I'll see your photo challenge and raise you...

Last week was the first week having new students on campus. In an attempt to direct students to our Facebook Fan Page to interact with each other, we launched a photo challenge during our orientation program.

The challenge:

The team who uploads the most photos to our Facebook Fan Page by 2pm on Friday will receive an award at the awards presentation Friday.
Also the team who uploads the most interesting photo will receive an award Friday.

Before we announced this to the teams, we made sure all the group leaders were aware of what we were doing to make sure they encouraged their team to participate.

There were a few other rules we gave teams on the first day.

1. Duplicates do not count
2. Only photos that have the team name in the description or tagged will count

**Note to self: add a few more rules next year.

The Stats:

After lunch I checked to see how everything was going. About five hours into the challenge we had 20 new fans, 84 photos uploaded and links to 343 more photos.

At the end of day one we were at:

• 30 new fans
• 216 photos
• 343 more photos linked to
  

Awesome!

Day Two stats:

• 50 new fans
• 1053 photos
• 370 more photos linked to

1053 photos??? Yes that number is correct.

Day Three Stats:

• 59 new fans
• 3300 photos uploaded
• 5000 more photos lined to

However, after you take away the duplicates and pictures that can't be made out, we had approximately 2800 photos uploaded.

One student posted a non statistical breakdown on the photos:
Although not 100% accurate at times it seemed like it was.

The Unexpected:

1. I was leading an orientation group. Our first activity was to check out a camera from the library, take a group picture and upload it to the Facebook Fan Page. What?! No one told me there were going to be activities having us upload things to the Fan Page. There were two activities to earn points that involved the Fan Page. Great Idea! Just wish I could have had a heads up.
2. 5000+ pictures! Let me say here I truly only expected between 500-800 photos.
3. One of our staff members put together a small contest to help with the "Most Interesting" Photo contest. This is what came of it.
   
   

Where we messed up...

I guess duplicate means one thing to one person and another to a freshman college student. The most common photo series uploaded where ones of rapid fire photos going around the room that should have been stitched together in Photoshop and then uploaded. At one point we had a group leader hang his camera around his neck and set it to go off every 5 seconds.

Also, we need to state what is classified as a photo. To me, it is clear enough to make out what is happening in the photo and is not of walls, skies and railings unless the walls, skies and railings help tell a story of what happened.

Success?
All in all I believe this was a success. Since the end of the contest, we have had more activity on our Page. However, we will not find out if it was a true success in getting students to come to our Fan Page to interact until later in the year.

(Checkout other great examples of Social Media use in HigherEd at .eduGuru)

So you want to make a Facebook group?

There is one major thing that bothers me about Facebook groups, when they are abandoned. Time and time again, I do a search for a group and see that it hasn't been updated or posted on in the last 3+months. It is because no one thought about goals and conversations.

Over the past few weeks, several people have approached me wanting advise on starting a Facebook group. It's great to see everyone finally acknowledging students and alumni are on Facebook, but my response is always "Don't!....yet."

A few of you are thinking I'm crazy, but let me explain. 99% of the time they haven't thought through what it will take in making and maintaining a group.

I ask them a few questions before I let them run out and create a group:

• What are your goals for it?
• Is there a conversation you can create?
  
• Do you have time?
• Are you going to keep it up?

After I ask about goals, the conversation usually ends, but isn't this where the conversation should begin? Even if your goal is to bring people together, it's still a goal.

The conversation you plan on creating is the most important part. Working towards the same goal, creating a place where everyone can grow as a community and help each other out. It's like having a meeting without an agenda. No one wants to meet to talk about nothing or have every person talking about different random things that are not connected.

This brings us to time and keeping it up. They go hand in hand. Maintaining the group or page means taking the time to answer questions and build relationships.

Next time you are approached with someone wanting to create a Facebook group, make sure they at least have a goal and understand there is a time commitment to what they create. To me there is no bigger let down than joining a group or a page to find out in a few weeks there really was no reason to join.

Facebook groups with created and used correctly will build a community for everyone to gain from.

8 Months in Review

In January I took my new position within the University as the Digital Strategist, as some would say a fancy way of saying I get paid to be on Facebook. But it's much more.

It wasn't long until I ran into my first hurdle and needed some direction and help. I came across a blog post by Rachel Reuben that intrigued me. A few emails later and I was on the phone with her talking about Social Media and the problems I was having. We exchanged Twitter names and within the next hour my network expanded by more than 75 people. Little did I know where this new network would take me.

