Maastricht University Facebook Protocol

Facebook created a unique opportunity for the student recruitment to stay in touch and update Maastricht University prospective students regularly without bothering them. The remarkable quality of facebook page is the fact that as opposed to contact via e-mail, facebook is a non-intrusive mean of providing updates. Therefore we, as a facebook team, have a possibility to keep our students informed, without them even knowing as they absorb the information about UM on the regular basis, creating a bond and being attached to the university without even noticing it.

Each of the members of Maastricht University facebook is updated regularly, usually every 2 days regarding the current events or significant information. This enabled both: our prospective and current students to create a certain relationship with the university. This bond could have been easily seen in two recent posts which appeared on Maastricht University wall - the first one regarding UM climbing in the world rankings of best Universities in the world and the SBE LipDub video. The fact that those were most commented and liked posts assured us that UM students feel close to their University and are proud of it and are happy of it's successes.

As far as facebook wall was for brief and specific updates, the discussion board have gave us a lot of opportunities. I can honestly say that with regard to prospective students, discussion board is the most powerful tool of facebook. Discussion board is a place where students can open any topic and ask questions regarding anything which bothers them without an actual word limit. That created a great opportunity for us, facebook team to provide our prospective students with specific and helpful information regarding housing, registration, application process, health care or job hunting just to name a few. We created personalized answers, therefore not copied from brochures or UM promotional materials already well known to our prospective students. This made us - the facebook team a trustworthy group of enthusiastic students to whom our prospective students could have always written and get the best possible answer. The fact that facebook was not impersonal that made it such a remarkable and trustworthy tool for student recruitment. Prospective students, usually lost and overwhelmed by the complications created by the Studielink or Gemeente Maastricht, were more then pleased to receive assistance. The most significant part is that our assistance was given by the students themselves who understood the problems perfectly as they went through the same issues a year or 2 years before. With facebook, information was never given anonymously because there you could have always checked who was the person helping you, could see their picture and possibly personal information. This without a doubt allowed for a creation of a certain bond between incoming and current students. Personally I stayed in private contact with over a dozen of prospective students, chatting and helping them out with their problems in Maastricht. All of the students whom I stayed in personal contact (we were 'friends' on facebook) are in Maastricht right now studying. I am sure that the fact that I was able to personally help them out added a lot to that as they could always reach me and ask about whatever bothered them. I became 'their person in Maastricht', a 'buddy' and they knew that when they arrive in Maastricht, they will not be alone as there will be at least one person willing to go out for a coffee. It is very significant that facebook is not virtual - the borders of the vitality and reality on facebook diminished and nowadays, having friends online also means having them in real life.

This also enabled the prospective students to get to know each other - on both the official UM facebook page and the country team pages, the groups of prospective students were created. Here they could have get to know each other, chat and create their first connections in Maastricht. That without a doubt created a sense of security; facebook was the place where the prospective students could have break the ice for the first time, getting to know fellow students. After all, there is hardly any other place but facebook where over 2,200 Maastricht University students and staff members can freely exchange their ideas, comment on recent UM successes or plans or simply ask for help.

Also country team pages were very helpful especially with giving assistance in problems relating solely to one nationality. Also, as in the case of Maastricht University Polish Students Community facebook, the fact that it was lead in the native language helped a lot with solving the issues and also creating a space for all the Polish prospective students to get to know both the first years incoming to Maastricht as well as the former students. The sense of being surrounded and being helped by fellow students of same nationality gave them again a sense of security.

Finally, Maastricht University facebook page was a great place for UM to promote it's units such as UM Sports UM language centre or current projects or ideas such as UM Campus Brussels or Buddies&Buttons project. However personally I think that the best example of the power of facebook marketing is shown on the example of Mix&Mingle parties. The publicity of M&M was done initially solely via e-mail and posters. Nowadays, the Mix&Mingle team does the advertisement of the party only via social media because it has proven that none other mean of advertisement is that efficient as simply creating a facebook event.

To sum up, facebook as a new social media created a unique and remarkable possibility to have a direct and personal contact with prospective students. The positive feedback received in the past months only adds to the value and importance of the facebook project.

Now give us your feedback, send you ideas to: zuzanna.kurek@maastrichtuniversity.nl.  

How to make a facebook page:

• go to: www.facebook.com/pages
• on the top right corner you have  '+ Create Page' button, click on it
• Ignore the left column (Community Page) and concentrate on 'Official Page' part.
• There you choose what you create a page for - it is a Local Business (Education) and then put the name of your page (For country teams it is the name + Maastricht University or the name, Maastricht University e.g. Info-Bulgaria, Maastricht University or Info-Belgium Maastricht University).
• Beware once you clicked on 'Create Official Page button' you cannot change any of those information anymore!
• Place a tick in field “Do not make page publicly visible at this time. (You will be able to edit and publish later.)” - we want to make Pages attractive before we publish them.
• Add Ariana De Keizer to your personal friend list and later to your facebook page administrators

Customize the page:

• Always remember about the HOUSESTYLE
• Add a profile picture (for country-teams: country flag, see our fb country team pages for the idea)
• Just below the profile picture is a frame, add a couple sentences to introduce yourself and what the Page serves for
• Do not use UM logo, but instead only a textual indication, for example Maastricht University Faculty of Law, within the scope of the application
• Add basic info in the Information section
• The third step should be adding information, video’s, photo’s and more content to the Page
• Make few wall posts regarding significant issues and obviously an introduction
• Like Maastricht University facebook page
• Set few discussion board topics, such as: housing, health-care, jobs, costs of living, future students etc.
• When you feel ready, press the Publish Page button on top of the Page, but before you do so, we recommend checking if you have these details added.

