Social Media Marketing Cynthia A. Schmidt Director, VCU University Marketing Tammy L. Berwanger PR & Marketing Project Manager Today’s Agenda • • • • Overview of Social Media VCU’s Social Media Initiatives Understanding Your Audience Best Practices Social Media’s Growth • Adult Internet users who have a profile on an online social network site more than quadrupled in the past four years — from 8% in 2005 to 35% now, (Pew Internet & American Life Project’s December 2008 tracking survey) • 75% young adults aged 18-24 have a profile. • By 2011, half of all online adults and 84% of online teens (105 million total users) will use social networks (eMarketer) Why Do We Use Social Media? • Marketing/Branding – – – – – Be where the action is Be part of the discussion “bond with the brand” Create more loyalty, respect Admissions • Public Relations/Reputation Management – – – – Supreme efficiency Monitoring of discussions, anticipate issues Humanize stories Emergency communications • Alumni Relations – Continue ties with alumni • Advancement Universities Ahead of the Curve Colleges and Universities Adopt Social Media to Recruit and Research Potential Students; Outpace Corporate Adoption of New Communications Tools and Technologies Society for New Communications Research (SNCR) Examples from universities Overview of VCU’s Social Media Initiatives Get Connected Social Media Initiatives Underway University-wide • Marketing – Facebook, YouTube, MySpace, LinkedIn, Delicious, Flickr • Communications & Public Relations – Twitter, RSS Feeds, Facebook, Wikipedia • Alumni Relations – Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter • Advancement – Contract with Kintera includes a social media component to be deployed • Athletics – Blogs, YouTube, Facebook, Twitter • Admissions – Chat University, Blogs, Facebook • Advising/Teaching – University College, Center for Teaching Excellence, School/Department information • Technology Services – Facebook, Twitter, Yammer • Over 300 million users around the world • Connects people with friends and others • Used to keep up with friends, upload an unlimited number of photos, share links and videos, and learn more about others • Almost half a million new users each day Sample of VCU Groups/Pages maintained for VCU by VCU employees. • Virginia Commonwealth University VCU Alumni VCU Athletics VCU School of Business VCU Education Abroad VCU Fall Fest Rocks!!!! VCU Graduate School VCU Medical Center VCU Recreational Sports VCU University College Groups and pages allow administrators to promote events, post news items and connect viewers to other VCU groups/ pages. They also give members/ fans another way to connect with friends. VCU Page Activity • Over 36,000 people in the VCU Facebook network • As of November 9, the Virginia Commonwealth University page had 9,730 fans. 46% of the fans are in the undergraduate student age group. Other VCU Groups Sample of other VCU Groups • • • • • • • • • Alumni in Washington, DC I Y VCU Baseball VCU Alumni Working at VCU VCU APB Movies VCU Crew VCU Intercultural Festival VCU Nursing Alumni VCU Photo & Film VCU School of Social Work Alumni Network • VCU SGA Forum • VCU Ultimate Frisbee • VCU Women’s Basketball And then there are these… MCV • • • MCV Class of 2008 MCV Emergency Dept. MCV not VCU Health System or VCU Medical Campus Other • • • • • • • I Don'T Need To Have Sex...Vcu F**Ks Me Everyday!!!! Screw you, I'm a VCU student. VCU Stop Raising Da Damn Tuition!!!! WTF VCU? VCU Haters VCU sucks VCU Freshman Suck!!!!!! • • • • An online network of more than 50 million experienced professionals from around the world, representing 150 industries Profiles summarize professional accomplishments and help users find and be found by former colleagues, clients, classmates and partners Now allows business to create profiles in addition to groups As of November 9, the Virginia Commonwealth University Alumni group had over 2,700 members. There are also several VCU school groups that have been created by LinkedIn users. • Leader in online video • Simple platform to upload and share video clips • VCU Channel created as the YouTube “home page” • Links to other VCU channels • Real-time, short messaging service that works over multiple networks and devices • Breaking world news to updates from friends • VCUPR, VCU Information Security, VCU Technology Services and VCU Alumni most active accounts • • VCUPR profile posted its first entry on January 7; now over 2,196 