One of many Spartan Saga banners hanging around campus. (Photo credit: Justine McGuire)

Every day Spartans spread the green. Spartan Green that is; locally, nationally, and internationally. MSU students come from all over the world. According to MSU’s Student Profile Report, there are students from 43 different countries and all 50 states in just the entering class of  2010 (freshman and transfer students), many of whom will be returning home after their respective graduation dates.

Chapter President of PRSSA and senior advertizing major, Julia Wendzinski said, “On the [Spartan Sagas] site, the accounts from Spartans are coming in from around the world in every field of study, which shows the diversity of MSU.”

Every Spartan has made a difference in some way and has a story to tell. Spartan Sagas is a new tool for students, staff, faculty and alumni to tell their unique narratives.

“Spartans do great work, but they’re often not willing to toot their own horn. We’re trying to help facilitate that,” said Kurt Stepnitz, university photographer with University Relations.

The inspiration for Spartan Sagas came through MSU’s new branding operation.

“The concept that ‘Spartans Will’ do things that make a difference in the world every day was the inspirational kernel that lead to telling the stories of notable and hard working Spartan graduates, students and staff. It’s an easy connection to make, being around so many amazing people and seeing what they do day in and day out, trying to solve local, regional and worldwide problems as Spartans,” said Stepnitz.

Executive Producer of academic programming for the Big Ten Network for MSU and Director of Photography/Videography with University Relations, Jim Peck added, “[Spartans Will] is kind of the tagline, the notion that we want to leave people with. It’s a powerful thing; it speaks to what people are doing or what they will do. I think people can’t help but fill in that blank.”

Work on the Spartan Sagas project began in the late spring of 2010 and the first sagas were posted to the website that July.

http://www.spartansagas.msu.edu

Stepnitz is one of several staff members at University Relations who helps document featured Spartan Sagas. Stepnitz, lead still photographer, has been all over the U.S. and even to the U.K. to catch up with exceptional Spartans.

“I travel, generally with our executive producer and one of our videographer/producers to put together multimedia pieces that tell the stories of our subjects,” said Stepnitz.

Sending several people all over the world to document Spartans costs one pretty penny, $189,086.34 to be exact. According to some, this is money well spent.

“I do think that it is important for MSU to be conducting the Spartan Sagas campaign. I remember seeing commercials and billboards in the past for other universities and wondering why I never saw anything like that for MSU. It’s important for MSU to communicate the value of a Michigan State education,” said Wendzinski.

“Possible Spartans to be profiled have been (and continue to be) nominated by the collective Spartan family. Featured Spartans are considered for the Sagas, by simply doing extraordinary things, locally, nationally or even internationally. Making a difference somewhere in the world,” said Stepnitz.

“Some [sagas] are big stories with people that you would know about and others you would have never heard off. What connects them all is Michigan State,” said Peck.

“By showcasing the impressive talents currently at MSU and that have graduated from our college I think MSU will become an even more respected in the realm of top-performing universities,” said Wendzinski.

Unfortunately, the Sagas team cannot produce all the stories that are submitted to them, “They’re all wonderful, it’s a question of which ones stand out and which ones are visual. It’s not that we throw any out, we can just get to so many at a time; we usually do about 3 a month,” said Peck.

As a result, some of the Spartan Sagas website is devoted to what has come to be known as community sagas.

“A large part of the Saga website is dedicated to encourage others to post their own stories, or those of another Spartan they know. The pieces that we produce professionally are designed to help encourage Spartan students, faculty, staff and alumni to contribute their own sagas to the project,” said Stepnitz.

All Featured Spartan Sagas are shown on the MSU Today Show which airs on both PBS and the Big Ten Network. There is even a possibility of eventually putting community sagas on the show.

Check your local listings: http://www.msutoday.msu.edu

The Spartan Sagas project is part of MSU’s new branding campaign.

“The goal is to raise the profile and reputation of the university. We want to let people know about the good work that’s going on here,” said Peck.

University Relations, MSU’s public relations (PR) department is in charge of everything sagas; nevertheless, Peck does not see Spartan Sagas as a PR move.

“I don’t think it’s a PR move in the sense we’re trying to sell something; whether they’re alum, staff or students, these are people that call themselves Spartans and are making a difference in the world,” said Peck. “These are people speaking from their hearts; we don’t script it or set anything up.”

But according to Wendzinski, that laid-back style is part of the campaign’s power.

“I definitely don’t think that it’s less of a PR campaign because the sagas are unscripted, that’s actually something that I think makes Spartan Sagas much more of a PR campaign than an advertizing campaign. I think Spartan Sagas is working to sell the idea of what it means to be a Spartan through the words of Spartans themselves,” said Wendzinski.

Peck admitted that Spartan Sagas is trying to sell something: an education at MSU. “We want people to want to go here, or to want to send their kids here,” said Peck.

“A lot of people think that PR means ‘spinning’ a story in favor of an organization and strictly monitoring what’s being communicated. Really, PR is about communicating openly with a public and telling an organization’s story,” said Wendzinski.

Those who have seen or been part of the sagas campaign have found it inspiring to see everything the diversity of things that Spartans are doing around the world to spread Spartan Green.

“[Spartan Sagas] has definitely impressed me so far. I can see the potential in the campaign because as a Spartan, seeing the commercials and Sagas instills a sense of pride in me,” said Wendzinski.

“None of these people have much in common, except that they are all Spartans,” said Peck.