As a newbie to the community I sat back for a while learning more than I could have ever thought.

A couple months into everything, a breakfast of pancakes turned into so much more. My friend Tim, @timnekritz, asked if he could join my breakfast virtually. Next thing we know it's a #pancaketweetup. March was our first event, and we had between 5-8 people attend in one way or another.

We are now six months into our #pancaketweetups and have grown to 25-30 people with more adding each month. Not only are #pancaketweetups growing virtually, #pancaketweetups in real life are growing as well!

Besides just enjoying pancakes, I have been lucky enough to have a friend overnight me one of the most delicious Jimmy John's sandwiches.

I know, I know there is more to life than food. Which brings me to #lanesintown.

I've never been to New York until last week. Thank goodness I've found some Twitter friends there. I have promised my friends I would come to visit at some point, but never thought it would be so soon. After starting #pancaketweetup with Tim from NY, and getting myself and Jimmy John's from Mark in NY as well, it was time to pay them a visit.

A friendly visit turned into a weekend event of tweetups, #pancaketweetupirl and meeting of wonderful friends outside of the twitter realm.

So what can you do with Twitter? A lot!!! Thank you everyone who has helped and/or participated in #pancaketweetup, #lanesintown and my Jimmy John's sandwich.

Rock On!!

My Dream "Intervention"

Last night I broke up with my boyfriend of 6ish months. (aww...I know) But it was for the best. The relationship just wasn't fair to either of us because we both wanted different things. It had been coming for a couple weeks, I just needed to say it was over.

The strange part was the dream I had later.

In the dream, I believe, I had just broken up with this guy. I knew he wasn't the right one for me, and I guess many people around me knew he wasn't the right one. A group of ladies from my church had formed some sort of "intervention."

I don't really remember who all was there, but the one person I remember, kinda led the "intervention." I don't know a lot about her because we haven't spent a lot of time together, but she is pretty cool and fun to be around.

Michelle had written out several reason why I needed to end my relationship. As she started, I informed her I ended the relationship earlier that night. So in turn she made create a list of all the qualities and things I was looking for in a relationship. From there, the married women would look it over and give me insights and feed back on it.

Then I woke up. I think I created the list in my dreams, but I'm not 100% sure.

I kinda want to say thank you to her. But I think it would be weird to say I respect your opinion, and my subconsciousness had created situations for you to give me advice.

Oh well. If I never tell you, Thanks!

Rock on,
Lane J

Life is like Interval Training

As a runner, I have several different types of runs. There's the long run, the short run, the speed workout, and interval training. Lately, I've been focusing on the short run because I've been lazy. That's beside the point though.

During interval training, you pick a distance, usually a 1/4 mile, and you run that as fast as you can. Once you run the 1/4 mile, you recover for a few seconds, catch your breathe and repeat. The point of interval training is to improve your endurance.

Life works the same. You work 5 days a week doing the same thing week after week with no recovery. Yes, I know there's weekends for that. But what did you do last weekend, and the weekend before and the weekend before that? Chances are you did the same thing.

Even if you're not going as fast as you can week after week, you get tired. And you will at some point need a recovery.

Hello Vacation!!!

I've been working full time for a little over a year now. I take off on holidays. On Christmas and Thanksgiving I went home to visit but just long enough for the holiday.

This past weekend I went home and spent 5 days in St. Louis. 5 days? I know it doesn't seem like a lot. But when you keep yourself busy in things other than sitting around the house it makes for a very refreshing time.

Remember even the best need a time to recover! Take a weekend and go somewhere fun!

~Lane

Sometimes you just hit a wall

When you get into a habit of doing the same thing over and over, you dig a rut deeper and deeper and eventually you hit a wall. You might not hit the wall until your rut is so deep that you hit the Great Wall of China, but you will hit a wall.

With the changes in Social Media happening daily, you can no longer do the same thing you were 6 months ago. If you are, your results will plateau. The steady climb you may have been seeing over the past 3 weeks may abruptly stop or slow to minimal numbers.

In order to break through this wall you need to mix it up a little. Add a new interactive feature to your website. Try different types of links on your Facebook fan page. What about a mashup somewhere?

Just adding something new will help break through the wall. Change something up if you think you are heading towards a wall. It will be easier to change it now than once you hit the wall.

Today's Battle: Blog vs. Twitter

Today's winner is Twitter.

In honor of my tweet today, I have replaced this post with my twitter feed.




Enjoy!