Digital Development

I was recently asked why we waited until this summer to develop a central facebook page for the University, when other units in the University had already forged ahead.

I thought I’d share my reply:

Before opening up this additional central, or ’corporate’, communication channel we had to be sure of its business case and sustainability, rather than just ‘jump on the bandwagon’.

A couple of our brand values at the University are that we are ‘established’ and ‘focused’.  You could say that this shows in the tools and resources we use in our corporate day-to-day operations.  That doesn’t preclude other areas of the University from being more creative and ambitious (two more of our brand values) with their communications, which is why you might see developments outside the centre before they’re adopted at the corporate level.  This diversity of approach is possibly more evident when looking at the University’s use of social networking tools because the very nature of social networks is that different areas might need to build separate online social networks for their particular communities, e.g. people who ‘like’ the ICMA page might not necessarily be interested in the Film, Theatre, and Television page.

PS – I also noticed the person asking using this service http://followupthen.com/ - looks useful if you don’t already have follow up flags built into your email software.