How to structure your facebook page:

• If several people work together on one page, please create the posts calendar so you are organized
• 3 or 4 wall posts have to be posted on the wall of each page per week
• Topics of wall posts: academia, social, events (e.g. fairs, open days, Mix&Mingle), informative, urgent updates or incoming deadlines
• You might be asked to post about a (highly significant) specific subject via e-mail, in that case please post it as soon as possible
• Never post after 20:00 - 21:00. The reason for that is very simple - we are a university unit which works in daytime therefore posting at midnight would make us look very unprofessional. However most importantly, wall-posts which were put on the wall late never get that much response as those posted in day-time. Obviously, those rules do not apply to replies on the discussion board.
• 'Event protocol'  - before each country team drinks or get-togethers or significant events within university (like Mix&Mingle), the wall posts will have to be managed in a specific manner. First of all the event has to be created at least 2 weeks before it's actual date. One day before the event, a reminder will have to be published. The day after the event took place, a follow-up post shall be posted in the morning or afternoon.
• In case of general events which are organized for whole university body (e.g. Open Days, Lectures, Mix&Mingle) do not double the events. Do not add those to your events but simply use the one already created and paste it into the link
• Always add fairs to the ‘Events’ section of your country team of faculty page
• Check out discussion board daily and answer as soon as possible to the posts
• Country team facebook pages will have the Hub implemented

General rules:

• YOU NEED TO KEEP MAINTAINING THE PAGE! opening a facebook page seems to be easy, but maintaining it is a full-time devotion. Even when you are sick, on holidays or just have no idea what to write  you still need to post
• Last year Facebook was just a pilot project, however by now it has became a significant part of Maastricht University Marketing&Communications Department and what follows that is a more responsibilities and a bigger workload.
• If you have no idea what to post, check out UM facebook or other country team or faculty pages to get inspired, also UM news is a good source. Be creative with posts, do not post solely about social events or only about academia.  Also remember, our target group is: current, prospective and alumni students but also staff. In a week, there has to be at least one post attractive to each of those people.

• Like last year, there will be meetings held for the facebook team on which the progress or new plans will be discussed. It is of very high importance that you join us for those meetings.
• In case you need the ideas of how a perfect facebook page shall look like, please check out Maastricht University Polish Students Community and Maastricht University Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences facebook pages. Those were the most active and best lead facebook pages. In both cases, students who were members of those pages were active not only on the wall, but most importantly on the discussion board asking for help and actually receiving help from the administrators. Unfortunately, the Polish Students Community is written entirely in Polish; however you can always make a use of Google Translate.
• Finally, we want to make facebook pages more personal. There is always a much greater response when students actually know who are the people helping them. That is why the pictures of the facebook page administrators of all the country teams and faculties will be taken and put together on Maastricht University facebook in a shared album.
  
  

In case you have any questions, problems or further comments, please do not hesitate to contact UM facebook coordinators at below indicated e-mail accounts. Moreover, in case that you have any significant post which you would like to be posted on the Maastricht University facebook page, you can always e-mail us with the content and I will be more then happy to help you!

Furthermore, if you feel like you would like to help us more with UM facebook or you have any great ideas on how to upgrade and make our facebooks better and more appealing, please let us know! There is always enough jobs for everybody so if you would like to put a bit of yourself in Maastricht University official facebook page, drop me an e-mail! There is nothing better then a fresh perspective.

November Meeting Agenda:

Meeting 1: 2.11.2010

Introduction of UM facebook team and distribution of Protocol

Meeting 2: 30.11.2010

Protocol feedback. Posts content: inspirations, timeline and differences between various pages (UM General, Faculties and Country Teams)

Meeting 3: TBA (November 2010)

Further developments and Plans for the future (new features on UM facebook, facebook ad campaign)

Contact detail facebook team:

Coordinator: Gail Howard – gail.howard@maastrichtuniversity.nl 

Assistant Coordinator: Zuzanna Kurek – zuzanna.kurek@maastrichtuniversity.nl

Technical Issues: Kristaps Horns – kristaps.horns@maastrichtuniversity.nl

Statistical Issues: Kristaps Dambis – kristaps.dambis@student.maastrichtuniversity.nl 

General facebook account: facebook-mc@maastrichtuniversity.nl