These days, branding is everything. Marketers go all out to position their product, control its image, and spin the message. For marketers at the nation's colleges and universities, the stakes are especially high. After all, they are entrusted with the image of institutions that have, in some cases, spent centuries building up their brand equity--images that ultimately affect everything from alumni donations to the quality and quantity of applying students. It's enough to make any marketer uptight. It's not surprising, then, that social media have thrown many college marketers for a complete loop. As many experienced professionals are discovering, the usual strategies simply don't work. Traditionally, marketing has been a one-way conversation: Marketers carefully package the image of their institutions for consumption by students, parents, alumni, and others. With social media, however, this unidirectional flow of information is almost unnatural. On sites such as Word Press, Facebook, Google+, LinkedIn, YouTube, Instagram and Twitter, users expect to give as well as receive. They're looking for a conversation, not a lecture. This is probably truer for higher education than it is for corporations. In most people's eyes, colleges and universities are not businesses, but communities. Not surprisingly, their members--and those thinking of becoming members--want to take part. Unfortunately, too many schools still approach social media with a traditional marketing mindset, trying to push information at users while rigidly controlling every facet of the brand message. It's not working. In fact, using old-school marketing strategies may do more damage to a school's brand than good. In this article, the author contends that for marketers hoping to promote their schools via social media, the first lesson involves taking their hands off the controls. (Contains 1 online resource.)