“Where U at?” Social media wise, probably wasting time on Twitter, if you’re not a Luddite. But there’s another U on Twitter these days and it’s good ole’ MSU, your friendly university.

The MSU Union has a very large Twitter presence (photo credit: Emily Lawler).

MSU has 119 recognized Twitter feeds belonging to colleges, student groups, schools, buildings and other entities. In theory, each feed is “specialized” — relating to a specific interest of a specific campus demographic. But it turns out that the less specific Twitter feeds may be the most successful.

According to Rachael Zylstra, an electronic media communications specialist with University Relations, there are two official campus-wide Twitter feeds run by University Relations: michiganstateu and MSUnews. The rest fall into “niche” categories that appeal to people of different majors, interests and locations.

But it turns out that some of those niches are more specialized than others.

“Have you seen the renovation at Brody yet? Check it out on YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lsv03LU4vdk Really cool stuff!”

You’d expect that tweet to come from a Brody resident, or maybe a residence hall’s Twitter feed. But that tweet was from the MSUUnion, and so are a whole lot of other ones.

When compared with the 16 Twitter accounts representing either colleges or buildings at MSU and all the ReTweets or @ messages in the month of March, the Union was at the center of all the activity. The most other feeds mentioned it, and it mentioned the most other feeds.

This represents how the 16 colleges and buildings on campus have connected through @ messages and ReTweets on Twitter. Bigger nodes indicate more connectivity, and bigger lines indicate more tweets between specific actors (graphic credit: Zachary P. Neal).

“I’m a little amazed by the diagram,” said Kat Cooper, who runs the Union feed singlehandedly.

Cooper works for Auxiliary Resources, a Department of the Division of Residential and Hospitality Services. When the feed started a year and a half ago, she said she wanted it to be a virtual place to get information.

“A student union is really the living room of a campus,” said Cooper. “It’s where you get info and go to events and communicate with other students. Our mission with a twitter feed is to create that sense as well.”

Being a generalist has served the Union well. It boasts 1,686 followers, more than either of the official general MSU Twitter feeds or any specialist college.

“I knew that we were among one of the more popular feeds aside from athletics, but I guess the connectivity I was unaware of,” said Cooper.

But in the world of Twitter as with business, networks are key. According to those who study networks, MSUUnion isn’t just popular. It holds a lot of power.

Imagine you’re a dude with a bunch of dude friends and one cousin that’s a Victoria’s Secret model.

That’s what Ron Burt, a business professor at University of Chicago, termed an “open triangle” relationship; you know your dude friend and you know your cousin, but they don’t know each other. That puts you in a position of being able to demand free drinks at your buddy’s parties or his physics notes from last semester in exchange for introducing him to your cousin.

It’s not that the Union is in the market for free drinks, but it has become a central actor in the whole MSU Twitter scene, giving it a lot of social capital. Since the Union interacts with the Breslin Center, College of Agriculture and Natural Resources and Olin and none of those interact with each other, you want the Union as your friend. That way you can be virtually “introduced” to all of those other feeds through ReTweets and @ messages.

Graphic credit: Brianna Ritivoy

But for some university entities, Twitter is less of a networking tool than a Public Relations (PR) mechanism. Wharton Center, for instance, has incorporated their Twitter account into their main website and also had it broadcast to two electronic billboards.

“It’s certainly become a very valuable resource to communicate with patrons but also a good way to spread our name across the country,” said Victor Hamburger, director of marketing at Wharton Center.

But he says there’s a lot of value in the personal connection with patrons messaging the center as well. According to Stanford Sociologist Mark Granovetter, that’s the best kind of connections to have: a mix of strong (personal messages) and weak (everybody on the highway sees Tweets on a billboard).

Communication Arts & Sciences (CAS) is at the center of a “twitter triangle” between the Union, Physical Plant and College of Social Science, and all four entities are strongly connected.

The reason CAS is central in the “strong” Twitter actors may be its combined use of Twitter as a tool for personal connection and PR. According to the college’s Communications Manager, Kirsten Khire, the college has made strong connections with individual students and alumni via Twitter. But that doesn’t mean it doesn’t have another purpose.

“I see value in the Public Relations sense, because we’re obviously having great conversations with our target audience on all kinds of topics,” said Khire.

The Communication Arts & Sciences Twitter feed is essentially playing both specialist and generalist in trying to find, @ message and link to the broadest variety of things that are of interest to its target audience of its students and alumni.

“There’s still some criteria there,” said Khire. She said the feed mainly ReTweets things “related to our college or related to our audiences.”

Some feeds are expanding into contests and questions that make interaction with users a stronger prospect. And according to Khire, Twitter isn’t in anybody’s job description. University entities usually have Twitter accounts because somebody took it upon themselves.

“It [Twitter] is important, especially with the college demographic,” said Zylstra of university Twitter feeds. And she’s part of a four-person social media team with University Relations — Twitter is in her job description.

Like anything, the more time a person puts into Twitter, the more they get out of it. Excepting star power (this means you, MSU_Basketball), the more a person generates content and @ messages and ReTweets, the more followers they have. And the more followers, the more “open triangles” and important connections.

So next time you’re messing around on Twitter during class, remember that the connections you’re making —  weak and strong –might be important. They may lead to a job. And directly or indirectly, Twitter can lead to jobs or connections you’ve never had. Maybe it’s time to re-think whether or not social networking is “wasting time.”