Professor twitters to online honors

One of the top 100 twitterers in academia tweets from the University of South Florida Sarasota-Manatee.

Meet Delaney Kirk, a professor of management in the College of Business at USF. She also has been named one of the Top 22 Most Popular and Influential Professors on Twitter.com.

Kirk, who lives in St. Petersburg, was recognized by Onlineschools.org, which specializes in Top 100 lists related to academia, said Crystal Rothhaar, a USF Sarasota-Manatee spokeswoman.

Kirk had no idea she would be honored by the online site, but she is not totally surprised she was in the running.

Besides her expertise in business management, Kirk is recognized as a social media expert who incorporates blogging and twittering in the classroom.

She has found that shy students will open up on a blog, and often can unravel issues better on line.

“Sometimes it helps people think through an issue by blogging about it,” the professor said.

In her graduate courses in the Masters of Business Administration program, Kirk requires her students to answer questions and get assignments on a classroom blog.

“That way I get 100 percent participation on the blog,” Kirk said.

Students also get links to other resources and can communicate with her through blog postings.

Kirk began her own blog, delaneykirk.com, in 2006 as a way to collectively answer hundreds of questions from readers of her 2005 popular book, “Taking Back the Classroom: Tips for the College Professor on Becoming a More Effective Teacher.”

“That was really my entry into social networking,” Kirk said. “That’s where I saw the possibilities.”

She took on Twitter.com 18 months ago and uses it hand-in-hand with the classroom blog. “You can get on Twitter and chase people back to the blog,” Kirk said.

Often, she will twitter her students with a comment like, “Posted something on topic” and students know they can find that on the blog.

But getting students comfortable with twittering is also prudent, because the top 100 companies in the world are twittering, Kirk said.

Kirk recently purchased a pair of shoes on Zappos.com and twittered that she was disappointed with them because they arrived scuffed.

Within 15 minutes, she had received a reply from Tony Hsieh, the chief executive officer of the company, letting her know that the company would do whatever it took to fix the problem.

“This is the way we are going in the business world today,” Kirk said. “So, being on top of that is important for all of our students.”

Arthur Guilford, regional chancellor of USF Sarasota-Manatee, praised Kirk for her work. “She’s very bright and very well-informed,” Guilford said.

“I am not today a twitterer,” he acknowledged, then added, “but I do use other social marketing products, like blogging and e-mail.”

Kirk will speak at the Sarasota-Manatee Human Resources Association membership meeting on “Using Social Media as a Tool for Recruiting, Sales & Marketing” at the Selby Auditorium on the USF Sarasota-Manatee campus 8-9:30 a.m. Friday.