Are people addicted to their smart phones? Image: Flickr/Andres Rodriguez.

Denny Carter of eCampus News, in his article on how frequently students check their smartphones and laptops, extensively quotes ASMH co-founder Julie Germany. Here are the quotes:

The trend of checking devices is going to get worse for a while before it gets better,” said Julie Germany, cofounder of the Association for Social Media and Higher Education, and former director of the George Washington University’s Institute for Politics, Democracy and the Internet. “For many people, connecting through text, eMail, chat, and social media has become an important interruption. I suspect we’ll become even more addicted before we see people begin to take longer breaks from their devices.”

Germany said the presence of smartphones with speedy web connections has transformed lectures, and even meetings: “People talk on the phones, write papers for other classes, and connect socially.”

“It’s not all bad, either,” she said. “Some of us Google issues, people, situations or theories during lectures, for example, and that provides additional context and a new level of learning.”

Professors should try to incorporate popular social media sites that students scour every waking hour into their course curriculum, Germany said, and students should remember that lectures and discussion sections still have a purpose in the age of digital devices.

“It’s hard to disconnect,” she said. “In some ways, educators need to adapt by being more interactive. In other ways, students need to learn to when shut down their devices, pay attention, and learn.”

Click on the image to enlarge. Here’s the full text of Kawam’s interview with Menachem Wecker:

Q1: Why have people – young people namely – become so reliant on social media?

A: Saying young people have become reliant on social media is kind of like saying young people have become reliant on communicating with peers, being inquisitive, forming communities and experimenting. Young people have always done those things, and social media is just the latest in a long tradition of technological advances that young people have embraced. Add into the mix that social media is overwhelmingly free (if you can afford an internet connection), and you get a set of tools and communities that is even more accessible.

Q2: Is this a good or a bad thing? Or both? Why?

A: I would be cautious about slapping a “good” or “bad” label on social media, or young people’s reliance on it. Surely there are young people embracing Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, blogs, Quora and other networks and wielding them for healthy and constructive reasons, and there are others using it to slander, humiliate, hurt and otherwise clogs networks with useless information. Young people, like older people, are using social networks in a variety of ways. Some refer to “social networking addictions,” while others ridicule the term. I’m agnostic on whether that’s a real phenomenon (mostly because I don’t know much about it), but I can see anecdotally that some folks should use social networks more. Some should use them less. I think it’s more fruitful to focus on the question of how we can all use social networks to build and grow.

Q3: Where do you see social media going? The way of Google (as in, getting bigger and bigger)? Or the way of MySpace (as in shrinking to almost nothing)? Or somewhere else?

Great question! I think we are all starting to see that social networks are mostly about the people and only coincidentally about the tools. I wish I had a crystal ball to predict the future of MySpace, Google and other platforms (I’d be rich, for one thing), but I don’t. I think the phenomenon where social networks are being used cooperatively, rather than competitively, is here to stay. For example, it used to be that a company would hire an individual, and depending upon the field, that individual might bring her or his Rolodex of contacts along to the detriment of the previous employer. Now, it’s not unusual for friends (or connections) at competing companies to have each other in their chat buddy lists or as connections on social networks, and increasingly we are all collaborating to resolve problems together. “[People] work together,” Robert Frost wrote, “whether they work together or apart.” I think this culture is going to be a larger and larger force moving forward, whatever the platforms lucky enough to host it.

Q4: Can you offer some advice to students as a way to use social media as a tool and not a crutch?

I’d be glad to, but with the caveat that students are usually showing me how to use social media, rather than the alternative! I try to use social networks in a way that I am always learning something. If I am using them as a platform to pitch my own ideas, then I’m not gaining anything. Who says my ideas are that hot anyway? Instead, I’d advise students (and everyone else!) to use social networks like sponges. Absorb as much as you can. Try not to speak for as long as you can. Maybe this is the Zen of social networks. Social networks offer us so many Libraries of Alexandria many times over at our finger tips, and it’s all free. You used to have to may millions to access this kind of information. That’s a tremendous opportunity, but also a great responsibility. I often joke that social media users should have to take a Hippocratic Oath of social networking: first of all, do no digital harm. Whatever else you do, matters much less.

Q5: Why create something like the Association of Social Media & Higher Education? Was there a need? What do you guys do there?

I and my colleagues created ASMH because we were, and remain, very interested in how social networks can and do inform higher education, and in the ways higher education can impact social networks. Are there others who are doing good work on this intersection? Of course. But we figured we had a unique way to go about it, and we each brought our own resources and connections to the mix. We had a really successful event about the ways chain of command in the military interact with social networking, primarily Twitter, and we recently hosted a conversation about the role, if any, Wikipedia should have in higher education. To the extent that we can continue to curate relevant and useful conversations of this sort, I think we will be a success story.

