My team, GM social media communications, is attending the second annual Society for New Communications Research Symposium in Boston this week. We were recipients of an Award of Excellence for our initiatives in social media. Other recipients included representatives from Edelman, Coca-Cola, Dow and Microsoft.

Prior to the awards gala tonight we were able to hear from Dr. Nora Ganim Barnes, UMASS Dartmouth Chancellor professor of marketing and director for the Center for Marketing Research. She recently completed a study on the use of social media by higher education. Here are some stats/thoughts from her talk tonight (note: I was writing frantically so I take responsibility for any errors):

* 53 percent of colleges are familiar with social networking

* 51 percent of colleges are blogging

* College admissions offices use the following forms of social media:

• 33 percent are blogging
• 29 percent are using social networks
• 14 percent are not using social media at all

* 92 percent believe videoblogging to be the most successful social media tool

* For those not currently using social media plan to use the following methods in the future

• Blogging: 42 percent
• Podcasting: 25 percent
• Videoblogging: 22 percent
• Social networks: 20 percent
• Message boards: 16 percent
• Wikis: 4 percent

* Only 61 percent of colleges enable comments on their blogs

* 26 percent of colleges use search engines to research prospective students; 21 percent use social networks to research them

* Hits and comments are the primary measurement tools of colleges’ efforts in social media

* #1 users of college blogs are the parents of students