look at this social media site, you may learn some key facts that could win you a spot in the program of your dreams.
Social media is a two way street and just as colleges use it to promote their graduate schools, you can use it to get an insider’s view and help yourself in the application process.
Check it out, it could be a key factor in your decision making, and well, who knows where that will take you.
About the Author: Heather Legg is a writer who covers topics on social media, education and how to find the best online degree programs.
Image Credit: 1.
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that’s right, it is good social media are restricted for small children so as not to damage the morale of the students.