Aggregation seems to be a common theme these days, as Facebook just launched Sports on Facebook just in time for March Madness. The Facebook page, co-designed with design firm Involver, boasts a neatly organized (yet not comprehensive) directory of collegiate sports teams with Pages on Facebook.

There’s something to learn here: Facebook commonly makes quality Pages that represent their marketing foci.  Aggregating multiple streams in one location can help make sense of the chaos.  Though Pages represent only a low touch, one-to-many marketing opportunity, for schools collecting many Pages is an ideal best-practice for Facebook Pages.  It allows a first-time visitor a quick glimpse of what that school has to author:) Not unlike Facebook, NC State took this route to aggregate all of their Twitter accounts within the university.

While visiting UCLA last month, Seth Odell spoke about this: a webpage that collected all of an institution’s Facebook pages, Twitter accounts, and other social media and relevant pages into a centralized place for members of the community to access information. This reminded me a lot of the site that stanford students got created called “Quick Stanford” (or qStanford as it’s called now), which they are branding as “The best homepage for students.”

It seems like these pages fulfill a different need from an institution’s front marketing page and web portal, as they are aimed at an audience who is already sold on an institution’s story and are just trying to connect.

If you know of any other higher ed marketing directories, leave a comment below!