Five Questions With Higher Ed Social Media Expert Michael Stoner

Five Questions With Higher Ed Social Media Expert Michael Stoner


Note: Michael Stoner is the president of mStoner (mStoner.com), a communications/ marketing firm that works with education institutions.


by Chris Syme, Chair of CoSIDA's New Media/Technology Committee
Follow Syme at cksyme.org

Michael Stoner is one of the founding partners of mStoner, a long-standing communications firm based in Chicago that specializes in higher education and organizational media needs. He wears many hats including working as a judge for the CASE Circle of Excellence Awards: The Best in Social Media. I first met Michael at a CASE social media conference in San Francisco where he was presenting the annual results of a comprehensive research study his company does on social media use in higher education (link here). Michael has an impressive pedigree and a wonderful sense of humor. You can follow him on Twitter at @mStonerblog. My sincere thanks for his time.


CS: Tell us about yourself and your company.

I have a background in print, PR, and media relations and was an early adopter of desktop publishing, email and other communications technologies. I published my first email newsletter in about 1990 when I worked at Princeton. And I sometimes remind people that I participated in the first online social media revolution, which was powered by email and listservs.

I became interested in the web in 1994 and began my consulting practice developing web strategies for colleges and universities in 1996. Later in the 1990s, I met Rob Cima and Voltaire Miran and we launched mStoner in 2001. By now, our team has designed and built more websites for schools, colleges, and universities than any other and pioneered some key innovations: for example, we built our first website using a CMS in 1999 and to date, we’ve launched more than 150 websites using various CMSs. These days, we’re doing a lot of work on mobile sites and in social media.

CS: 1. For the past two years in collaboration with CASE, you have partnered with Slover Linett Strategies to do a comprehensive survey on the use of social media at universities. How would you categorize the use of social media by colleges and universities today?

Our survey focuses specifically on the use of social media in advancement -- PR, marketing, alumni relations, fundraising. One of my major takeaways is that all institutions, no matter how successful they are with social media, are still learning how to use it effectively. Now’s a great time to experiment and try things out.

Though I also think that it’s clear that social channels are very important, so it’s critical to stake your claim: every institution needs to develop a serious Facebook strategy, for example. And then I stress that having a Facebook Page is not a social media strategy: just the start of one. Social channels need to connect to the rest of an institution’s communications.

CS: 2. Is there a finding on the survey that surprised you? Where is improvement needed?

Probably the biggest surprise to me is that institutions aren’t incorporating social channels into their crisis communications plans. At first glance, it seems like such an obvious omission. But if you think about it more, it makes sense. If you’re going to use social media during a crisis, you need to have done the work to establish an “official” presence on both Facebook and Twitter and build up both channels so that people can rely on them. That’s difficult for a lot of institutions to do right now, for a variety of reasons. Not many institutions can do what Missouri S&T did during a recent lockdown.

CS: 3. How important is it for all the campus entities (admissions, athletics, advancement, academics, etc.) involved in social media to work together?

It’s critical that all these key offices be involved in developing a social strategy though how that strategy is implemented will be a lot different on a small campus than a large one. Right now, I’m looking at how institutions manage social media.

There are a number of effective models (see my blog post about this: http://www.mstonerblog.com/index.php/blog/comments/866/organizing_social_media_in_.edu/). While I have my favorites among these models, what’s more important is that an institution develop an approach to social that works for the particular institution and that can be adopted thoughtfully and with support from leadership.

CS: 4. Do you see a future for geo-locations applications such as Foursquare, Facebook Places, and SCVNGR on campuses, especially considering the number of smart phone users out there?

While I’ve talked to some people who don’t see much use of smartphones on their campuses (yet), I think geo-location apps will be big. I believe that we already see a declining interest in just checking in -- the kind of thing that Foursquare does; I think people will tire of it once they do it a little.

I’m really intrigued by SCVNGR. The gaming aspect is fascinating and allows for a lot of different kinds of deployments. Plus SCVNGR can be played via text message or on a smartphone, and you can play it casually -- for example, on a specific campus -- or you can check in wherever you are and do a challenge. We have some clients who are doing some interesting things with SCVNGR. In any case, this is really just the start of usage of these kinds of apps.

CS: 5. Athletic departments often have the largest and most invested fan base on every campus. How can athletic communicators become a resource for their campuses?

I think it’s difficult when you’re filling out stats reports, engaging with people on Facebook, and covering games to sit back and think about what you’re learning. But it’s critical to do that. Too often, we focus on the channel (Facebook! Twitter! YouTube!) without thinking much about what we’re learning about what kinds of things our audiences like and what makes our presence successful. These insights can be really useful in helping less-experienced colleagues to understand how to be successful with social media.

And, as you suggest, athletic communicators are in a great position to be coaches for folks who serve audiences who are less invested than those who follows teams and sports.