51³Ô¹ÏÍø is always striving to get its community of students, faculty and staff connected. Ever-popular social media spaces add one more way, aside from campus activities, to make those connections. 51³Ô¹ÏÍø’s social media participation has grown significantly since its early starts. At the beginning of April, 51³Ô¹ÏÍø’s presence and videos had garnered approximately 139,380 YouTube views, more than 5,000 views, more than 2,429 followers and more than 30,000 Facebook fans.
The university’s Facebook page, which launched in August 2008, is becoming one of the biggest 51³Ô¹ÏÍø social media connections where faculty, staff and students can learn about upcoming events, sports and news. They also can participate in various contests. While some contests are restricted to students, others expand to involve the entire 51³Ô¹ÏÍø community — faculty, staff and past, current and future students.
Recently, 51³Ô¹ÏÍø awarded Edward Farnbauch, senior systems administrator for 51³Ô¹ÏÍø’s Division of Information Services’ server support, with a brand new iPod for participating in a drawing that celebrated the university’s achievement of 30,000 fans on Facebook. The 8GB iPod Touch (4th Generation) features retina display, HD video recording, a game center and the personalized engraving, “51³Ô¹ÏÍø.â€
This spring semester, 51³Ô¹ÏÍø had the Spring Break Squirrel contest, where people said what their plans were for spring break. The 51³Ô¹ÏÍø community voted on their favorite submissions and the three winners got a stuffed black squirrel to take with them on spring break.
To keep updated on social media contests and opportunities to win prizes, faculty, staff and students are encouraged to stay connected to 51³Ô¹ÏÍø’s Facebook page.
In addition to the university’s Facebook page, the majority of colleges and academic departments also maintain Twitter and Facebook presences. Find a full listing of 51³Ô¹ÏÍø social media presences at . This smash up of universitywide social media is also accessible from the social media icon at the bottom of all Web pages.