As students and faculty return to college campuses this fall, there is a new push to engage the educational community with social media tools. Yesterday Facebook announced its Universities on Facebook Page, featuring ads for discount products and details on how to involve your specific educational community through the use of Facebook Pages. While this attempt to get back to Facebook’s .edu roots falls well short of creating any type of comprehensive or custom solution for colleges and universities, but may suffice for dormitory connectivity, the announcement is certainly indicative of a growing need for educational institutions to establish a presence with social media.

So how are universities getting involved?

Research-inclined as this community is, growing statistics show that social media marketing have not gone unnoticed. Surprisingly, educational institutions are not especially resistant to social media involvement. This fall finds social media buzz words are on the tips of many administrators’ tongues, and statistics and success stories are finding their way into the educational mainstream.

In fact, the University of Massachusetts Dartmouth Center for Marketing Research recently released one of the first statistically significant, longitudinal studies on the usage of social media by college admissions offices, collecting data on the adoption of social media by all of the four-year accredited institutions from 2007 to 2008. Their results surprisingly reveal that educational institutions (41%) are leading Fortune 500 companies in use of public blogs (13%). (Source)

(more…)

We recently launched a website focused exclusively on the concept of “digital humanity.” In other words, bringing good acts to the virtual scene and celebrating them. Dighu.com provides an ongoing forum to share your good deed(s) for the day, and see how others are paying it forward in different areas of your life. It’s a great concept, and one that I feel confident will quickly gain exposure.

While we’ve built several niche social networking websites, I don’t always personally fall within the target demographic for the website, but this site has engaged me in a way that few others have. When I’m not posting regularly, I can’t help but wonder if may not be doing enough regular good deeds. But when I do, I know that I am making time despite my busy schedule to go out of my way to do good things.

Admittedly sometimes it is hard to add conscious good acts to your to-do list. Work, family, friends, fun, more work, always so much to do. And in this economy, it’s harder and harder to budget for donations to charities and non-profits. There are many ways, however, to give to others without reaching for your wallet. As they say, “the smallest good deed is better than the grandest intention,” so it is our hope that through this socially conscious network, people across the globe will make the time to act on their good intentions and share those acts through www.dighu.com. Did you dighu?