Screenshot of @topgold's Twitter screen on Lumia.
IT TOOK ME seven years of tweeting to hit a new high water mark with Twitter. I'm starting to poke above 5000 followers on my main Twitter account while simultaneously throttling back my use of Twitter.
Most of my energy today is split across several social networks because those other networks reflect where our potential students and potential employers reside. Incoming students are more likely to be listening to YouTube music or using Facebook. Potential employers are either following a flow on LinkedIn or they're inside a Google Plus Community. And although many of my long-time associates bounce around all of these places, I have to be ruthless and limit my time tweeting if I expect to hit our metrics.
We're looking at ways to continue increasing both our enrolled students in South Tipperary as well as enhancing employment prospects of students who complete their Level 7 and Level 8 creative multimedia degree programmes with the Limerick School of Art & Design. I'll be curious to see what kinds of online interaction we use in 2024.
Back in 2004, we were broadsheet and broadcast-oriented when trying to attract students. We got the best results when we spoke directly to groups of students in classrooms and we also discovered gatekeepers in second level schools who denied us access. That all changed when those same gatekeepers discovered our presence in real networking events (i.e., major exhibitions and at teaching conferences). However, the impact of those gatekeepers is now much reduced because students can opt to seek and find information directly by searching online.
We have distilled and bottled some clever web analytics that guide us to making measured outlays of Adsense, Facebook and Twitter marketing money. I know that if a few of our senior lecturers departed the campus, that inside information would go with them--a likely occurrence because few college lecturers keep teaching on the same circuit for more than 10 years. So a decade from now, I wonder what we'll be using to attract potential students. And I wonder how important Twitter, Google Plus, Facebook, Instagram and YouTube will be as Old Skool players in our connected world.
[Bernie Goldbach is the senior creative multimedia lecturer in the Limerick School of Art & Design.]
