The Week in Links

OK... my lackluster blogging of late needs to come to an end. I suppose I could make up some excuse about being super busy at work, which I guess is true enough, but really I've just been battling with a moderate case of burn out. Case in point: here is this week's links roundup, on a Monday instead of a Friday. You get what you pay for here at Social Media for Colleges!

• First off, I'm extremely jealous of all those lucky enough to attend the CASE Social Media Conference last week. I was *this* close to pulling it off, but couldn't quite make it happen. One day, I'll be there. Until then, I live vicariously through the #casesmc hashtag. Lots of great little tidbits from the conference on there.

• As someone who has fought the good fight on this topic and lost, I really enjoyed this post by Matt Hames on LinkedIn about why having one Facebook page for higher education is the smart way to go.

• Tony Dobies of West Virginia University has a great article on the Web + Higher Ed Medium blog exploring Instagram and what content works best on it for a university page. I love his honesty and willingness to experiment. This is a must-read for anyone who runs a college Instagram page.

• Of course, as a counter point to the previous article, Erin Martin of Oregon State University (Go Beavs!) has a wonderful and thoughtful article on Meet Content about the unique challenges facing academic departments and how she crafts a content strategy that meets her departments needs and goals. Very good food for thought for those of us who work in the centralized marketing corner of a university.

• Aaron Jaco of Drake University has a really helpful piece on the CASE blog about how to hit it big on Buzzfeed and other huge content generators. He makes a really good point about Reddit. I don't spend a lot of time there, but two UP-related videos I've posted on there have become pretty good viral hits, including one that popped up on blogs and news sites around the world. Reddit is a powerful, powerful place if you've got the right type of content.

OK... that's all for now. I swear I'll try to shake off the burn out and get back into the swing of things this week.

Before I sign off, I leave you with the latest music selection for Portland Month: the brilliant, tragic, haunting Elliott Smith.