Case Study: Oberlin College and Social Networking Sites

Curious about how other liberal arts colleges are leveraging technology, I spent the past weekend checking out the websites of several colleges. Oberlin College seems to be ahead of the game. Let’s see where it’s leaving its technological footprints.

Facebook? Check. Oberlin’s Facebook account has over 2,000 fans. Kind of low for a college with a long history, eh? Well, not when I found out that Calvin’s Facebook group has a grand total of… 136. Calvin 0, Oberlin 1. Moving on.

Twitter? Check. Oberlin maximizes the beauty of Twitter, a site that uses one-line teasers and leaves it up to the reader to find out more. Many of those posts highlight students’ achievements in winning prestigious fellowships and scholarships. Twitter’s unique selling proposition and Oberlin’s excellent academic record make a good looking couple. Even though Oberlin only started to use Twitter earlier this month, it might want to work on getting more people to know about its Twitter account and creating a broader base of loyal followers. Calvin’s official Twitter page (http://twitter.com/CalvinCollege), on the other hand, has about 9 times more followers than Oberlin. Calvin 1, Oberlin 1. Yay, go Knights!

Blogs? Oh boy, Oberlin beat us hands down. It almost seems like Obies – faculty, staff, and students – are a community of bloggers. Check out http://blogs.oberlin.edu/. Calvin 1, Oberlin 2 :/

So Oberlin is using major social networking sites in the market. Even though Calvin is moving towards the same direction, Oberlin is racing far ahead of us—Oberlin is #5 of all liberal arts colleges that truly understand how to use technology (http://www.languagemonitor.com/college-rankings/college-rankings-april-2009). In summary, Oberlin knows what the internet world of consumers are looking for and it knows how to be the producer of information in a presentable and efficient fashion.

What’s the lesson here? Calvin and Oberlin understand that the unlimited reach of technology stretches to the ends of the earth. Calvin and Oberlin realize that there is the physical community that we reside in, as well as the virtual community called the web. Social networking sites are the gathering space for virtual communities to come together like the situation room for readers and bloggers to share information, the virtual laboratory to test hypotheses that advocate social change, and the boardroom to re-gather and re-strategize. Therefore, social networking sites allow web administrators to be relationship weavers who keep the collegial fabric intact. Oberlin, with its extensive and sophisticated use of technological tools, could reap greater benefits if it can get its alums engaged and involved in its technological endeavors. Our S-LC blog draws alums and new friends in. Somehow, we are doing something right somewhere. Calvin 2, Oberlin 2.