Ever since we became friends with Tom, or perhaps since Mark Zuckerberg screwed his friends out of millions of dollars, or we got our first retweet, social media and networks have been a major part of our lives. And it goes beyond the connections we make and keep between friends old and new, as every major—and most minor—businesses, institutions and agencies all have some sort of social media presence. Be it on Facebook or Twitter or Instagram (or oddly enough Snapchat), it is impossible to stay away from some sort of advertisement or post aimed to sell you something—either an actual product, an article or an idea.
Social media has become so intertwined with marketing and public relations that an entire profession has emerged out of the need to make sure large corporations are always on top of what is said about them online. Professionals who take these jobs seriously are vigilant about proofreading and making sure nothing disparaging is put online through an official account. However, when people without the proper training or foresight post things on social media, it can be embarrassing for both the person who posted it and the institution at large.
Brandeis has all of the social media platforms covered, with most departments and student groups having their own accounts. Problems arise, however, when administrators or other people in higher level positions make posts from their personal accounts speaking on behalf of the university. While it is nice to feel like students have access to administrators through multiple avenues, when it comes time to make a formal statement, replying to someone’s tweet is simply not the way to go about doing that. Social media is really useful for promoting events, but when it moves past that, it just becomes irritating.
Scroll through Senior Vice President of Students and Enrollment Andrew Flagel’s Twitter (@deanflagel), and you get a good sample of both quality social media posts and others that simply are annoying. There are a good amount of posts notifying his followers about events around campus and other news to be aware of. Then there are a large amount of retweets of basically anything that mentions the official Brandeis Twitter handle, causing one to wonder when he has the time to go searching through Twitter mentions and find all of these posts to go ahead and retweet.
With the Class of 2019 receiving their acceptance letters over the past week, a number of high school students across the country have been tweeting and posting about their excitement over getting in. These have then been followed up by Flagel replying to the tweet with a somewhat corny one-liner. Most of these tweets don’t even mention the official handle, so Flagel has to go through actual searches of high schoolers’ tweets and find them. The reasoning behind it obviously is to show the prospective student that their matriculation is even more desired than what is conveyed through the letter, and to try to recruit them.
However, practically everyone regards recruiting high school students as creepy, especially in the world of college athletics. Admittedly collegiate athletics has a completely different set of issues that make the whole field pretty scary, given that middle-aged men are communicating with high school athletes trying to coax them to play for a school that will make millions of dollars off their performances, while only receiving a scholarship in return. Though it’s obviously not the case here, when an official from a prestigious university is looking at tweets by 17-year-olds, it just comes across as desperate. The school shouldn’t feel the need to so actively recruit students who are already excited enough about Brandeis that they post about it for the world to read through Twitter—and it’s not likely that one weird tweet will singlehandedly cause any student to attend Brandeis.
As an example, compare Flagel’s account to Dean of Students Jamele Adams’ account (@h2five). Adams doesn’t have anywhere near the extensivity on his account that Flagel has. Adams stays reserved and calm when making posts. There aren’t many posts to begin with and they mostly share inspirational messages, which Adams has become known for, and they don’t really mention Brandeis in one way or another.
Even worse is when social media is used to make formal announcements and comments to the community. When the fracas around Chum’s was at a fever pitch, Flagel went through Twitter to respond to student concerns. Responses to student outcry over the restructuring of a symbolic piece of our campus should not have to be limited to 140 characters. Responding in this format just comes across as lazy and emotionally-charged, instead of something that has been thought through from different perspectives.
When adults tell us to be careful about what we post on social media to impress potential employers, they should take their own advice. In fact, since current students have practically been brought up alongside the advent of all these social media platforms, our knowledge of how to best use them is almost intrinsic. So the next time an administrator wants to get in touch with the student body, they should analyze whether they are actually opening themselves up or just exposing themselves for embarrassment.
