As 21st century college students, we understand the importance of social media. How else can we get up-to-the-minute updates on what’s going on in our friends’ and family’s lives? Social media has gone far beyond individuals, however, and these days, there’s a Facebook page for almost everything. Colleges are getting in on the action, too, because they’ve realized the importance of connecting with their students through social media. Here are three schools that are doing particularly awesome jobs.

Notre Dame: Earlier this year, USA Today praised Notre Dame for its belief that social media is “important to professional development.” With the emergence of social networks such as LinkedIn and the use of social media in hiring processes, they’re definitely on to something! Some highlights of their social media use include separate Twitter accounts for the school’s many sports teams, more than 32,000 fans on Facebook and a great alumni network through both.

Boston College: The #1 college in social media according to Klout, Boston College has 35,000+ fans on Facebook. BC employs social media to announce events, timely reminders, information on important alumni and more. Twitter is its real strength, though, with more than 15,000 followers and separate accounts for pretty much everything you can think of! An impressive fact: BC’s average tweet has a reach of 6,000 people (40% of their followers) at any given time!

University of Texas: The University of Texas is definitely a leader in higher education social media. The school has an extensive network of blogs, Facebook pages, Twitter, Flickr and YouTube accounts for its various their colleges and schools, administrative offices, libraries and museums. A directory of all these accounts can be found on the school website, making it extremely easy for students to interact with exactly whom they wish.

Social media isn’t going anywhere. It’s necessary for colleges and universities everywhere to embrace what their audiences loves and learn to connect through these avenues. How do you think your school stacks up in terms of social media? Get in the spirit - leave comments and discuss!

Angela Andaloro is a junior at Pace University’s New York City campus, where she is double majoring in communication studies and English. Like most things in New York City, her life and college experience is far from typical – she commutes to school from her home in Flushing and took nearly a semester’s worth of classes online – but she still likes to hang out with friends, go to parties and feed her social networking addiction like your “average” college student.

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