Signal to utilize social media world, adapt to change

F acebook, Twitter and other forms of social media mean different things to different people. For some they are a way to keep in touch with old friends and strengthen ties with new ones. For others they are excuses to put off that pile of homework that has been staring at them for the past week. But for Ouachita, they are becoming useful tools to communicate with the university community and inform them about happenings on campus.

“It’s all about changing the way people communicate,” said Dr. Brett Powell, vice president for administrative services.

“It hasn’t been all that long ago that it was a new idea to try to communicate through e-mail, and it’s not exactly a preferred method of communication anymore. It’s just natural to try to evolve and keep up with the way people prefer to communicate.”

Currently there are three main Facebook Pages for Ouachita, Ouachita alumni and Ouachita admissions. Soon a new Page will join these to feature the print and online editions of The Signal..

“It started with Dr. Horne,” Powell said. “He sent an e-mail to several people around campus about social media … just with some questions about, ‘Do you think we need to be doing something else here?’”

Powell e-mailed Dr. Jeff Root, dean of the School of Humanities and faculty sponsor of The Signal, and asked him if he wanted to create a new position with responsibilities for social media reporting.

“Because the administration was interested in finding ways to bring this [social media] into what we’re doing and because we’re working it into our curriculum in mass communications, it was a natural fit,” Root said. “Brett very generously offered to make work study money available if we wanted to try something new in that area.”

The new workstudy position will start with updating a Facebook page with videos, articles and teasers to direct people to the online Signal Web site, and the job is expected to evolve as interests in different forms of social media do.

“I suspect as time goes by, new entities will pop up that we’ll also need to pay attention to, but right now it’s Facebook,” Root said.

Ouachita is not the only company trying to take advantage of using social media for advertising and informing.

According to Facebook statistics on www.facebook.com/press/info.php?statistics, more than 700,000 local businesses have active Facebook pages.

“There is a very interesting article in the Economist about that right now,” Root said. “The article basically says that as businesses are trying to cut back in their budgets, they’re spending less money on advertising and they’re looking for less expensive ways to reach people. Social media fits that bill.”

To view Ouachita’s main Facebook page, visit www.facebook.com/ouachita.

By Leah Garavelli, NEWS/FEATURES EDITOR