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Show Page 4 CampusNews Friday, Oct. 9, 2009 Social media utilized effectively By CHELSEY GENSEL staff writer Social networking sites are beating mainstream news outlets in getting information to audiences, said Preston Parker, USU journalism professor and program director of the Social Media Club of Cache Valley (SMCofCV on Twitter). Conceptualized about four months ago based on a similar club in Salt Lake City, the club was formed to make sense of the constantly wired world and put social media to its best use. Preston said he often goes to news sites and the information he is seeking isn’t there. “It’s coming from Twitter, from Cache Valley Daily, from Facebook,” he said. The club’s Thursday, Oct. 8, meeting included a panel-style discussion on using social networking platforms for goals other than staying connected. The panel included USU student Danielle Babbel and club board members Jill Parker and Preston Parker. Jill discussed her success using Twitter for her work as the public information officer for the Bear River Health Department, and Preston, a USU journalism professor, discussed networking with Attorney General Mark Shurtleff and his current PR class. Babbel shared her successes with a Facebook group in rallying college students across the state to combat budget cuts for highereducation institutions. In all of those instances, those involved had a goal and put social media to practical use, using it achieve something, Preston said. Babbel started the Facebook group Save Higher Education in Utah to promote awareness culminating in a rally at the state Capitol. “The Internet is the most popular form for (college students) for learning about the outside world,” Babbel said. “I’m definitely not a PR person, so it was a little daunting at first ... but the results were exponential.” Because Facebook doesn’t allow administrators to send mass messages in groups with more than 5,000 members, Babbel said when her group reached that point, she primarily utilized the message wall and discussion forums as well as the ability to post links. “It was something I could do on my own time without having to organize a meeting,” Babbel said. Similarly, Preston posted a status update to Facebook after narrowly missing Shurtleff’s visit to campus a couple of weeks ago for a campaign launch. Through that post, he connected with Shurtleff’s director of communications and was able to communicate his opinion that the event was poorly advertised and had been “a flop, public relations-wise.” Upon Preston’s claim that his students could write a better press release than the THE SOCIAL MEDIA CLUB discusses the most effective ways to reach others through online venues. TYLER LARSON photo attorney general’s office, the director of communications responded with an opportunity to do just that. Shurtleff will return to campus Thursday, Oct. 22, and about 30 of Preston’s students have been put in charge of PR for the event. Without Facebook, I “never would have had the chance to get this dialogue started,” Preston said. “This is a great opportunity for those students who’ve gotten involved.” Club board member Jason Williams said, “I think some of these barriers of entry (to people in positions of power) are getting broken down. This kind of entry to an attorney general who is running for United States Senate is unheard of.” Discussions on the use of tools like Facebook and Twitter segued into a group discussion on varied topics, including Google documents, privacy settings, user-rated comments, anonymity, hashtags and RSS feeds. Williams said the board welcomes suggestions for improving the meetings as well as for topics of discussion. Jill, whose feed for the Bear River Health Department has nearly 2,000 followers since opening the account in April, talked about building a relationship and a trust with followers and learning the demographic of followers, as well as keeping the information useful. “It goes two ways,” she said. “I use direct messages and make conversations. It is the public’s health, and the public has a lot of questions about their health.” She uses the feed to disseminate information about immunizations, car-seat clinics, food permits and other issues the department deems current or important. Right now, she said the main focus is H1N1 and as it gets colder the department will tweet air quality updates. The panel made suggestions on the top to-do’s when using social media. “Be involved and engaged and monitor your responses,” Jill said. – chelsey.gensel@aggiemail.usu. edu TIERA LIBY POORS WATER into one of her algae experiments at the Innovation campus, The use of algae as biodiesel fuel has the potential to affect the economy in a positive way. TYLER LARSON photo Algae: A fuel alternative -continued from page 1 algae growing there provide an additional benefit because they feed on the phosphorous and nitrogen that collects in the lagoon at high levels due to fertilizers from local farming communities, Muhs said. The project, led by Ron Sims, head of the biological and irrigation engineering department, is trying to determine ways to grow algae in this lagoon to help remove these elements before the water is released into the reservoir. Kennedy said the city were to build a plant to remove the phosphorous from the water, it could cost anywhere from $100-$200 million. Kennedy said using algae instead to remove these elements provides a tremendous economic benefit. Several other projects involving algae biofuel development are currently underway at the USU Energy Lab and possibly more will begin in the future. These research projects that continue to bring additional funding and recognition to the university, Kennedy said. – kayla.woodring@aggiemail. usu.edu |