In the past, the University of Toledo has promoted its many unique attributes through advertising campaigns centered on a single statement or slogan. Previous campaigns include the popular "See You At The Game!" which was the focal point for an advertising campaign utilized to promote Rockets football.

"See You At The Game!" is one of the university's more popular school spirit mantras and can be seen on T-shirts and billboards. Now, with the recent explosion of social media and its impact on society, everyone is trying to join the party, and UT is no exception with its advertising campaign centered on a new question, "#whyUToledo".

The formatting of the question may seem grammatically strange but the hash tag is no mistake. The hash tag is a commonly used symbol in the popular social media outlet Twitter. It is placed in front of a phrase to group together nearly anything from an emotion to a popular statement to easily search "tweets" that have a common topic. If a certain subject matter is hash-tagged enough it starts to trend and this trending is publicly seen as Twitter lists the current top trending topics.

By asking this question in Twitter format, the University of Toledo is promoting the university's progressive attitude in its utilization of social media. UT can be found on Facebook, and the university has Foursquare locations set up with signs posted on entrance doorways denoting its Foursquare social media presence.

It's clear that the integration of social media and the "#whyUToledo" advertising campaign has given UT a fresh overall feel, but what reactions have people had to the university's new position? In talking with students on campus I unearthed a variety of responses, nearly all of which were positive. Many undergrads liked the "#whyUToledo" advertising and said it accurately portrayed the many reasons they chose to attend UT. Others liked the fact that social media was used as the focus to make UT stand out from the other somewhat stuffy institutions that seem handcuffed to the past.

The progressive nature of UT in its integration of social media may just be one of the answers given to its question "#whyUToledo"?

First Published November 3, 2011, 4:15 a.m.