Great Social Media Idea: Bringing Social to the "Real World"

Sometimes you come across something on the web that is so stinking good that you're much better off tipping your cap and admiring the brilliance rather than trying to re-hash or recreate something on your own.

Which is what I'm going to do here, with this wonderful article on the CASE blog featuring pretty much the pinnacle of social media awesomeness from Matthew Anderson of Western Washington University.

Go read the full article - RIGHT NOW! - but I will pull out one quote, which articulates so nicely some of the ideas I hold dear when doing social media work:

This specific interaction was a very small part of that day’s social media efforts and it won’t have a significant long-term benefit. However, it was an example of the university living its brand—its mission to be engaging—in a small, tangible way. Added up over days and months, interactions like this set the tone for the university’s presence online.

Yes, yes, a thousand times YES! There is so much to be gained when thinking about social media in this way. If you approach it from the mindset of "what can I get out of this," you may end up getting clicks and likes and even sales if that's what you're going for, but you'll never be able to reach that deeper emotional level, that giant yawning expanse where the real power of social media lives.

A hearty hip-hip-hooray to Matthew and Western Washington for this wonderful example of Twitter done right, and also a hat tip to the great CASE blog. If you don't have that bookmarked, you're doing higher ed social media wrong.  ;)

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