Denny Carter of eCampus News, in his article on students using social media to organize gatherings outside the White House, mentions ASMH. Here’s the quote, which comes toward the end of the article:

Menachem Wecker, cofounder of the Association for Social Media and Higher Education and a staff writer at a GWU publication, said that most students there don’t use the school’s Twitter hashtag to engage the campus community, but students who regularly seek social media interaction can create a stir during important events.

“What we are seeing is a very engaged minority on campus that is sharing everything from news clips to information about campus events, and from excitement about the GW brand to occasional criticism,” Wecker said. “It’s fair to say that important events, like the news about Bin Laden, will dominate the kinds of tweets that GW students send out to the conversation tag, but the constant volume shows that the university is lucky to have some of the most digitally savvy and social media engaged students around.”

Twitter has become college students’ go-to social media tool in organizing campus gatherings, he said, because “it is so rapid-fire and because it is very search engine-optimized,” meaning Twitter allows students to easily monitor hashtags.

Ryan (about.me page/LinkedIn), who has worked previously at MTV, NBC, the Washington Post and Cincinnati Enquirer and an alumnus of the E.W. Scripps School of Journalism at Ohio University, fielded questions about social media and higher education.

1. ASMH: When and why did you first get involved in social media?

RL: Well, I first got involved on Facebook when I was 17; actually right after I got my college email address so I could register. I started using Twitter during my first college internship (at The Cincinnati Enquirer) in 2008. I was really drawn to the idea of being able to connect with anyone and everyone. I can’t even tell you the opportunities that have been opened to me because of my consistent presence on social media.

2. ASMH: What are some of the most innovative uses of social media in higher education, in your opinion?

RL: I still think every college and university benefits the most by having a highly-engaged Facebook and Twitter program. We’re on social media to listen, learn and discuss ideas. Universities need to have their brand in this area, and they need to listen to what people are saying! I do love the schools that are being more proactive and bringing platforms such as Foursquare to their campus. Students are so tech-savvy that you benefit by having your brand out there on every platform.

3. ASMH: How important is your journalism background to your job?

RL: I think my journalism background does help to an extent. My grammar and ethics courses are put to the test almost on a daily basis. But, I’ve learned basically everything I’ve needed to know through my internships and student organizations. There’s no replacement for hands-on experience. But, my journalism background helped me land great internships so I can’t say it didn’t help.

4. ASMH: I see according to your LinkedIn profile that you were part of MTV’s first-ever Twitter Jockey competition. What was that competition, and why did you get involved?

RL: Short version: I was contacted by MTV near the end of my senior year in college, because they felt I had a strong social media presence. They were on the search for their first ever MTV Twitter Jockey — which is basically the web equivalent of a MTV Video Jockey. I never signed up for anything — they literally found me on the web. I participated because I knew this national attention would be amazing for my personal brand and it was everything I could have ever hoped it would be. I learned a lot about myself, my abilities in social media and what I hope to do with my career.

5. ASMH: If you were forced to conjure up a crystal ball and predict what some of the social media trends that are likely to unfold in higher education in the coming months and years, what would your top three be?

RL:

1. More and more universities will use social media not only to research prospective students, but to recruit students.
2. More colleges and universities will create iPad (or tablet) apps for their online classes.
3. Foursquare, or some other geolocation app, will have a much more prominent place for college visits.

Leaving aside the question whether it’s appropriate to use a phone in church and despite the fact that the reports have been dismissed, it’s worth pondering for a moment whether there ought to be mobile phone-free zones, particularly in higher education.

I once heard someone (I wish I remember who) say that the worst thing colleges and universities can do is allow their sports arenas and fields to have poor reception. A large gathering of sports fans can, if given the chance, tweet up a storm, the person said. Why would you want to deny them that? Yet, so many school arenas (and large lecture halls too) have precisely that problem.

Does anyone have any insight into whether there might be particular technology challenges in arenas? Anyone think there are reasons to avoid letting fans use their smart phones?

Should higher ed ever block Twitter? Flickr/creative commons.

Here is a selection:

Menachem Wecker, cofounder of ASMHE, said campus officials could raise awareness of errors on a college’s Wikipedia entry on the site’s discussion page and encourage other editors to make the change and include proper citation.

