There are many things that go into creating the Michigan experience. From staying up late to paint the rock or joining the Michigan Squirrel Club out on the diag, these experiences are what makes our campus so unique. It is nearly impossible to go through your 4 years here without spending a fall afternoon in the Big House.

There is a special day in the spring when you wake up early and make the walk to the Big House together with all of your friends, classmates, professors and family to celebrate the end of your college career. This year, the University is honored to announce that Dick Costolo will be the 2013 Commencement speaker. 

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Want to win friends and influence people? That, and also create great one-on-one relationships, increase awareness of your presence, and engage in a global dialogue?

Spreading information and getting followers isn’t easy, but it also isn’t hard. We’ll break down what’s been successful for @umich and what we’ve learned.

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Some of the most common questions (and debates) that come across my desk involve Twitter hashtags. What is a hashtag? Should I create one for my event? How do I use it? What should my hashtag be?

I’m going to attempt to give a fairly comprehensive guide to hashtags, and how to use them at the University of Michigan.

 WHAT IS A HASHTAG?

 According to the Twitter Help Center (support.twitter.com), the definition of a hashtag is:

 The # symbol, called a hashtag, is used to mark keywords or topics in a Tweet. It was created organically by Twitter users as a way to categorize messages.

 - People use the hashtag symbol # before a relevant keyword or phrase (no spaces) in their Tweet to categorize those Tweets to help them show more easily in Twitter search.

- Clicking on a hashtagged word in any message shows you all the other Tweets marked with that hashtag.

- Hashtags can occur anywhere in the Tweet.

 Using hashtags correctly:

- If you Tweet with a hashtag on a public account, anyone who does a search for that hashtag may find your Tweet.

- Don’t #spam with #hashtags. Don’t over-tag a single Tweet — Twitter best practices recommend using no more than two hashtags per Tweet.

- Use hashtags only on Tweets relevant to the topic.

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I’ve been toying for MONTHS about the best way to get great U-M photos all collected in one place. I tried using the #UMInstagram hashtag (which is still kinda cool, but I hadn’t truly found a good use for it).

Storify is cool, but it’s just not as powerful as I want it to be.

And then today it hit me: The @umichstudents media grid.

It couldn’t be a more perfect visual representation of student life at Michigan. It’s photos taken BY STUDENTS, and they’re all in these beautiful Instagram squares, which is just perfect. 

To be honest, I haven’t figured out all the ways to leverage this yet, but I did update the background of the @umichstudents page, and I think it looks pretty cool. What’s a better way to show a day in the life of our students than their own photos?

Yesterday we launched our newest initiative: a Twitter feed for students, run by students. It’s called @umichstudents, and it came out of a brainstorm at Twitter HQ last week (no, we aren’t copying Sweden, but we’re certainly watching how they’re doing).

Every week we will have a different student tweeter, who will be responsible for managing the account in all ways, although I will have moderation and monitoring capabilities through Hootsuite. And there’s a high degree of trust. The rules are: no swearing, no illegal activity, and no promotion/selling. Very simple. 

On day two, we already have 241 followers, and I hope it keeps growing at this rate. We hope to use it as a tool to help new students get advice from experienced students, as well as prospective students to get a feel for what it feels like to be a Michigan student.

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