Should a school district jump on the social media bandwagon? Yes! Social media provide a low-cost way to communicate school district priorities, influence decision makers, and tell its story without filters. Equally important, social media are where constituents are spending a lot of their time. With more than 800 million members, Facebook is an…

As a new year begins, higher education professionals who manage social media are getting to know the latest social network, Google+, and how they can best use Google+ Pages to advance their institutions. When Google+ first came on the scene in late June 2011, several institutions signed up and began using the service. Given the popularity of other…

For tech-savvy educators looking to connect with students, social media have a powerful allure: Not only are sites such as Facebook and Twitter inherently designed for discussion and the exchange of ideas, but most students are already immersed in the technology. While these sites have their critics, social media's potential for collaboration is…

Social networking sites are those Websites that allow for a variety of social interactions with friends and family. Literally hundreds of social sites exist, but those most frequently used are Facebook, MySpace, Twitter, and Linkedln. These sites are most commonly used by 20-somethings to folks in their mid-40s. In this article, the author…

Long-term studies monitoring the process of young people adopting new media patterns of social interaction and communication with parents and peers are needed to better understand how young people cope with perpetual peer communication, how parents and adolescents deal with intergenerational conflicts, and the outcomes of these practices and…

Most communicators are not giving up print or other traditional media. But they recognize that social media has quickly become an important channel for the audiences they want to reach. Social media adds texture and complexity to the marketing mix. To take advantage of social media, it pays to be nimble. Independent schools' communicators…

For years, the University of California, Los Angeles, has been a rare holdout. As other colleges, universities, and independent schools rushed to create their own private online social networks, the UCLA Alumni Association stood on the sidelines. This fall, UCLA will join the game, launching its own online community. According to Ralph Amos,…