I am also interested in this topic.  At my institution, it seems that more attention is paid to social media's place in  marketing and fundraising instead of education.

As an educational technologist, I perceive a great amount of resistance from faculty and administration when it comes to classroom use of social media, although I have witnessed an innovative (for us) uses of Twitter in a live lecture session.  Tt was well received by students who were able to ask questions in real time without interrupting the flow of the presentation.

As a student, I appreciate being able to connect with my peers (I attend a different school outside my workplace), but it seems that many students and faculty are reticent to interact through social media--even to the point where they keep ALL of their profile information private.  That seems odd to me at this point.

Social media can be used in a myriad of ways to help promote the building of learning communities in online and traditional institutions.   Based on the theoretical framework of Erickson, Chickering and Reisser, Knowles, Mezirow and Tinto, the socialization of students between each other and their faculty members are important to their success and persistence in their coursework.  Salaway, Caruso, and Nelson (2008) found that nearly half of students surveyed used Facebook as a tool to discuss their coursework. Towner and Munoz (2011) found that 58% of the students surveyed (n=283) had asked another student on Facebook about an assignment or project and 53% of the students claimed they aided other students with a project or assignment using Facebook as the instrument of communication.

 At the institution where I work, we utilize our own social media platform to engage students through specific groups.  Our faculty forms the groups and welcome students to participate in those groups.  Students have the ability to form their own groups and use the social media platform as a social and/or learning tool.  In a study I performed on this social media platform, I found that undergraduate males and females succeeded and persisted in their coursework at a statistically significantly higher level than those students who did not use social media.

I found that the first hurdle to overcome is with the administration of the institution.  The administration needs to be behind any effort in building and sustaining a virtual learning community since they are the ones who can trickle down the procedures needed to implement those communities.  Get the administration on board will help make the program easier to integrate into the institution.

The faculty will also need to understand the importance of the social aspect of andragogy and how that can translate into what they are currently doing in their classrooms. Often, it is hard to change tradition and tenured professors may not like the change.  The students will have the easiest time adapting to a virtual learning community since access to social media is rampant throughout the world. 

Using social media as part of a learning community can be a shock to a traditional, year’s proven system.  I compare building these learning communities as turning a very large ship in the ocean.  There will not be pinpoint turn about, but a long sweeping motion that can take time.  My best advice is to keep your eye on the final outcomes and never give up!

Interesting models and approaches  of social media use in hgher education can be found at several distant universities and hifgher education institutes aal over the world that are evidence-based and not merely commercial. In most cases, they have a research department or centre linking learning theories and educational technology. They developed learningmodels  with social media technologies that can be used in the format of 'blended learning' at all kind of higer education settings.

Our students are creating their own "underground" social networks on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, etc. prompting our office of Student Affairs and Professionalism is concerned about issues of academic dishonesty, cyberbullying, and privacy violation.  As far as I am aware, on our campus only in the past two years has a documented social media usage policy emerged. Until concerns about these issues and intellectual property are addressed to our faculty's satisfaction, I believe growth in classroom usage (whether physical or virtual) will remain stunted.

Confining ourselves to "Social Media" rather to online delivery systems generally, some recent research driven by my friend & colleague, Ben Lowe at Kent, suggests that there are two conflicting issues in the minds of higher-ed students: First is that University study and social life, including online social life, are separate things. Study should not distract from social life. Second is that Social Media of some sort (FaceBook, Twitter, etc.) are always on. If there is a screen nearby then FaceBook (or WeiBo, or Tencent QQ, or whatever) will also be on. Students comfortably move between work/study and their social network apps. "Just don't interrupt me with University stuff when I'm chatting. Let me choose."

When my students start work on a group project the very first thing they do is set up a Facebook Group. The University-provided system is ignored completely - Why learn a new system?

Article The use of Web 2.0 technologies in marketing classes: Key dr...

I have several publications about the professional use of social media in the health context... eg...

Article Nurses and Twitter: The good, the bad, and the reluctant

Hume makes a good point here and that's what the article implies through application of a Technology Acceptance Model. If interested the full article can be found at:

https://kar.kent.ac.uk/35575/

or

http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/cb.1444/abstract;jsessionid=29967E89582B985C524C485CEE7B954B.f03t02

Another article on a similar topic in the Journal of Marketing Education assesses the effect upon learning outcomes of using social media and arrives at similar conclusions (in this case using Twitter). It can be found at:

https://kar.kent.ac.uk/28329/

or

http://jmd.sagepub.com/content/33/2/183

This resistance to technology is as common among academics as elsewhere in the population in my opinion. Just recently I was talking to someone who runs a department and they said technology and learning doesn't bother them as they will be retired in 10 years anyway!

Hope you find this useful - thanks Hume.

Ben

 Thank you so much for your comments.