“Users should not try to participate in Wikipedia in a vacuum,” he said. “One doesn’t show up in a community and tell it how to do its business, and one should immerse oneself in the Wikipedia community and realize that it functions as a community.”

Update 4/26: The radio session has also been covered in Lani Farley’s article in The Western Front titled “University Wikipedia pages ripe for biased editing: Site that tracks IP addresses finds some universities edit their own Wikipedia pages.”

Hat tip to Chris Syme (@cksyme) for creating this through paper.li!

There are some great reports and videos available about digital marketing, social media, viral video, mobile, and brand management from the likes of Google, Twitter and FourSquare.

If you are interested in presentations more specific to higher ed look no further than the CASE Social Media & Community conference held in San Francisco April 13-15. Even if you can’t make it to SF you can tune in to certain presentations via simulcast ($99 for CASE members, $130 for non-members).

Let us know if you have feedback / insights on any of the presentations from either of these conferences!

Many of us in higher education have seen our leadership move beyond the “we have to be on Facebook/Twitter/LinkedIn!” phase and into the “wait, what are we getting from the resources we’re spending?” mode.

Some of the more interesting recent chatter about social media ROI includes:

• Tailoring metrics to your audience by Nate Elliott (@nate_elliott);
• Taking a long-term perspective on social media efforts by Steve Goldner (@SocialSteve); and
• Defining a framework for social marketing analytics by John Lovett (@johnlovett) and Jeremiah Owyang (@jowyang)

Earlier this month HootSuite joined the measurement party by launching HootSuite Social Analytics. I took a deeper dive into this new analytics platform in the past few weeks to provide a report card on the company’s offerings. (Full disclosure: I am a HootSuite user).

Below are my grades for HootSuite Social Analytics. After the jump you can see a Q&A with HootSuite CEO Ryan Holmes, who was good enough to respond to several questions about the new product. Thanks to HootSuite’s @ashjbee and @daveohoots for their help with this article.

The HootSuite Analytics Report Card

Usability: A -

HootSuite’s quick reports allow you to create simple presentations from Owl.ly statistics, Facebook Insights, and Google Analytics. The platform’s custom reports allows for some more advanced results.

It didn’t take me long to figure out how to create custom reports. The four step process includes: 1) Select report type (From five options); 2) Choose profile (Twitter / Facebook / Google Analytics); 3) Add report “modules” (Rollovers provide at a glance descriptions); and 4) Select your email scheduling preferences and create a report.

I found the interface to be very intuitive and user-friendly. The only thing that threw me off a bit was the point system associated with the reports (more on this below).

Functionality: B

After some testing I ultimately created two basic reports, one for the Facebook page I manage and one for the Twitter account. These two reports used up my monthly point allocation.

If you do go “Pro” and use Social Analytics you will find yourself having to do some testing to develop the optimal report(s) for your needs within the pricing structure. Don’t forget about the quick reports option, which is free and may be able to meet your needs in a pinch.

I would like to see some LinkedIn group analytics; there are none at this point. CEO Ryan Holmes says HootSuite will “keep our eyes open for additional ways to work with LinkedIn,” but in reality LinkedIn is in the driver’s seat and can choose how much information to share.

Cost: C

The pricing model is certainly the biggest disappointment with HootSuite Analytics and has drawn the most comments and questions from HootSuite users.

Upgrading to HootSuite Pro (at $5.99 a month) provides you with 50 monthly points to allocate toward creating reports. Most “modules” that you include in a report have a cost associated with them, as do report templates, so you can quickly go through your point allocation. I found was that I could either create one very in-depth report for a particular profile (e.g. Facebook / Twitter) or two pretty good reports for the basic monthly cost. I chose to go with a pretty good report for both Facebook and Twitter.

According to Mr. Holmes the company surveyed users before selecting the current pricing model. “The ‘a la carte’ points system provided the best way to offer enhanced analytics tools to most users by allowing custom-tailored reports for their particular analytics needs,” Mr. Holmes wrote.

You can purchase more points to create additional custom reports – at the very steep cost of $50/month – or try to generate a report through the free quick report system. A lot of the same data are available on each individual platform – Facebook Insights or Google Analytics for example – but there certainly are benefits to the user from having a single analytics platform.

The Overall Grade: B / B+

If you are a HootSuite user, like the product, and have a need for some basic reporting I suggest upgrading to HootSuite Pro and creating some sample reports. (Please note: there is a 30-day free trial for pro accounts so its worth testing out).

I think the points pricing system is unnecessarily confusing, but hopefully that is something that HootSuite will look at down the road. I also think additional functionality – like more information from LinkedIn and additional tools related to user sentiment and affiliation would be useful.

