I had the great pleasure to kick off  the first Social Media Week at the University of Kentucky a couple of weeks ago with a presentation on building a strong personal brand using social media for college students. We had several undergraduates in attendance, as well as a good number of advisors and student affairs professionals who were eager to learn more about helping students to use social media effectively. Some of them were eager to take the tips they learned from the presentation and put them to use in boosting the social media presence of their units on campus!

Smart Social Media

A key part of a robust student experience must include preparation for the world outside the campus, whether that be finding employment and building a career, or jumping into the world of entrepreneurship. Many institutions are beginning to work with their students to think about responsible social media use, but far fewer are helping their students to go beyond “cleaning up” their social media presences and think about how to effectively leverage social media platforms to build their professional presence and networks, as well as showcase their work portfolio and skills. Similarly, we feel that career centers on campus need to help their students go beyond cultivating a profesional appearance and a well-crafted resume to thinking about how to build a strong personal brand that helps them get noticed.

Experience Design Works is looking forward to working with campus career centers and student affairs organizations in 2012 to help them design a student social media experience that helps students build strong personal brands through effective and smart use of social media. If you would like to learn more about bringing the EDW team to your campus to give a talk or workshop on Designing a Smart Social Media Experience for Students, please contact us on the EDW website, email me directly at chris [at] experiencedesignworks [dot] com or send me a message on Twitter at @ricetopher.