Tweets and status updates are new forms of communication Residential Life has adopted.
Craig Beebe, Residential Life director, said he believes social media could play a vital role in increasing student involvement and communication with the department.
Around campus, there are banners and signs featuring the “Lead the Pack” slogan that the Office of Student Affairs has developed as part of its branding campaign. Residential Life’s slogan is “Live with the Pack.” Other slogans include “Eat with the Pack” for Loyola’s Dining Services, and “Back the Pack” for Athletics. As a division of Student Affairs, Beebe said Residential Life wants students to have a better understanding of the department.
Residential Life in particular wants to increase its “likes” and followers on Facebook and Twitter. To help do so, the department has been accepting applications for paid student engagement internships to make their social media presence more effective.
“Plans are in the works to offer incentives through Twitter and Facebook,” Beebe said. “When we hit 300 likes on Facebook, we will draw three people randomly and give away gift cards to CC’s, fun things like that.”
Interns will include bloggers, two social media interns, a marketing intern and a graphic design intern. These students will be trained in online ethics and professionalism and will play a role in generating Residential Life’s online image.
“Students will be gathering data from web traffic to find ways to drive traffic to those pages and increase engagement,” Beebe said, “To get students re-tweeting things and responding to things and interacting.”
Beebe said active followers have used Residential Life’s social media profiles as a way to get more involved with the department, and that some followers are now applying for these internships, as well as inquiring about being a resident assistant or desk assistant.
“I utilize them,” said Meghan Hewey, psychology freshman. “I work in Res Life, so I know all about it.”
Beebe also acknowledges the opposite perspective.
“There are people on the other side of it that say it’s still just online, still a click of a virtual button, and doesn’t actually require any real effort on the student’s part,” he said.
Garrett Fontenot, history senior, said he isn’t excited about Residential Life utilizing social media.
“Not because I don’t think it’s a good idea, but just because I don’t use social media as a source of official information,” Fontenot said. “I’m much more likely to ignore something if it’s via Twitter or Facebook than if it’s in an email.”
Beebe said part of what interns will do include assessing whether or not social media is working for the department.
“If a year from now data comes back, and students are saying they don’t care and don’t like interacting with us on Facebook, we’ll have to look at that honestly and decide if it’s a good investment of our time and energy.”
Kelsi Allenbach can be reached at [email protected]
