Social Media as Marketing Tool (Yuck)

I’m tired of puff pieces about using Social Media as marketing for higher education. While this article/interview isn’t bad, in fact it’s pretty good, it exposes a glaring flaw in a lot of the logic of marketers. Hardly anyone in higher education is doing anything remotely clever with social media, certainly not on the scale of what some mass media advertising has done, so why are we even talking about it? Because it’s a fad? A talking point full of me-toos? Who cares? Maybe this is a side effect of technology envy, where the newest and greatest gadget needs to be used in some fake way to ensure we’re cutting edge. I, and most other students would, prefer to see these social media tools in action – maybe in say the classroom? Isn’t using social media in a introductory way without having any classroom presence disingenuous and misleading? Hell yeah it is.