Social media has been used by organizations to sell products, to mobilize people politically, to share information, and to connect individuals with each other. Given the ubiquity of social media in our society, it is not unsurprising that academic departments and universities have turned to social media as a tool to connect with students, alumni, faculty, and other constituent groups.
Social Media Platforms
Different platforms have been used by universities. Facebook with its groups and pages functions has been more popular (e.g., Lawson et al. 2011; Zickar et al. 2018). Facebook groups and pages have been used to communicate with alumni (Farrow and Yuan 2011); to communicate information to students, alumni, and other constituent groups (Zickar et al. 2018); and to disseminate advice to first-year college students to help in their transitions (Russell et al. 2012).
Twitter and LinkedIn have been used by academics to develop networking opportunities (Donelan 2016) and to disseminate...
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Zickar, M.J. (2020). Using Social Media to Promote Academic Functioning. In: Tatnall, A. (eds) Encyclopedia of Education and Information Technologies. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-10576-1_213
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