"Don't rain on my parade" (a Storify story)

            As I was live tweeting the homecoming parade I kept an eye on Ohio Northern’s social media outlets so I could engage in the conversation. I was disappointed to see that they provided no real-time updates throughout the day. There were actually only two tweets about homecoming. The only Facebook posts to speak of were photo updates, including Spirit Week, posted after events had ended.

            One of the tweets was posted on October 15 with a link to a press release on the school web page. I think something could have been posted a little sooner considering Homecoming was October 19. This also would have built more anticipation of the events. While the use of a link caters to alumni and businesspersons sitting at their computers, students want information in 140 characters rather than a link. This lead me to question whether or not the school considered their audience or if it was exclusively targeted to alumni.

            I also found it interesting that the school used Twitter to tweet each portion of the Northern Promise (numbered 1-4) in individual tweets, but no such attention was given to Homecoming events. One tweet per event seems reasonable.

            The second tweet about Homecoming was a retweet of Megan Cottingim’s post about voting for the Homecoming Court. This was a good real-time response on the university’s part. However, they usually only retweet alumni and featured articles, so what is the selection process for retweets? Is there a method to the madness?

            The Facebook photos were good because it was like a miniature recap of the events. Facebook is also a very appropriate platform for this kind of audience engagement. That said, so many photo albums bog down newsfeeds. The audience becomes less engaged over time because it is customary to see these come up in their timelines. Northern’s Facebook posts are almost exclusively photos and news articles. Alumni, in most cases, are probably more active on Facebook than Twitter, so Northern needs to be talking to them.

Check out my Storify about the Ohio Northern Homecoming 2013 parade! Click here.