Editorial : Social media provides platform for campus collaboration, community building

UPDATED: Jan. 7, 2012, 6:09 p.m. EST

Recently, the university has stepped up its social media efforts. Dan Klamm, former marketing and communication coordinator for Career Services, will lead social media endeavors as the new assistant director of digital and social media.

Klamm’s new position will work primarily with boosting Syracuse University’s social media presence working with the Division of Student Affairs and on-campus initiatives. SU ranks No. 7 for the most influential university based on its Twitter presence. But energizing SU social media not just off campus, but on campus, can greatly benefit students — and has already.

For example, Health Services, now under the leadership of Director Ben Domingo, has increased its promotional and outreach efforts, including through an aggressive Twitter presence — @SUHealthService. The webpage reposts helpful health tips targeted to young people and students and tweets about upcoming flu shot clinics and other programs.

Another helpful Twitter handle is @CareerSU, which updates students about career services offerings and upcoming events. The Department of Public Safety has also demonstrated its Facebook presence in recent years, posting crime logs each week.

Other areas of campus can benefit, despite their possible unfamiliarity, from social media. For instance, academic departments often have email listservs. Those listservs can quickly overwhelm inboxes, becoming more like spam than an interactive platform. Twitter is designed for just this sort of collaboration through tweeting links to scholarly articles by faculty, news pertaining to the field and notices about relevant campus or local events.

Twitter and Facebook attract criticism for their promotion of brevity and crassness. But they can serve the campus as useful tools for quick reminders, tips and departmental collaboration among students, faculty and the community.