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Photo by Theresa Thompson, Flickr.
Lane Joplin was an army of one at UAT. She oversaw social media, got “other duties as assigned,” and supported marketing, web & IT, and admissions. (Sound familar?)
In the midst of all her other projects, she was given an assignment: create a more dynamic web site by integrating social media — with no budget and no support
Unlike most of us, she didn’t go screaming off into the night. But she did take things one day at a time
To start, she created a “first date” –between the geekiest of geeks (the website) and the popular cheerleader (social media).– in which a Facebook page link was added to Admissions’ page
Then, the web and social media started “going steady” as she managed to get social media icons on the homepage — with no internal help or coding. Assistance came from connecting with hewebbers for “how to” info and advice.
From there, Lane embedded flickr galleries and vimeo videos, which provided spikes, but not a sustained interactive presence.
A quiet wedding, followed: Lane added the Facebook “like” plug-in, which encouraged site visitors to engage — and share. Next, came student’s video blog sharing his study abroad experience via YouTube, which was compelling content for both prospective and current students. And then, via Destination Geek, got UAT students to create and submit video, which was then turned into a UAT YouTube playlist.
Currently, no additional Facebook “like” pages are being created at UAT. Lane left the university over the summer and, because she was an army of one, no one else has stepped up to take on the task.
But love springs eternal, right? So perhaps, next spring, when the love is in the air, social media and the web will find each other again at UAT.
