Today on Twitter, a colleague of ours posted an inquiry on how to engage with faculty and staff using a Facebook page. At first, it seemed like an intuitive question, as Facebook is all about engagement. But on second thought, I realized that engaging faculty and staff is actually one of the more difficult tasks to accomplish on Facebook, as the original target audience on Facebook is the 18-24 age bracket. Here are 10 ways to engage Faculty and staff using Facebook pages:

1. POLLS

   One of the simplest ways  to start a conversation with faculty and staff on Facebook is to conduct a poll on your Facebook page. Ask a simple question that require at least  a yes or no answer to participate, such as, “Is it okay for faculty and staff to “friend” students on Facebook?”.

2. PHOTOS

   Posting pictures from faculty events on Facebook is a surefire way to increase the amount of “likes” and “comments” on your Facebook page. A power tip would be to tag faculty and staff members by name within the Facebook picture as you post it to your Page’s wall. That way you guarantee that they receive your update on their wall.

3. SPORTS

   Not everyone is interested in sports. But for those who are, scores, game re-caps, and upcoming game notifications are a good way to keep your faculty and staff community engaged on a weekly basis.

4. COURSES

   Professors don’t really have a home within the school’s Facebook community using Pages. But a neat way to kick off the conversation with profs are to ask how they are using Facebook in their current courses. You could also inform professors of innovative ways of using Facebook to engage with their class, such as utilizing the “Courses” feature in Inigral’s Schools on Facebook application.

5. STUDENTS

   The common denominator of faculty and staff on a college campus is that they both interface with students at almost all times. Your Facebook Page’s wall could be the place where faculty and staff to come when they need to ask questions to each other on how to engage with students within Facebook.

6. TECHNOLOGY

   Everyone once in a while, a new technology comes out for faculty and staff that everyone is talking about. But most of those conversations take place offline, or in disparate sidebar conversations. Utilize your Facebook page to spread the word about certain technologies. (e.g. collect people to form a Google Wave community, etc…)

7. ANNOUNCEMENTS

   Use your Facebook page to send pertinent announcements to faculty and staff from your institution, especially announcements that relate to technological changes on campus.

8. OFFICES

   Each faculty and staff has an office that has either open office hours or a time where they engage with members of the college community. A Facebook page is a simple way of allowing them to take questions from you on how they can use Facebook to enhance their office hours with students.

9. DEPARTMENTS

   Departments on campus that have goals of increasing their membership or attendance could benefit from Facebook, as over 90% of college students are on Facebook. You can use this as a conversation starter with faculty and staff who are the heads of their respective departments.

10. SYNDICATING OUTSIDE CONTENT

    The best thing about Pages is the ability to syndicate outside content to your Page from various sources, whether it be your school’s blog, your school’s main website, or other places. By syndicating content that faculty and staff would typically access elsewhere to your Facebook Page, it adds just another reason to “like” or “comment” on that content.