Design Guidelines for Graduate Program Social Media Use

Social media provides a promising platform for members of informal and formal educational communities to build community, collaborate, and support institutional goals such as student recruitment. Despite burgeoning research on the educational uses of social media, we are not aware of any to guide graduate program social media use. In order to contribute a framework for the use of social media platforms associated with graduate programs and to provide direction, guidance, and cohesion to a social media initiative began with our graduate program, we conducted a design-based research project. We describe the design guidelines that comprise the framework—establish why, establish how, be authentic, respect privacy, coordinate channels, and engage volunteers—and provide examples of each from our practice and references to prior research. We conclude with potential benefits and promising directions for future research and practice on graduate program social media use. © 2016, Association for Educational Communications & Technology.