You can read the full text of our Q&A with HootSuite CEO Ryan Holmes about HootSuite Analytics after the jump. (Q&A edited slightly for clarity).

ASMH: How many upgrades to Pro accounts have you seen since the launch of HootSuite analytics? (Either a total # or % of users. If % of users, please let us know how many total active users HootSuite has).

RH: Currently, HootSuite has 1.5 million users, and approximately 95% of our users remain free. When developing our Freemium model, we knew that a large portion of our user base would best be served with a free plan for casual profile updating, searching and monitoring. Those with more advanced business needs can opt in to our Pro or Enterprise plans for more advanced reporting and enhanced features. Each new feature we add to the Pro and enterprise packages results in an increase of sign-ups and upgrades.

ASMH: Are there analytics for LinkedIn groups? I am not a LinkedIn group manager, but LinkedIn groups are especially important in higher ed & alumni relations. From what I’ve heard/read, LinkedIn isn’t nearly as forthcoming with APIs, but I wonder for folks who manage groups what measurement tools might be coming down the pike.

RH: HootSuite currently supports LinkedIn for posting updates to network profiles and monitoring contact updates. We added this functionality last year as it was a highly requested feature which our users were thrilled to have in the suite of networks the dashboard supports. We continue to keep our eyes open for additional ways to work with LinkedIn to provide insights into activity level and groups to help folks make the most of their social media management.

ASMH: What are your reactions to the community response to this product? Fair questions asked by users? Have you seen more of a response or more positive/negative feedback around the analytics than other releases?

RH: Almost immediately after releasing HootSuite Social Analytics, we saw a surge in report packages purchased by our users. Feedback from those who tried out the new tools was favorable, and we saw a great deal of positive reviews from users around the world who gave the new Social Analytics a spin — you can see some of our favorites in our Social Analytics News Roundup on our blog.

We’re incredibly fortunate that our fan-base is so engaged — we see a lot of commentary about all of our releases — because we pay close attention to customer feedback when planning releases, the response is largely positive.

The Social Analytics release generated a lot of buzz because it so directly benefits anyone using the dashboard for business needs — whether they’re running a specific campaign or measuring brand sentiment over time.

ASMH: A lot of the comments surrounding the release dealt with pricing. Were a variety of pricing structures considered? If yes, why did you select the point system over other pricing models? What do you feel the value add is of HootSuite analytics when users can get content like Google Analytics and Facebook Insights provides for free?

RH: We put a great deal of consideration into the points-based pricing model and surveyed our users before deciding. The “a la carte” points system provided the best way to offer enhanced analytics tools to most users by allowing custom-tailored reports for their particular analytics needs.

The value of HootSuite Social Analytics is the ability to completely fine-tune reports to fully understand the results of your campaign – from a granular analysis of specific campaign elements, to a bird’s eye view of your overall efforts. This means that you can overlay Google Analytics and Facebook Insights with other aggregated tracking systems to give you a more complete picture of your success.

ASMH: I (Matt) signed up for a pro account, which gives me 50 points for reports. I have created reports that reach my point allotment, and I can add additional points, but the lowest cost is $50 per month. Any plans on offering a lower pricing tier below $50 or re-evaluating the price structure?

RH: We’re always looking at how we can improve our offering and our product for our users. With Social Analytics, we offer several free Quick Analytics Reports to provide a useful summary of activity and ow.ly links clicks etc.

ASMH: A lot of the recent writing about social media analytics has focused on long-term relationship building and ROI, moving beyond friends & followers. (See this blog post by Forrester for example). These are obviously harder to quantify, but do you think we will see additions to your analytics services down the road that are able to respond to some of these questions?

RH: We always seek to re-iterate and re-invent the functionality of our tool based on what users need and want. In fact, Social Analytics were largely born out of a need we heard from users and we will continue to create unique, powerful tools to help others use social media tactics and measure effectiveness and results.

Kirsten A. Johnson, assistant professor of communications at Elizabethtown College, and her student Jamie Bartolino collaborated on a study (published in Learning, Media and Technology) in which they created three Twitter accounts for a fake professor.

One handle was all business, another was all fun and the third was a hybrid. “To Ms. Johnson’s surprise, when the students were surveyed, they rated the personal professor the highest on measures of competence, trustworthiness, and caring — which adds up to credibility,” Wieder writes.

Of course, there are some caveats, and the students surveyed did not unanimously agree that sharing intimate details amounts to credibility, rather than simply being creepy.

But the notion that using social media in an authentic way is something that readers appreciate is hardly surprising.