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Putting Spin on the Inappropriate in Myspace and Facebook

Not That We Hunt for This Stuff

I’m not sure that using SNSs for screening is a good thesis for Counselor MySpace pages. It betrays trust, word gets out that your institution befriends students to find out their darkest secrets and your campaign to reach students through MySpace and Facebook takes some damage. Now I’m not saying that you shouldn’t address inappropriate content on a prospective student’s page, but using information to hinder their application without notification can be damaging both to the reputation of the institution and to your SNS endeavor.

Tripping Off Of Bob Marley

To illustrate the proper function of a MySpace relationship: a story. I was messaging one of my prospective students–I’m not sure of the purpose of the message so let’s say it was a simple, “What’s Up?” I click on his photo to get to his page so that I can message him, and homeboy has a new background of Bob Marley sparking a doobie. Most institutions have a no tolerance policy for drug-use, and mine was no exception. Being the levelheaded counselor that I was, this really wasn’t a big issue for me seeing as my student loved Marley’s music. There is a certain element of approval in posting pictures of drug use on one’s site, so I messaged the student about it.

The Same Response, Every Time

The beauty about this whole thing was that my response was the same as my coworkers. In anticipation of everything going haywire in our new pursuit of MySpace friends for admission purposes, my office crafted responses to inappropriate content and placed them in an easily accessible folder on a network drive. I’m able to copy and paste the text and customize my response to the content.

My message was first the initial, “What’s Up” that I wanted to convey followed by a request. My coworkers decided at the onset of SNS use to request a student remove the inappropriate content from their site. A cool feature of SNSs like MySpace and Facebook is their ability to connect friends of friends to the nth degree. So future college roomies can connect through my friends list because both are my students. Not only the students but the parents of the students can check this stuff out too. So using this reasoning, we ask students to remove the inappropriate content that our SNS sites point indirectly. My response also addresses that drug use isn’t even remotely tolerated at PBA, including posters with blunts, t-shirts etc. but we do like to listen to No Woman No Cry on Fridays. The goal in the Admission Process is to ultimately decide if a student is a good “fit” for the University. Also, we need to “fit” the student. By bringing up this content in a private conversation, we’re able to address these issues before a student gets on campus.

Higher-Ups Eat This Stuff Up

So we’ve built a relationship with a student, addressed conduct expectations pre-enrollment, and prevented the connection of inappropriateness with the institution. All in a days work. Again, I chose to deal with this issue initially because it’s one that snags progress in developing innovative recruitment techniques. Instead of reacting to social stigmas, let’s embrace this stuff and make it work. You may start with SNSs, but there’s tons more to explore. Blogging, podcasting, the resurrection on Instant Messaging, and maybe even getting a (Second) life!

© 2007 Tim Cox.