November Council Meeting Coverage |
|
December 4, 2012,
Volume 59, No. 14 |
At the November 28 Council meeting, there was a presentation about the use of new media by University Communications. Stephen MacCarthy, vice president for University Communications, began by saying that in the 15 months since he arrived (Almanac September 6, 2011), they have reorganized their office to be content providers and to be more serious about using social media. About a year ago, they started Penn News Today and now have about 69,000 subscribers who get five stories sent to them each day. Penn went from being ranked 7th in the Ivy League to 2nd in terms of YouTube visitors, from 1 million to over 4.8 million. A social media consulting firm, Sociagility, ranked US and UK universities in terms of social media and Penn came in second after Harvard.
Then, Matt Griffin, manager of New Media Communications, provided more details. He explained their approach to using social media—be consistent: posting to Facebook and Twitter several times per day; be engaging: less focus on press releases; be visual: at least one photo or video per day; be interactive: retweeting and reposting; be agile: they have embraced Instagram but not Pinterest; be encouraging: being a resource for other departments; be aware of limitations: they have developed internships to expand their reach into new platforms. The average number of daily engaged Facebook users have increased, with 15% engaged last fall to 29% this fall, meaning more shares and comments.
Penn’s most popular Facebook image is the double rainbow over Penn Park, taken the evening the Park officially opened. It has had 2,395 likes, 220 comments and 497 shares. They reported that more than 88,000 people have seen that picture on Facebook since it was posted in September 2011.
The meeting also included the Open Forum where Dephanie Jao, a second year GSE student, addressed her interest in collaborating with Penn, in support of students who have experienced racial or sexual harassment or assault. She described the incident that she had written a DP guest column about; it ran in their November 1, 2012 issue, describing what happened to her and her friends on Locust Walk on September 28 at 9:40 p.m. Then, Associate Vice Provost for Equity and Access Will Gipson and Vice President for Public Safety Maureen Rush responded to her concerns and indicated a willingness to provide supportive resources. Rev. Gipson said that Penn “deplores acts of discrimination.” He said Penn has policies and resources in place. VP Rush said that there is a difference between what is prohibited by Penn’s policies and the criminal justice system’s definitions of indecent assault and harassment. |