Abstract:

Online Social Networks (OSN) particularly impacted the lives of individuals born and raised in the context of the current digital ecosystem. To them, Digital natives, digital students or Millennials, the use of interactive communication systems, such as OSN, represent a normal and daily habit. Young students are one of the principal adopters of this type of technologies (Ashraf, 2012, Valenzuela, 2013, Cancelo, 2013, Cortés, 2014, 2015); they use them to carry out diverse activities, academic and personal, among many others.

OSN are part of the daily routine of university students (Cortés and Canto, 2013), mostly young people. These contemporary forms of communication are applied beyond the interpersonal (or face-to-face communication), have been extended to virtuality through new forms of communication and participation that go beyond the limits of the classroom, by devices that encourage communication through said OSN.

These students obtain academic and/or school information not only from the search in an internet browser, but also in the participation of some OSN, like Facebook wich stands out for its high popularity at a global level.

This is the case official accounts of universities and educational associations of their interest, to which they subscribe in order to receive relevant information about the area, with which they can make personal and / or academic decisions depending on their needs.

The paper analyzes the management of a fanpage (Avisos en Comunicación Social) in the social network Facebook. The fanpage was created in 2012 to disseminate academic information and scholastic activities of the Licenciatura en Comunicación Social, of the Universidad Autónoma de Yucatán (in the Southeast of Mexico).

At the moment, the page has 860 organic followers, all students, professors and graduates of the program, who have subscribed to the account with the purpose of obtaining specialized information of their interest, such as notices of enrollment periods, offer of school courses, diffusion of academic activities, among others.

The methodology for this research is quantitative. The statistical reports offered by the OSN Facebook are recovered regarding the interactions and impact of the publications among the followers. In addition, specific examples of the most successful and commented publications by students are presented. In particular, data obtained in the second semester of 2017 are presented, with the purpose of examining the scope and limitations of the page, as well as to outline a series of observations and suggestions that can be made to improve communication between users and administrators.

Keywords:

Online Social Networks, university students, Facebook, school information.