followers VCUPR’s followers include: Media – NPR News – Capital News Service Universities – washingtonpost ― Virginia Tech News – Ad Age ― William and Mary – Newsweek ― Univ. of Richmond – CBS 6 News WTVR ― UVA ― UVaToday – SEC Sports ― Old Dominion Univ. – 8NEWS_WRIC – Daily_Press_News Government ― Rep. Rob Wittman (Daily_Press) ― Virginia Department of – Richmond.com Business Assistance – NBC12 Richmond – WTKR NewsChannel 3 Blogs in Higher Ed • Faculty as thought leaders – http://blog.vcu.edu/nascar/ • Shape message communications • Create more engaged networks • Frequency no longer as important as size of network • Unify blogs with easy-to-find thematic lists of bloggers • Share more than words: video, photos, information graphics • Leading “bookmarking” site • Tag, save, manage and share Web pages and content from a centralized source and see what’s hot with other users by checking out popular tags • Leading photo management and sharing application • Enables new ways of organizing photos and video • VCU’s Flickr page linked to the new VCU web site and the VCU Facebook page Understanding Your Audiences The Evolution of Web 2.0 Or, What is Your WCQ?* *Web Culture Quotient The Internet Meme Timeline http://www.dipity.com/tatercakes/Internet_Memes# Oct. 21, 1996: Dancing Baby Dec. 2000: Peanut Butter Jelly Time April 2007: RickRoll Dec. 6, 2004: NumaNuma Feb. 12, 2009: David After Dentist Top 5 Subjects of discussion in each channel Rank Order Facebook YouTube Social Bookmarking External Blogs Institutional Blogs 1 Campus Life Events Courses Faculty Campus Life 2 Sports Campus Life Projects, NonResearch Research, Physical Sciences Events 3 Technology Faculty Research, Physical Sciences Institution Overall Institution Overall 4 Product Services Courses Events Expert Commentary Institution SubGroups 5 Events Institution Overall Faculty Events Admissions Standard classifications of discussion Acknowledging receipt of information Advertising something Answering a question Asking a question Augmenting a previous post Calling for action Disclosing personal information Distributing media Expressing agreement Expressing criticism Expressing support Expressing surprise Giving a heads-up Responding to criticism Giving a shout-out Making a joke Making a suggestion Making an observation Offering a greeting Offering an opinion Putting out a wanted ad Rallying support Recruiting people Showing dismay Soliciting comments Soliciting help Starting a poll Classification of Video Content • • • • • • • • • • Advertisement Animation Demonstration Event/Performance Fiction Film Home Video Instructional Video Interview Lecture • • • • • • • • • Montage Music Video News Broadcast Promotional Video Sightseeing/Tour Slideshow Speech Television Show Video Log Consider How Your Video is Seen THEN NOW Social Media Best Practices Basic tips for using social media • • • • Don’t duplicate your Web site, brochure, newsletter Start with your friends Embrace your audience Keep it personal, real & authentic – Encourage individuals, not departments, to maintain institution blogs – To drive engagement, encourage personal opinions and anecdotes • Use often • Build maintenance time into your schedule • Encourage participation Start the Discussion Safe Bets: somewhat frequent subjects that result in desirable, engaging discussion Research/News that has resulted in a new, demonstrable invention. Faculty/Staff achievements, lectures and appointments. Events, especially competitions. On institution-supported blogs, campus life, depictions of student life and admissions procedures. On external blogs, expert commentaries by faculty/staff. Advertising • Target your audience • Ad pricing for Facebook & LinkedIn – pay per click (CPC) or pay per impression (CPM) • Track the progress Promoting sites and events: Facebook/LinkedIn • Advertise • Post links on your profile, groups or pages • Add pages to your “favorite pages” box • Create events or post links to events others have created • Send links for sites and events to your Facebook friends to get the ball rolling How to Measure Success – – – – – – – – – – – Engagement Number of unique users Returning versus new readers Referring source statistics Links from other sites Google PageRank Conversation Index: The ratio of blog comments to blog posts (where applicable) Total time spent on the site The popularity of the content itself, which gets the most views Traffic to web site Sales Jump in / Questions?