Monitoring Facebook Pages

[Andrea Keck]

In addition to our official FB page, several other departments and programs in our institutions have created pages as well (eg - music dept, rec center, library, etc).  As a relatively small institution, 7,000 students, it creates a very overwhelming FB presence. 

 

Does anyone monitor/restrict the existence of other FB pages from their institution in order to control messaging/branding?  If so, what kind of standards do you have for this?

[Julie Wight]

We have a similar situation. We have just over 11,000 students and several Facebook pages. I actually haven't had a problem with it - I link to all of the different university FB pages from our main Facebook page which is under my purview in Marketing. I actually think it really shows the presence and engagement of so many different areas of the university - which I think is great for prospective students to see.

In terms of messaging/branding though, I deal with it by having continued social media trainings on campus to explain best practices in social media. Actually the University-wide service training program for all faculty and staff is just starting to also include our social media training, which is great! We also monitor all of the Facebook pages to see what is going on - it keeps us up-to-date with the different areas of the university, while we check on the administration of the pages.

[Kevin Ryan]

Faced with a similar situation, I recently signed up for the beta of a tool that will let you monitor and manage all of your Facebook and Twitter accounts in one interface. It's called Engage121 and the personal edition is supposed to go live some time this week, with "corporate" and "local" editions coming later. I got wind of it from a former colleague who is now on the project team, but you can go to the Web site and sign up. http://www.engage121.com.

From what I've been told, this tool has the potential to be a real time saver. Can't wait to get in there this week and see what it can do.

[Kevin Ryan]

Got access to my Engage121 account today and have it set up. The interface could use a little polish, but it's easy to see how this could be tremendously useful for managing your institution's social media presence. Having everything in one place is very handy. With further development - maybe some advanced filters, a search capability and some interface tweaks - I can see this becoming an important tool in my arsenal.

[Andrea Keck]

Thanks, Kevin.

I have created an account with Engage121. From the little time I have spent in the interface it looks like it could be a very useful and time saving tool.

[Andrew Grohowski]

We're tried to start a FB account/page for our mascot several times, only to have it closed by FB.

We monitor what's going on, but rarely do we feel like it's something that could hurt our branding. Generating clear guidelines on who should create a page (not who shouldn't, because you'll never keep them from doing so), how it could be created, and how it can be used effectively is important, as well as holding a few workshops showing individuals first-hand how all of it ties together.