Individual university departments are looking for ways to communicate with their student base through social media in more expedient and useful ways. How does this happen effectively with little personnel, time, or money to devote to the activity? What policies can help direct an efficient and mutually beneficial social presence online and can those advantages extend to recruitment and retention? It is self-evident that students will profit from deeper and more connected interactions from departmental generated social media and as educators, we continue to hear “meet the students where they live,” indicating an urgency to communicate with them on these platforms. My study will focus on the current University of Texas Arlington Communication Department Facebook account. Individual posts, as well as audience interactions will comprise the data which will be obtained using the open source web mining tool, Python and Facebook analytics tools. Analyzing and comparing this data with demographic information focusing on departmental population will help to answer the initial questions and guide departmental policy towards best practices.

1. UTA
PROFESSIONAL LEARNING
COMMUNITY
2016-2017
ANALYTICS FOCUS

2. MELANIE MASON, MS,
BFA
Lecturer
Communication
Department
Communication Studies
Broadcast
Research focus
Digital
Communication
Information Science
Social Media

3. KNOCK, KNOCK, WHO'S THERE?
EFFECTIVE DIGITAL COMMUNICATION
VIA SOCIAL MEDIA;
CONNECTING
HIGHER EDUCATION DEPARTMENTS
TO STUDENTS

4. • Individual university departments are looking for ways to communicate with their
student base through social media in more expedient and useful ways. How does
this happen effectively with little personnel, time, or money to devote to the activity?
What policies can help direct an efficient and mutually beneficial social presence
online and can those advantages extend to recruitment and retention? It is self-
evident that students will profit from deeper and more connected interactions
from departmental generated social media and as educators, we continue to hear
“meet the students where they live,” indicating an urgency to communicate with
them on these platforms. My study will focus on the current University
of Texas Arlington Communication Department Facebook account. Individual posts,
as well as audience interactions will comprise the data which will be obtained using
the open source web mining tool, Python and the Facebook analytics tools.
Analyzing and comparing this data with demographic information focusing on
departmental population will help to answer the initial questions and guide
departmental policy towards best practices.

5. INCITING QUESTION:
HOW DO INDIVIDUAL UNIVERSITY
DEPARTMENTS COMMUNICATE WITH THEIR
STUDENT BASE THROUGH SOCIAL MEDIA IN
MORE EXPEDIENT AND USEFUL WAYS?

6. CURRENT
METHOD
http://bit.ly/UTACOM
M
Number of page
likes
655
(presumed unique
users)

7. UTA Top 10 Facebook pages (based on simple
nomenclature)

8. WHO IS
INTERACTING?
• Facebook analytics indicate
predominately women from
18 – 34
• Correlates with UTA
demographics which states as
of 2015 60% of students were
women.
http://www.collegeportraits.o
rg/TX/UTA/characteristics

9. PYTHON DATA GROUP
Posts mined from Jan 27, 2011 – Jan 26, 2017
Number of posts 1,176
Frequency: approx. 1.77 posts per business day
Comments = 219 (7.89%) Shares = 509 (18.34%)
Likes = 2, 731 (average 4.64 per post)
Emoticon clicks
Loves = 37 Wows = 2 Haha = 3 Sad = 1 Angry = 0

10. 0
200
400
600
800
1000
2009/10 2010/11 2011/12 2012/13 2013/14 2014/15 2015/16 2016/17
Communication Department # of Majors
FALL SEMESTERS SPRING SEMESTERS
901 939 927 1013 1018 918 929 897
868 936 946 890 952 925 870 956
UTA Office of Dean of Liberal Arts 2017 Spring census
report

11. CURRENT
METHOD
http://bit.ly/UTACO
MM
Number of page
likes
655

12. WHO ARE THE 655?
Alumni
Current
Majors
Faculty
Community
Partners

13. MOVEMENT BETWEEN
GROUPS
STUDENTS BECOME ALUMNI (BEST CASE SCENARIO) OR NO LONGER
ASSOCIATED WITH THE UNIVERSITY. COMMUNITY PARTNERS CHANGE AS DO
FACULTY.
HOW DO WE KNOW WE ARE REACHING OUR CORE AUDIENCE OF CURRENT
MAJORS?

