The School of Education teaches Orientation Session 5 how to do the Terrier Shuffle.

Below are some articles that caught our interest this past week:

The Broader Role of Moderators in Online Communities (The Online Community Guide): Removing bad content and resolving disputes is just a small part of being a moderator on the web (your blog; your Facebook page). A community manager should be interested in proactively starting discussions and guiding what the community will talk about. Setting up weekly features (thinking: BUAA’s Terrier Tip Tuesday) can help to grow a web community.

App Connects Governments And Citizens on Facebook (AllFacebook): The CRT Facebook app allows citizens to report municipal issues to their local governments. How could students work together to solve problems or provide regular feedback in an app like this? What types of issues could it address?

Google Plus is Not Your Blog (Chris Brogan): Nor is Facebook, Twitter or LinkedIn — they serve as outposts for your content. They are enhancements to what you are already doing, whether it’s publishing a quarterly newsletter for alumni or hosting events for incoming students. We’ve noticed a few campus organizations, including the Programming Council and the International Affairs Association, have jumped onto Google+ recently (we’re currently holding off, as Google has options for businesses rolling out shortly.) Are you trying Google Plus? What are your thoughts so far?

The Student Affairs Technology Unconference Boston is being hosted by Dean of Students Kenn Elmore and Ed Cabellon on Friday, July 29th. There are a few tickets left, but if you’d rather save them for higher ed folks outside of BU, the hashtag to follow that day is #satechBOS.

Developing the Social Media Management Team (@Greg2dot0′s Blog): “Focus on the behavior, not the tool.” Thinking lately about social media adoption in an organization as much more than technology training; it’s a culture change. I met with Robin Lubbock of WBUR several weeks ago and he explained how he’s meeting with staff one-on-one to get them set up on social tools (because everyone learns differently.)

Tumblr Now Has More Blogs Than WordPress.com (Mashable): Nearly 20.9M blogs have been created on Tumblr. We’re currently experimenting as well. Thinking of ways we can use Tumblr to talk with students (since so many are using Tumblr for their personal blogs (and tagging Boston University.) I’m looking at similar social portals that emphasize photos & short text — even personal website builders like flavors.me, about.me and Jason Kottke’s stellar.io now emphasize foolproof signup/design and visual appeal.

5 Tips for Launching Multiple Facebook Fan Pages (10,000 Words): “Assess your progress” is the key part for me. Facebook Pages (even if you’re only managing one) should have clear goals in place that tie directly to your overall marketing efforts. How do you assess your Facebook Page’s success? What particular metrics do you track? Did you know: Social Media Communicator for the School of Public Health, Elana Zak, is a contributor to this blog? Check out her latest post, “Standing Up for the Journalism Degree”

Nieman Reports: Curation, Community and the Future of News (The Nieman Foundation for Journalism at Harvard University): Steven Rosenbaum sees an area for growth in “content curation” jobs: sifting through the massive amounts of social data surrounding a news event, and finding the key messages and influencers in the conversation. Be sure to check out the Digital Lifestyle Survey findings (I’m not sure whether I should be proud or embarrassed to say I’m in the “48.5%” category on that second graph — how about you?)

The Liberty Hotel’s Social Media page: This caught my eye this week. Looking forward to the launch of a social media guide for all BU accounts (currently in the works). Twitter users: Have you bookmarked our “BU on Twitter” list?

BU 2015: Student Blogs

We’ve noticed several initiatives across campus by students and organizations to acclimate prospective and current students (especially BU 2015) to life at BU and in Boston this summer. Some examples:

• The Quad’s “Cheapskate’s Guide to Boston,” running all summer, and “Orienting to BU,” just for freshmen
• COM Ambassadors: Check out their blog — they’re tweeting on @COMUGrad, too.
• BU FYI, run by the Dean of Students’ office (check Kenn’s blog, too — he has a new playlist each week for orientation)
• Common@Mugar: The Mugar team has been pounding the pavement — check out their latest initiative, New@BU, aimed at the freshman class. They also released a fun video this week on Session 2 of orientation.

Anything we might be missing? Have an article that struck a chord for you this past week? Send it our way in the comments.

- Jenny

Image courtesy roncaglia on Flickr / Creative Commons.