Social media and higher ed makes My College Guide happy – especially when colleges decide to let students get involved! Ottawa University of Ottawa, Kansas, is the first university to have a student group in charge of creating its official videos. The eight students responsible for Braves TV come from a variety of majors: communications, business, education, and even undecided (See? It’s okay not to know right away!) – even the student body president is involved! We talked to Annie Noll, Ottawa University’s Social Media Specialist, to see how a project like this began!
So this is a little unusual! We hadn’t heard of any student groups put in charge of creating videos for the official college Facebook page…until now! How did this get started?
I came up with the idea for Braves TV in the Fall when I was watching The Hills. Not joking. MTV showed a preview for a new show, The Buried Life, about these four guys who complete life goals from their bucket list. I was looking for a way to spice up our Facebook Page. My idea was that Ottawa should have a group of students whose purpose is to complete challenges — like off a bucket list (10 things they want to do at Ottawa before they leave) to show what life here is really like. Braves TV started off that way and then it morphed into something really unique.
Why Facebook? Why not a different social platform?
YouTube and Facebook are married in our world. Ottawa University is on Twitter and a few other sites, but nothing has the power right now that Facebook and YouTube have. It will be our social media home base to quote Chris Brogan.
We’ll just have to keep watch for their latest upcoming video – what they have agreed is their absolute fave so far: a lip sync/flash mob to Don’t Stop Believin’ in the Ottawa University Cafeteria! It will be interesting to see how other colleges and universities pick up on this idea!
