Posted by reyjunco on February 21, 2011 in
Commentary,
Research |
∞ 
This past weekend, @drjtothemastro gave me the opportunity to chat with this year’s group of Reitz Scholars at The University of Florida. Of course, the topic was social media. While we were collecting data for a book chapter we’re writing on the Senior Year Experience, I discovered some things about how students think about Facebook events that probably won’t make it into the chapter but that I wanted to share with you anyway. It is worth noting that the scholars I spoke with are, by the very requirements of the Reitz Scholars program, some of the most engaged students on campus. Therefore, I suspect that they receive and respond to more event invitations on Facebook than the general population of students.
The most interesting thing I discovered was that students said they no longer used Facebook messaging. Indeed, I went back to my recent survey of 2,400 students and found that 70% said that they “rarely” or “never” send private messages on Facebook. I’m guessing that many of you reading this are thinking that students got wise to Facebook privacy concerns and therefore jumped ship to send messages on other services. Surprisingly enough, that was not the reason. The reason that students gave for no longer using Facebook messaging is that the feel like it’s riddled with spam– and almost all of that spam comes in the form of event messages. Students were most enraged by two things:
1. When they kept receiving messages from events even after they’ve RSVP’d to say that they would not attend
and
2. When they received requests to attend new events that had been created by revising the old event
Student activities professionals can learn a lot from this. The migration from Facebook messaging reminds me of how higher education professionals have lamented since 2007 (as we wrote about in our Connecting to the Net.Generation book) that students don’t use email. I’ve always said that one of the reasons for this was because we (higher education administrators) spammed them with what we thought were useful messages, and in fact were just academic spam. So, when creating events on Facebook, be careful– don’t automatically send out private messages directing students to the event page. Also, don’t double up on events and announce new events using modified versions of old events. If you feel the need to get the message out there quickly and effectively, I would recommend investing in Facebook Ads.
Tags: college, education, facebook, social media, students
Social Media in Higher Education
Students not using Facebook messaging – thanks to event invitations
The most interesting thing I discovered was that students said they no longer used Facebook messaging. Indeed, I went back to my recent survey of 2,400 students and found that 70% said that they “rarely” or “never” send private messages on Facebook. I’m guessing that many of you reading this are thinking that students got wise to Facebook privacy concerns and therefore jumped ship to send messages on other services. Surprisingly enough, that was not the reason. The reason that students gave for no longer using Facebook messaging is that the feel like it’s riddled with spam– and almost all of that spam comes in the form of event messages. Students were most enraged by two things:
1. When they kept receiving messages from events even after they’ve RSVP’d to say that they would not attend
and
2. When they received requests to attend new events that had been created by revising the old event
Student activities professionals can learn a lot from this. The migration from Facebook messaging reminds me of how higher education professionals have lamented since 2007 (as we wrote about in our Connecting to the Net.Generation book) that students don’t use email. I’ve always said that one of the reasons for this was because we (higher education administrators) spammed them with what we thought were useful messages, and in fact were just academic spam. So, when creating events on Facebook, be careful– don’t automatically send out private messages directing students to the event page. Also, don’t double up on events and announce new events using modified versions of old events. If you feel the need to get the message out there quickly and effectively, I would recommend investing in Facebook Ads.
Tags: college, education, facebook, social media, students