Kent State Social Media Converges in “Smash Up” Success

Kent State University has launched a social media portal, called a smash up, at http://social.kent.edu. The new social media portal houses the university’s social media channels.

The numbers that impact Kent State’s institutional social media spaces reflect a triple digit increase in nearly all venues. Growth of some Kent State key social media accounts from September 2010 to September 2011 includes:
• Twitter followers, 200 percent increase to 1,708
• Facebook fans, 83 percent increase to 24,791
• YouTube video views, 211 percent increase to 93,396
• Flickr image views, 320 percent increase to 2,919

This depth of interactivity and content also carries over to the social media channels of colleges, academic departments and administrative areas within Kent State.

“The university community is well aware of the fact that Kent State has a robust set of social media opportunities at the overarching university level, from a solid Facebook and Twitter following to the many website visitors tapping into its Flickr and YouTube presences,” said Lin Danes, Kent State’s director of web services and interactive media. “What we’d like to advance now is an awareness of the depth of social media opportunities at the college and departmental levels. Creating this social media portal is a first step in fostering this awareness and creating user interest and dialogue among a multitude of additional opportunities with Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and more.”

The social media portal is accessible via the Social Media Directory icon at the bottom of the Kent State Web pages. The intent is to make social media surfing easier via this at-a-glance directory, while also piquing the interest of followers from one Kent State social media space in another Kent State social media space.

When the call for listings was distributed earlier this year by Kent State’s University Communications and Marketing department, many departments and colleges submitted their more than 100 area-specific social media offerings for inclusion in this project.

For more information on Kent State, visit www.kent.edu.

To visit Kent State’s new social media portal, go to http://social.kent.edu.

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Media Contact:
Bob Burford, rburford@kent.edu, 330-672-8516