Before 2007, The University of Alabama had not yet ventured into the realm of social media. Today, the University has over half a million followers across various social media platforms.
The University began interacting on social media platforms with the creation of a YouTube account in 2007. Andy Rainey, director of web communications for the University, said the school expanded to other social media channels shortly afterwards, including Facebook in 2008, Twitter in 2009, Flickr in 2010 and Vimeo in 2013.
“Social media has been an excellent complementary tool for our communications efforts,” Rainey said. “The real benefit of using social media is that we get to communicate with those who care about the University on platforms that are already so closely integrated into their daily lives.”
Rainey said the University has taken advantage of the ubiquity of social media. Sites like Facebook and Twitter have millions, if not billions, of users, all of whom equate to potential page views.
“The key advantage of utilizing popular social media channels to communicate is that our potential audience is virtually limitless, constrained only by the popularity of each respective channel globally,” Rainey said.
The University’s various social media accounts have measured traffic from across the United States, but also from countries around the globe.
“The ability to tell our story to international audiences helps us access potential new markets and stay connected to graduates and supporters who live internationally, and it can certainly help us extend our reach and influence globally,” Rainey said.
The UA mobile app has also followed some of the same expansion patterns as the University’s social media sites. Ivon Foster-McGowan, assistant to the provost for Special Projects and Academic Technology, has managed the app since its iOS version launch in April 2011, followed by its Android and Blackberry versions three months later. Since the initial launch, the app has been downloaded over 150,000 times around the globe.
“That includes a good number of downloads outside of the country,” Foster-McGowan said. “Probably around 96 percent are in the U.S., but the other four percent are outside the U.S., which means, from a digital presence perspective, that we have a pretty broad brand reach just because we’re in the app stores.”
The external downloads could be coming from abroad for a number of reasons. For example, Foster-McGowan has apps on her phone for over 50 universities simply to research how they develop their apps.
“It could be an app developer in China who is interested in what The University of Alabama is doing, but I also was contacted from someone in Nigeria whose brother went to UAB who is interested in developing an app similar to ours for universities in Nigeria,” she said. “It’s people who are interested in us because of football, it’s people who are international students who are interesting in coming here in the fall and they downloaded it while they were in their home country.”
One reason the University has embraced social media is to reach out to potential students on a channel they may be comfortable with.
“Social media is a key part of how UA communicates with prospective students, given the popularity of these social media channels among high school and college-age students,”’ Rainey said. “The Office of Undergraduate Admissions uses social media to answer questions, share information about dates and deadlines and to try to make things as simple as possible for students as they work through the college selection and admissions processes.”
Although the reach of the app outside of campus is beneficial to the school’s digital presence, it is geared mainly towards student use. One of its most popular features is the “Student” feature, which requires MyBama login credentials and includes a student’s class schedule, grades and MyTickets information. Foster-McGowan can track student usage on the app because of the login requirement. She said she found it interesting that peaks in usage coincide with events on campus – a large peak in August shows that students are using it to double check their class schedules (one day in August had 5,000 users), and peaks in September and October mark football season and MyTickets hits. Between Sept. 23, 2012, and Sept. 23, 2014, the “Student” feature had more than 1.3 million total page views.
Foster-McGowan also manages The University of Alabama’s digital signage, which is a system of television screens that can display content, forming another avenue of digital presence on campus. Since 2009, 281 digital signs in more than 70 on-campus buildings make up the digital signage force, including both television screens and digital directories. Digital signage is run on a continuous loop, and all screens are connected to a central server.
“The digital signage system has a central server, and users can log into that through a web interface and upload content that gets pushed out to their displays in their buildings,” she said. “The advantage of the central system is I can be in my office and I can push out content to any of the displays that I have access to in any building on campus.”
The University’s digital signage is also connected to the UA Alerts system. Foster-McGowan said that when the alerts system is engaged, there is an option to send a message to the digital signage across campus.
“The advantage of that is the text message gets read and then you might delete it, or the phone call comes in or whatever, but if we put it on digital signage we can say, ‘Leave this up here for two hours,’” she said.
The UA Alerts system includes numerous channels on which administrators can quickly disseminate information to reach a wide audience.
“All decisions are made with the safety and well-being of our students, faculty and staff the priority,” assistant director of media relations Chris Bryant said. “Different communication vehicles are used depending on the nature of the event. When it’s necessary for members of the campus community to take immediate action, UA Alerts is used, in conjunction with other communication vehicles, as needed.”
Bryant said the decision to send an alert comes from University Relations, which, if necessary, coordinates with UAPD and the University’s Emergency Preparedness and Response Policy Group. If an event has potential to affect university operations, the group meets before the expected event to discuss options. They make response recommendations, but it is ultimately up to UA President Judy Bonner to decide the school’s plan of action in response to a pending event.
Foster-McGowan said all new construction and major renovations on campus get digital signage because of its UA Alert capabilities. She said all the newly-constructed Greek houses must have at least one digital sign as part of the emergency notification system.
The UA Alerts system is limited to employees and on-campus students enrolled in at least one hour that is not online. Bryant suggested that students and employees keep their contact information updated in order to receive any alerts sent by the University. Instructions for doing so can be found on the UA Alerts tab on prepare.ua.edu.
