ONU’s social media shortcoming on homecoming

Having live-tweeted just one event at this year’s homecoming weekend, I understand how difficult it would be for someone to cover every event. Also, I don’t know how many people share operation duties of the ONU Twitter and Facebook accounts. However, I will say this- from a social media perspective, ONU stumbled a bit in their coverage of homecoming weekend.

Homecoming weekend presents an opportunity for Ohio Northern to connect with its alumni. With social media like Facebook and Twitter, ONU can connect with those who can’t make the trip back to campus. And with operational and popular social media accounts (ONU Facebook page has near 7,800 likes, ONU Twitter account has near 4,700 followers), one would think that this venue of connection would be well-utilized on homecoming weekend.

However, this really didn’t happen. Coverage didn’t seem like a priority to ONU, based on the low level of activity on both their Twitter and Facebook accounts this weekend. Let’s start with Twitter.

This weekend, ONU tweeted three times. Twice about homecoming royalty and once about last night’s fireworks. Although all tweets had pictures, this just isn’t enough coverage for a weekend with so many events.

Also, the tweets did not share similar hashtags. Organizing their tweets by using a catch-all hashtag would not only promote homecoming weekend, but also prompt other followers to use the hashtag and engage with the rest of ONU’s Twitter community.

As I said previously, I do not know how many people share the operational duties of ONU’s Twitter account. However, if there is only one person, maybe ONU should think about giving more people tweeting duties. More connection with alumni would have been a nice touch this weekend, and by now there are many alumni with Twitter accounts.

But if there was ever a social media site that would attract alumni, it would be Facebook. And unfortunately for Polar Bear alums, ONU’s Facebook literally gave them nothing this weekend.

The university’s Facebook page was up-to-date with posts from last week’s “Spirit Week,” but still has nothing to show for homecoming weekend. From a ‘social technographic’ standpoint, this is a waste of a weekend. The first (and only) post concerning homecoming weekend came on Monday morning, and this was merely a picture slideshow- nothing that directly promotes the university.

I can only imagine all of those ONU alumni, ages 35-65, sitting at home and refreshing Facebook this weekend, just to find nothing from their alma mater itself. In order for ONU to stay in touch with its alumni in 2014, a central focus needs to be placed on social media; and Facebook would appear to be the social media of alumni.

ONU needs to delegate more people to handle social media duties for future events. Having an up-to-date, engaging social media presence would change the way that the university interacts with alumni and the rest of the ONU community.