The Michigan Daily J michigandaily.com I Thursday, March 13,2014

PLUGGED U

I

I

I

BY YARDAIN AMRON, DAILY ARTS WRITER

to help the lot of departments and
offices create personal logos that
visuallyunify the large, decentral-
ized University - a standard block
'M' with proper dimensions, sym-
metry and color being the common
denominator.
"If the College of Engineering is
at a college fair for engineers and
they've got a booth out there and
they're utilizing the symmetry
system and the block 'M' and the
colors accurately, there's a good
chance that there are eyeballs at
that event that are not there just for
engineering, and so the value and
equity that the school of engineer-
ing has raises the overall value and
perception of the brand," Busch
said. "So if I'm not an engineerbut
hanne n o eethe block ' at +his

But these branches have sprouted
over the years without much over-
sight and are oftentimes handled
informally by faculty and adminis-
trators.
When Nikki Sunstrum took over
as director of social media for the
University in late January after
Jordan Miller abruptly resigned
amid allegations she fabricated her
application, she said it became clear
just how unclear the size and scope
of the University's social presence
was.
"One of the primary goals of my
position is to create a core team of
primary representatives in each of
those individual areas," Sunstrum
said. "That way, if something goes
wrong in social and it fell on the
shoulders of athletics or someone

umich retweeted a picture posted
by @MottChildren of @umichb-
ball players signing autographs for
patients.
Between Hillary Frazier, senior
social media specialist, and the two
student interns she oversees - LSA
junior Katie Szymanski, a former
Michigan Daily staff reporter, and
LSA sophomore Alex Fotis - the
central team curates the content
consumed by a considerable audi-
ence: that's 67,000 Twitter follow-
ers, almost 550,000 Facebook likes,
about 29,000 Instagram followers
and roughly 14,000 Pinterest fol-
lowers.
To put that in perspective, Michi-
gan Football has 192,000 Twitter
followers and Barack Obama has
about 42 million. I'm still working

work, maize and blue?
Whatever it may be, those associ-
ations - maybe gained on a campus
tour or at orientation - define the
Universitybrand, packaged into one
simple symbol: the block 'M.'
You may not even notice it any-
more. but there's a ranson the block

A

l

I