Facebook is like a tornado, sweeping the nation’s social networking institutions, taking USU students, faculty and staff along for the ride. According to The New York Times’ online business description, Facebook is an online community that was started specifically for Harvard students by Harvard sophomore Mark Zuckerberg in 2004. It has since become an online world that many Aggies rely on as a source of relationship maintenance. USU faculty and staff are finding that the best way to get information through to students and all USU followers is through the Internet – three sites being most dominant: Facebook, YouTube and Twitter.

The Nielson Company, a marketing and media information agency, stated in its September 2009 Consumer Insight report that Facebook’s traffic is up 200 percent while Twitter’s is up 1,500 percent from last year. USU student participation in networking is assisting in the growth. In April 2009, the USU Facebook fan page had 1,876 supporters, said Sarah Reale, public relations specialist and keeper of the keys in accessing USU’s Facebook pages. Currently, the number of fans has reached almost 6,300 and the number is growing at a steady pace. Reale said the number of fans skyrockets when someone is consistently updating the page with current events that give students a reason to check the page.

“The more active we are, the more active they are, truthfully,” Reale said.

USU faculty, staff and clubs are catching on to the Facebook trend, realizing that the best way to reach students is through their computer screens. Reale said the Admissions Office decided USU needed to have a presence on Facebook because it’s the best way to create domino effects of information to the students. It is the most efficient way to get information out to students, she said, because regular Facebook check ups have become a necessity for college students.

Because last week was Homecoming, USU’s Facebook page exploded with commentaries on the unfolding events. Reale said most of the comments posted were positive, in part because she deletes the lewd ones. She also said she updates the page two to three times a day and tries to cater one a day to alumni, one to current students and the last as a news post.

Reale said she has noticed that creating fewer all encompassing Facebook groups would be more successful than the groups students attempt to make popular on their own. She said she believes the group USU Housing started should have asked to combine its information with the general page, which would have made its networking goal more sufficient.

“A lot of people are jumping on the Facebook bandwagon, but they aren’t doing it in the right way,” Reale said.

Jeremy Jensen, video producer and director for public relations and marketing, said without the impact of Facebook, USU’s YouTube channel would not be doing nearly as well. He said the best way for YouTube videos to be viewed is through links embedded in Facebook and blogs by students. When this type of circulation happens effectively the video content “spreads virally” and is “opened up to the rest of the world so a lot of people can bump into it,” Jensen said.

Jensen has been administrator over the USU YouTube channel for a year and a half, taking over for Steve von Niederhausern who started the channel in 2007. There are 71 videos available on USU’s YouTube channel, some having more than 10,000 views. Jensen said an imperative way to make videos more accessible is the tags they are given. The tags most often given to the videos are “college life,” “college fun,” “Aggies” and “USU.” By giving the tags broad topics, the videos accumulate more traffic, Jensen said. He said YouTube is a great marketing resource, especially for freshmen deciding on which university to attend. Another perk is that YouTube users will look up one video to watch and by the end of their search be watching something completely different. This gives all YouTube videos the chance of being viewed without being sought after, Jensen said.

“YouTube is just another way to take advantage of the media. It’s free, that’s the beauty of it,” Jensen said.

Not all students are intrigued by the boom of social networking and even find it sad to see the lives of so many of their peers become devoted to the Internet. Sophomore biology major Ross Wade finds social aspects of the Internet unnecessary, especially Facebook. He said Facebook is an “impersonal” and “detached” way to form and maintain relationships. He said it bothers him that many users have dozens of strangers added as friends. Wade said USU does not need to rely on social media to get information out, saying fliers are equally useful and convenient to gather information.

“Facebook has been more of a culture than a conduit for contact. It’s been carried away, like when people are having fights on Facebook, it’s ridiculous. If I have an issue with someone, I want to speak with them personally. Online messages can blow up, even something that may not be a big deal,” Wade said.

Other students on campus are eagerly working through Facebook, YouTube and Twitter to reach as many students as possible for numerous causes. Alan Dangerfield, junior in public relations and graphic design, is one student in a group that is creating a commercial about saving higher education that will be broadcast across campus later this year. The project is being led by Associated Students of Utah State University Vice President Spencer Lee, and USU has been assigned to represent the financial issues of Utah’s public universities through the commercial. Dangerfield said he and the others working on the commercial hope to encourage students to send their concerns about university finances to Utah congress members.

Multiple inspirational videos will be made and two of them will be uploaded to YouTube, Dangerfield said. Like Jensen, Dangerfield said the saving higher education videos will not receive enough viewers without the impact Facebook will make dispersing them. He finds that it is the perfect way for him to shoot it out and receive information rapidly.

“Why isn’t Facebook beneficial? Think of the things you can do with Facebook. I have pictures from events I don’t even remember going to because my friends tagged me in them, and I think it’s fun and flattering to be stalked,” Dangerfield said.

With 1,045 friends, sophomore broadcast journalism major Ryan Baylis utilizes Facebook as a promotional tool. His Facebook account is less about popularity and more about USU student involvement on campus, he said. Baylis takes it upon himself to inform the student population and the majority of his Facebook use is through his cell phone. He said it makes it convenient to be online for a large portion of the day. The day of the foam dance on the HPER field, Baylis sent an event notification to all of his friends. Within hours, he had 300 attending guests. Baylis found that it is now possible to tag friends to status updates and events, which can create even more campus circulation. Baylis has a Twitter account and said he believes it is a reasonably useful networking system; however, it cannot compare to Facebook.

“Twitter is going to fail because Facebook is going to eat it,” Baylis said.

New venues for Aggie Connection are popping up all over social networking sites. Groups to join on Facebook are as diverse as “Boys at USU suck!!!!” and “USU GLBTA (Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, Transgender, and Allies) Services.”

Benjamin Bielefeld, junior and theatre design major, is a Facebook group administrator for non-mormons. He said he started the group as a joke to counteract the plethora of LDS groups and it was initially put on a hidden setting.

“Then about a month later we made it public. The next day over 80 people joined it. It was just crazy,” Bielefeld said.

He said the group is a way for those not in Logan’s “mainstream religion” to feel a sense of belonging, though this was not his initial goal. Students who are not interested in converting to Mormonism often feel pressured by the flocks of LDS members residing in Logan and the group is a way to find others who feel the same way.

The amount of time USU students spend on Facebook has gradually built an online campus community. It even led a group of protesters to support saving higher education last year. Reale said Danielle Babbel started a Facebook group to create awareness about USU’s financial issues after the budget cuts took effect.

Reale said none of the students knew about the financial changes until Babbel started the page and ultimately created a movement of 6,000 passionate students fighting for their education at the state capital building in Salt Lake City.

– catherine.meidell@aggiemail.usu.