To the extent that what your company is offering is additional features geared toward schools, that’s awesome, but not really on topic here.

Or are you suggesting that schools need to pay protection money to a well-connected third party like yourself to be treated fairly in the wild west that is Facebook?

If so, yuck.

Anyways, great article.

http://news.gilbert.org/OutsmartingFacebook

– Matt

Well-written post. I’m sorry you had to go through that. Facebook and Twitter (and others) provide a great way to connect socially but they do fall short when it comes to gathering data and retaining control of your content/page. The same things that draw us to Facebook (the fact that it has so many users and that it’s free)are ultimately what becomes its downside — as you found out the hard way.

There are multiple alternatives to relying on a public social networking site for your membership and content management. You can build your own internal networking site with content management but this can be pricey. Or you can partner with a company who specializes in these sorts of a solution. Sometimes the answer that best fits is a combination like Kyle mentioned above using Facebook as a “landing page” to draw them into your university community. Some private communities even allow for connections back to public sites like Facebook through Wall postings and managing of multiple social networking profiles through your site.

Choosing a private online community does ensure data security, can provide ad revenue, features your branding and offers reporting and messaging features far beyond what the free software does. You can get an idea of what’s possibe by visiting SUNY Cobleskill’s alumni site:

http://cobyconnection.cobleskill.edu/

Good luck with whatever you decide.