14. CURRENT
POSTS
AVAILABLE
INTERNSHIPS
UTA IMPORTANT
DATES
DEPARTMENTAL
NEWS

15. POST WITHIN THE
PAST 30 DAYS WITH
THE MOST
INTERACTION
• Congratulatory post for
grant winning faculty
member
• Over 1,100 people
reached
• 54 reactions, comments
and shares
Source: Facebook Analytics

16. WHAT WE KNOW
• Current format is focused
on informational items
primarily for current
majors. (Heavily geared to
promoting internships)
• Posts are encouraging or
neutral in nature and
promote a positive image
of the department, and
celebrate our faculty,
students and alumni.
• Communication is
predominately monologic.

17. QUESTION:
WHAT POLICIES CAN HELP DIRECT AN EFFICIENT
AND MUTUALLY BENEFICIAL SOCIAL PRESENCE
ONLINE AND CAN THOSE ADVANTAGES EXTEND
TO RECRUITMENT AND RETENTION?

18. IS FACEBOOK OUR BEST OPTION TO
DELIVER TIMELY INTERNSHIP OPPORTUNITY
INFORMATION
SOCIAL MEDIA PLATFORM
DIGITAL COMMUNICATION
NEWSLETTER
VS.

19. Propose exploring a weekly
departmentally developed newsletter
focused on internships that can be
compiled on the free online site
smore.com.
Faculty can then share with their
students via an announcement on their
class blackboard site.
Analytics are included and it can also
be shared on other social media
platforms, leaving the UTA COMM
Facebook page more open to posts
promoting student projects, student
organizations and departmental events
and news.

20. FURTHER DISCUSSION:
HOW CAN THIS HAPPEN EFFECTIVELY
WITH LITTLE PERSONNEL, TIME, OR
MONEY TO DEVOTE TO THE ACTIVITY?

21. • Analytics tell us
• Who is our current audience
• What we are communicating
• How we are communicating
• Best practices let us
• Reach more of our target
audience
• Craft messages that are relevant
• Encourage dialogic
communication

22. KEEP IT SIMPLE
Engage your
audience
Develop a
strategy
Have a human
presence
Motivate our audience with content
that encourages actions on their
part.
Use social media scheduling
software like Hootsuite, Buffer, or
Tweetdeck.
Respond to our audience by name
and give them someONE to connect
to.

23. KEEP IT SIMPLE
Use social media
tools
Pay attention to
analytics
Use visuals
Hashtags are our friends, but on
Facebook, one is enough.
Facebooks analytics are great tools
that can give us quick and
surprisingly in depth useful
information.
Facebook posts with images see
2.3X more engagement than those
without images (Buzzsumo.com)

24. CONCLUSION
• Further study is necessary, including a manual analysis of UTA
Comm’s Facebook audience to ascertain a more in depth picture of
demographics and acquiring a better understanding of information
retrieval (IR) as pertains to social media platforms.
• Templates can be developed to streamline Facebook post creation
and to encourage dialogic communication.
• Faculty cooperation should be requested in compiling and
disseminating information.
• Smore.com template can be created so that information can be
readily (and quickly) dropped in.

25. WORKS CONSULTED
• Baran, Katsiaryna, and Kathrin Knautz. Facets of Facebook: Use and Users.
Berlin: de Gruyter Mouton, 2016. Internet resource.
• Kimmons, Royce, George Veletsianos, and Scott Woodward. "Institutional
Uses of Twitter in U.S. Higher Education." Innovative Higher Education. 42.2
(2017): 97-111. Print.
• Kosala, Raymond, and Hendrik Blockeel. "Web mining research: A
survey." ACM Sigkdd Explorations Newsletter 2.1 (2000): 1-15.
• Srivastava, T., Prasanna Desikan, and Vipin Kumar. "Web mining–concepts,
applications and research directions." Foundations and advances in data
mining (2005): 275-307.
• Veletsianos, George, and Royce Kimmons. "Scholars in an increasingly open
and digital world: How do education professors and students use
Twitter?." The Internet and Higher Education 30 (2016): 1-10.

26. CONTACT INFORMATION