In the headlong rush to a communications future no-one fully understands, education institutions are stampeding into social media platforms – but few appear well prepared to cope – let alone make strategic advantage from their involvement.

This week the University of Sydney is leading the Facebook table of Australian higher education institutions, having just broken through the 30,000 friend barrier. In contrast, the University of Western Australia sits on a modest 4,200, while RMIT University is an up and comer, currently sitting at a shade under 20,000 friends but with a strong growth trajectory.

I have made many universities my ‘friends’, but so far it doesn’t seem to be paying off. I’ve heard about some on campus events and enrolment details but there’s been no honorary degrees in the post, no personal notes to see how I was coping with the flu.

What does it all mean?

While marketing staff are hurriedly hived off and reincarnated as social media masters, and millions of marketing dollars are being reallocated into new media, the academic community appears split between the frenzy of new media converts who sign up students with evangelistic rigour and the gaggle of sceptics who rue the decline of language and meaning.

For those academics who are running towards the ‘like’, social media involvement provides an opportunity to yet again rail against the diversion of precious faculty funds towards central marketing effort. “Look! I have 250 former students as friends and the six degrees of separation rule shows me I am influencing thousands! Sack the marketing department, we don’t need them any more.”

The sceptics meanwhile see the diversion of central marketing resources into social media as akin to burning money and likewise see the shift in marketing and communications effort towards social media as a waste of time.

Caught in between, marketing departments are under pressure to be involved in the world’s fastest growing communications space, but struggle to define how they are delivering a return on the investment. Is an institutional Facebook site an adjunct to internal communications, a student recruitment tool, or an alumni connection vehicle? Should an institution have different social media pages or accounts that each attempt to cater to these targeted needs – or should all audiences be half-satisfied by a single site?

It’s time to re-examine the use and value of social media by Australian institutions. This communication genre was established to helping friends connect with each other, but has evolved to a mass medium which has moved from a traditional definition of friends as people we know and like to friends being people or organisations that we accept, have something in common with, or who we simply have a contact with.

While there appear to be many more who would rather talk than tweet and think rather than ‘like’ in the education world to date, the emergence of more extensive involvement in social media by staff from all areas of universities and TAFEs poses a number of serious legal and social risks which require a major policy re-think before the calendar ticks into 2012. A growing debate in the US, which has led the way in social media interaction by academic staff, underlines the importance of resolving emerging issues in Australia.

Firstly, the emergence of a large number of faculty members with active Facebook pages raises serious questions. Should Professor Smith encourage his students to ‘like’ him on Facebook or should he wait until he is liked? Consideration needs to be given to protocol for staff interaction.

Likewise, are staff Twitterings and Facebook posts subject to the same media policies that most institutions have in place to regulate interaction with the mainstream media. If Professor Smith keeps a personal and a professional Facebook page or Twitter account, does that solve concerns about differences in communication? And what if Professor Smith has students who follow both his private and professional musings?

Online identities have far more grey areas than those in real life – in part because of the abhorrent trend of individuals to slander and excoriate with language and malice online that they would never dream of using in a more direct communication context. The concise nature of the tweet and the tangled web of Facebook requires no editor between hand and brain, no peer review between keyboard and audience – and lends itself to an ignoble level of inhibition which is anathema to the normal mores of academia.

The difficulties in prosecuting defamation matters relating to social media engagement also raises serious issues in managing the reputation of academic staff. What can and should institutions do in order to protect staff from cyberbullying by students?

While many throw up their hands at the profusion of social media content and rightly assert that it is impossible to stop, it appears that this has also led to a lack of close scrutiny of material that should probably be reconsidered before it is published on official institutional pages. A short excursion through the Facebook pages of the nation’s key educational institutions quickly reveals some questionable communication practices.

As with most issues around social media, policies need to be considered, researched and closely reviewed on an ongoing basis in order to protect staff, students and also organisational identity. Policies also need to be tailored to match the goes and character of individual institutions. The one certainty is that as this communication phenomenon grows, institutions can simply no longer afford to leave social media in the experimental/too hard basket.