The power and proliferation of social media is on display today at NCSU.EDU, thanks to a red-hot interview with superstar actor/comedian (and NC State alum) Zach Galifianakis. In less than 11 hours since the story went live, it’s garnered more than 8,800 pageviews – capturing readers’ attention and keeping them engaged within the site as they “dig deeper” into NC State’s Department of Communication, learn more about Galifianakis’ favorite professor, and more.

(To put the popularity of this story into perspective, NCSU.EDU’s second-most-viewed November feature has garnered approximately 2,300 pageviews.)

The Web Communications staff did post a link to the university’s official Facebook page to kick things off, but after that, the Twitterverse and Facebook users took care of the rest – seemingly spending their entire Monday reposting, sharing and tweeting about Galifianakis and his chat with NCSU.EDU web editor Dave Pond.

How are you allowing social media to further push your message?

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Passion Rules!

Today’s home page feature at NCSU.EDU is an interview with student body president Kelly Hook, who will be blogging for us during the term of her presidency. In this era of social-media supremacy, we were looking to find a way to help connect Student Government leaders with not only their fellow students, but future students as well. In Kelly’s column, “Off the Hook,” she’ll keep everyone aware of what she and Student Government are up to, all while serving as a sounding board for readers. (Feel free to ask her questions here – some of the questions & answers will be featured in future posts.)

On a related note, we’ve added a couple of student writers – Amaris Hames and Candace Jones – to our Web editorial team, which we hope will add an air of authenticity to our student-focused stories like our recent feature on Mr. Wuf tryouts or the iPad Test Drive. Our full-time writers are great at what they do, but students have a way of capturing the passion of student-centered topics, events and news like we older folks can’t. Not that I’m saying we’re older, but you know what I mean.

Passion Rules!