Social media keeps people connected and informed about things going on around the world, and Southeast Missouri State University is no exception.

Facebook pages, such as "Living at Southeast," help students keep a pulse on what is happening around campus, as well as connect with other students, faculty and staff.

Assistant Vice President of Student Success and Auxiliary Services Dr. Bruce Skinner helps regulate "Living at Southeast," and when he was part of the Office of Residence Life, Skinner was a part of the introduction of the page on campus.

Initially, the target for the group was incoming students, primarily freshmen, so they had a place to ask questions about where buildings are or finding a roommate.

As time went along though, students found the page to be so helpful, they did not want to be removed from the group after their first year.

"We heard from people like 'No, no no, this is how I get my information, don't remove me,' so we left them in," Skinner said. "Then we'd see students move off-campus, they still wanted to stay in it, we've seen parents join it, faculty and staff joined it. The only thing we really limit, since it is a closed group, you have to have some kind of connection to campus."

"Living at Southeast" is a closed group, but the administrators of the page try to quickly look into requests to join, since social media is a 24-hour medium.

"I approve people if I wake up at 2 a.m., and see someone tried to join and in fact see they are connected to campus, I'm accepting them from my phone," Skinner said. "For social media to be relevant to students, it needs to be immediate and it needs to be updated regularly. So we do our best to meet those two standards."

While social media can sometimes bring negativity, Skinner said there have been very few instances of malice. Differing opinions or complaints are fine, as long as they are not hateful.

"I'm a big fan of you meet speech with more speech," Skinner said. "So long as you are arguing why you think a policy is unfair or a practice is unfair, and you are directing it at the practice or policy, you're probably on pretty safe ground."

While "Living at Southeast" is a self-moderated social media forum that can be posted on by any members, it is a general campus life page, so it may not be the best place for students to go with department-specific questions.

The University Communications and Marketing Department helps departments set up social media accounts and assists them in setting their goal for the page, as well as target audiences.

"We ask each office or department when they feel like they want to get started on social media that they come sit down and talk with us," internet marketing specialist Katie Amrhein said. "We can help get them started on the right foot. We can tell them 'You don't need to be on every platform, maybe Facebook's best for you,' or 'Are you trying to talk to your alums or are you trying to talk to the students you've got now?' -- what's the goal?"

There are 41 officially affiliated social media pages at Southeast, along with countless more unofficial accounts. These unaffiliated accounts, such as the closed "SEMO Dept. of Mass Media Alumni" group, can help current or former students find new opportunities and network in a way that wasn't possible before social media.

"Things like that are really, really good, and I know Dr. [Tamara Zellars] Buck's in there always posting, and it's great because you see people posting 'My job is hiring' or 'My company is looking for somebody to fill this role,'" Amrhein said. "So I think that serves a great purpose because it's helping all of our alums and really building our community as Southeast alums in that we're helping each other out."