what can we do about #fbgate2016 … and beyond?

What started Thanksgiving Week when Lougan Bishop of Belmont University and I found messages on our official Class of 2015 groups telling members to join different groups, run by private company RoomSurf, became a whirlwind of community action among colleagues, then a media splash in the New York Times. Other stories followed (including one hilariously mistranslated piece). Several higher ed professionals teamed up in a myriad of ways, including blogging and other methods to spread the word, and by the end of Wednesday the RoomSurf groups were putting up disclaimers and their founder disappeared from Facebook.

But will #fbgate2015 mark the end of this kind of activity? I doubt it, and so does Lougan, who wrote a great guest post in Brad J. Ward’s SquaredPeg blog (which outed the original #fbgate2013 fake groups two years ago).

Many bloggers have weighed in with great advice. But even the best suggestions come with caveats. For example:

1) Make your own Class of 201x Facebook Groups/Pages. This has become self-evident. But, as Lougan and I discovered, nefarious intruders can swoop in at any time to try to steal members. We’re not in a part in the admission cycle where students are joining in large numbers yet. Those other groups had more members, research found, because apparently some were converted 2014 groups with existing students. And JD Ross of Hamilton College said, last year, company reps blocked him so he couldn’t see things they posted on a Class of 2014 page he administered. So the playing field, for the ethical, is still a minefield.

2) Make your groups/pages distinctive and better. When I realized we may be in for another battle for members — before colleges rallied together and the New York Times got involved — I decided to create an Official Class of 2015 Community page. And, unlike the 2015 group which I didn’t do nearly enough with, our social media intern and I filled the new page with photos, slideshows, videos, blog entries, news, the works. And asked current students to join and help. Of course, this all takes time — something we never have enough of. But, especially when establishing the groups, it makes them more worth joining. Think about holiday window shopping: You’re more likely to go into stores that look cool and have more to offer.

3) Promote the official group/pages to incoming students. In an often-decentralized campus landscape, not as easy as it sounds. I have no direct communication with prospective students (other than the web or social media) as student affairs offices handle these contacts. This means any success in social media involves coalition building and educating staffers to its benefits as well as the need for resources. On the bright side, something like #fbgate2015 — or anything that could divert our students from getting the help and advice they deserve — provides an example of why different areas of the college need to work together for a well-done, timely, useful social media presence.

4) Be vigilant. Sad but true, we can’t take for granted that all 500 million members of Facebook are ethical, logical beings. You have to constantly see if someone is portraying themselves as your college or brand … which is complicated by all the community pages (mostly ghost ships) Facebook decided to clutter the waters. And if you’re a group administrator, have many sets of eyes watching the page, knowing spammers can block you.

Because Facebook fraud will continue to appear, despite our best efforts, all we can do is keep our eyes open, have a plan and provide the best Facebook experiences possible.

what 15 freshmen taught me about social media.

On Thursday, I had the opportunity to visit the GST 120: Leadership in Action class, which consists of 15 of our more engaged freshman. It seemed a decent place to learn more about the social media and Web habits of our students. It’s a small sample size, but the students were bright, articulate and painfully honest … and the findings interesting. (View original Google document.)

What do they use and how often?
- All 15 use Facebook. They all check it daily. (Some would check it hourly if they could.)
- 10 use MySpace, but not much. One checks daily; most hardly ever visit any more.
- None are on Twitter. In retrospect, I should have asked why.

How do they form community on Facebook?
- 11 joined the Class of 2013 Facebook group (created by an incoming student)
- 7 joined our Official SUNY Oswego Fans page (others said they would join had they known it existed)
- They joined other campus-related Facebook groups because they were members of real-life groups (Scuba Club, field hockey team, WTOP, Oswegonian, club rugby, floor of Johnson Hall, Del Sarte dance)

I asked them if they thought joining a group was different than becoming a Fan of a page, and they admitted they didn’t even know the difference. Since we set up a Class of 2014 group, I asked if they would feel different joining a group started by an institution vs. one started by a student. The enlightening response: We don’t even look for that or care. We just want to meet other students. Some even said they would prefer the groups be created by the college because they would trust the information more.

As for our college Web site, 12 said they found it the best place for information. Others didn’t express a preference. None thought of social media as the destination for information because they see it more as a place to connect. For our Web site, their main concerns involved usability: forms that didn’t work, non-functional links, difficulty finding specialized information. A few admitted they used they mainly used the search box to navigate, although this isn’t totally atypical of the Web in general (that’s how I navigate Amazon, for example).

In terms of what we can do better, they mentioned it would be great if we had an AIM name or more available chat. One student mentioned a competing college had an AIM presence but disliked that they used it to contact him instead of vice versa. This is a cohort that likes to use communication on demand but isn’t necessarily keen on unwanted contact from institutions. This is the 21st century equivalent of don’t call us, we’ll call you. Other than that, they seemed to find our social media presence appropriate.

I want to jump back to the group/page, institution/student finding. We, as Web communicators, debate all kinds of things we find more important than our users. These students don’t care if it’s a 2014 group or 2014 page. They don’t really care if it’s launched by an institution or a student. They just want to connect. We see and think about tools. They just see an action, an outcome they want.

It’s also worth noting (as Karlyn Morissette points out in this fine blog entry) that students think of social media as social first and foremost. If they find information they can use on Facebook, that’s a bonus. But when they want information, they’ll go to your Web site. A reminder that while we can be distracted by all the shiny objects that are social media platforms, investing in your institutional Web site — and making sure it’s easy to use and functioning — remains as important as ever.