Social media icons on the homepage

A few weeks ago we moved 5 social media icons onto the homepage and the site tools on the website.

This was part of a broad effort to increase the visabilty of our social media efforts on campus. Why put effort into projects if you don’t promote them right?

I was surprised by the reaction that we got across campus in a couple of ways

  • I didn’t get much of a response just a couple of emails or verbal comments as I crossed campus
  • The emails that I did get were very negative

Adding social media to the homepage is a growing trend in higher ed. If you check out Brad Ward’s blog @bluefuego you can find a post he did in august comparing the use of social media on a homepage over the course of 6 months. Well worth your read.

Good luck as we continue to fight the good fight with social media in higher ed.

This entry was posted on Thursday, September 24th, 2009 at 8:37 pm and is filed under Homepage, Social Networks, Strategy. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

9 Responses to “Social media icons on the homepage”

  1. Dan Says:
    September 24, 2009 at 10:12 pm

    Interesting to hear, Paul. Could you elaborate on the negative comments you received? Did they prompt you to change anything or reconsider your general approach to using the social icons (or your broader social media efforts)?

  2. Andrew Careaga Says:
    September 25, 2009 at 12:08 am

    The comments were negative in what way? Wait, wait, don’t tell me. Let me guess.

    No, go ahead and tell me.

  3. Nick DeNardis Says:
    September 25, 2009 at 12:42 am

    I also would love to hear about the negative comments. The only thing I can think of is the introduction of new colors which call attention to them instead of other elements on the page.

    It would be interesting if it was because of the colors or prominence because earlier this year we added social icons to http://wayne.edu/ in the bottom right of the page. They are grey until you mouse over and we didn’t hear a peep about them.

  4. Joe Says:
    September 25, 2009 at 8:44 pm

    Higher ed needs less committees and more strong, passion and intelligent leaders.

    Case in point.

  5. NIcole Anderson Says:
    September 25, 2009 at 11:58 pm

    Really, negative? Do tell please! We added an “interact” page listing social media, and linked prominently from the home page. But I would definitely have preferred your method.

  6. Mike McCready Says:
    September 26, 2009 at 2:36 pm

    I agree with you Paul. I posted a similar article http://www.mikemccready.ca/blog/2009/03/does-your-college-facebook-brag-about-it/

    If we’re going to leverage social media, we need to promote the use of it instead locking away as a afterthought.

  7. Travis Says:
    October 3, 2009 at 3:18 am

    I like the placement of the icons too. Many schools hide them at the bottom of the homepage that make users scroll down the page to see them. Besides the negative comments, have you seen a jump in the number of followers or interaction on your networks?

  8. Tom Troughton Says:
    October 7, 2009 at 9:54 am

    We seem to all be scratching our heads as to why the negative reaction. Does higher education believe that it is “above” social media? Social media is clearly here to stay and when used well it can be an advantage to any business, corporation or college/university.

  9. Social media icons on the homepage part II « Higher Ed Web Marketing Says:
    October 8, 2009 at 8:59 am

    [...] last post on adding social media icons to the homepage received a number of comments asking me to elaborate on the negative comments I [...]

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