Follow This!
The Basics of
Social Media
Strategy
Minnesota State
University at Moorhead
presented by
Chuck Reed
Sarah Lefeber
Definition of Social Media
■ Definitions vary and are often vague, but
here’s a few of my favorites:
■
Group of web-based applications that build on
the ideological and technological foundations
of Web 2.0, and that allow the creation and
exchange of user-generated content
■
Blending of technology and social interaction
for the co-creation of value
Definitions
■ What it means to you:
■
■
■
Key marketing and relationship-building tools
Story-telling outposts for outcomes
Places to connect to target audiences (and
connect audiences with each other)
Values
■ Transparency
■ Identity
■ Honesty
■ Tone
■ Set Expectations
■ Interactive
■ Opt-in
■ Personalization
■ Story-Telling
■ Participatory
What It Isn’t…
■ Not a website replacement
■
Home on the web
■ Not a replacement for the right
mobile presence
■
RV
■ Not your first step, not a fix
■
The social space will only
highlight fundamental issues
What Is It Then?
Think of social media platforms like Facebook,
Twitter, and YouTube as your…
NEIGHBORS!
…and they throw a
great house party.
So, have fun and let
your hair down a
bit,
but remember,
it’s not your house.
Listening
■ Do searches for important keywords on each
platform
■
Play with Facebook, LinkedIn advertising
platforms to get a quick sense of audience
scope and size (demo)
■ Use a tool like Google Alerts or Social Mention
to receive notifications when items are
published, shared
Audiences
■ How audiences match up with platforms:
■ Facebook: Everyone, esp. prospective
undergraduate students
■ Twitter: Everyone – specialize at will
■ LinkedIn: Alumni, faculty, prospective graduate
students
■ Foursquare: Current students, prospective
students
■ YouTube: Everyone, esp. prospective
undergraduate students
Expectations – Prospective Students
University of Oxford: YouTube videos on explaining the
application process to answer general questions prospects have.
Expectations - Alumni
Emory University: Maintaining a constant relationship with
Alums with updates and answers to questions.
Expectations – Current Students
UMKC: Students utilize group
pages and chats to
communicate events with each
other.
Expectations – Faculty & Staff
Lectures and office
hours online are
now more common
for student and
faculty interaction
out of the classroom.
Image from Venturebeat
Expectations – Fundraising Relations
Brown: Maintaining a relationship with donors, as well as
showing where the funds go.
Platforms
■ Approach social media with both caution and
dedication as social media platforms and tools
continue to evolve
■ Each platform has its own set of best practices
■
It’s important for those populating these
presences to be:
□
□
□
□
Committed
Have a management plan in place
Leverage appropriate tools
Understand the expectations of users and the platform
community
Facebook Golden Rule
■ Facebook is wildly popular because of one
reason:
■
Instant Connection and Interaction
■ People interact with content that means
something to them
So What Should I Post?
■ We suggest posting around three
times per week.
■
A promotional item should only make
up one of those posts
■
The rest should be personal interest
items such as:
□
Relevant articles
– Post a quote from the article, what you
think about it, what the audience will get
from it, or ask their opinion
□
Photos/Memes
– Ensure you include a sentence about the
photo
□
□
□
Questions
Community Events
Announcements
What Works?
■ Photos garner the most interaction
■ Short, 1-2 sentence posts
■ Asking for opinions
■ Ask for the “like” once every other week
■ Providing a service (update them with info,
new services, etc.)
Facebook
■ Timeline for Pages impacts:
■
Status updates – you can pin a post to the top
of your page for 7 days, you can star a post for
a posted photo to take up the full width of the
page
■
Info – updated to “About” section
Facebook
■ Applications
■
■
These must take 2nd fiddle to the Timeline and
status updates
Best for supporting specific content (YouTube,
etc) and timely promotions
Facebook
■ Messaging tactics:
■ Calls to action – open questions, requests to share
■ Rich media – 2x engagement (Facebook’s own
research, July 2011)
■ Personality
■ Timely
■ @mentions
■ Other tactics:
■ Timeline images
Rules of Thumb
■ Think of all Facebook interactions as you would
in-person interactions.
■ Anything that you say online has the same
repercussions as an in-person meeting.
■ When in doubt of confidentiality, take
conversations offline.
Facebook
■ Best practices:
■
Optimize content on the “Info” tab
□
■
Should contain a few lines about the school and the
value proposition it offers to students
Enlarge and enhance the profile photo
□
Thumbnail must clearly define what the Page
represents, and when featured on the Page as the larger
profile photo, it should take advantage of the space
available within this area to give visitors a visual sense of
your institution and the brand
Facebook
■ Let’s take a look at a few examples:
■
■
Harvard University
Harvard Business School
Twitter
■ Stats (Sept. 2011)
■
■
■
100 million active users worldwide, half of
whom log in daily
40 percent of these have not tweeted in the
last month
Processing 230 million
tweets a day, increased
110% since the start of 2011
Twitter
■ What is it?
■ Online social media platform and
microblogging service
■ Tweets are publicly visible by default; however,
senders can restrict message delivery to just
their followers
■ Users may subscribe to other users' tweets –
this is known as following and subscribers are
known as followers or tweeps (Twitter + peeps)
Twitter
■ Hashtags
■ Way to highlight and organize information on the
platform (#highered)
■ @mentions
■ Used at the start of the tweet – acts as a reply
■ Used throughout a tweet – acts as a mention,
directly links to account
■ DMs
■ Direct message – private messages on Twitter
Twitter
■ When used correctly, the platform can:
■
■
Be an incredibly effective, real-time
communications tool
Connect and show support of your institution
to prospectives, current students, faculty,
alumni, donors and corporate/organizational
partners
Twitter
■ Best practices:
■ Bio sets expectations
□
■
the Twitter background, avatar and bio for your account
should have a cohesive, updated appearance and serve
to drive Twitter users to your website
Be the real-time information hub for
stakeholders
□
Share campus events, sporting events, academic
calendar dates of importance and all emergency
announcements on the main institutional account
Twitter
■ Best practices, cont.:
■ Engage and support internal audiences directly
□
□
□
■
find and engage with current students, faculty and staff on
Twitter directly
Converse about current happenings and events on campus of
interest
Support relevant messaging shared by internal audiences
(such as a professor tweeting interesting content about
his/her expertise, or a student tweeting about their
excitement for passing a recent exam)
Support your local community and beyond
□
Leveraging tools such as Twellow or Tweepz to find and
engage local Twitterers, as well as leverage current partner
and media - results in additional public relations, word-ofmouth marketing, and relationship strengthening
Twitter
■ Best practices, cont.:
■ Posting 3-5 times daily
□
■
Follow back
□
□
□
□
■
active, relevant, and conversational
Follow accounts of interest - expectation of users on the Twitter
is one of mutual respect and interest
Follow those who are following you, and engage them in
conversation
Review a Twitterer’s bio and tweet stream to determine if
they’re an appropriate and useful connection for the institution
Proactively follow Twitterers of interest, and engage them openly
Discuss current, relevant events
□
Follow trending topics on the platform to get a sense of what a
majority of users are discussing, and engage in these topics
appropriately
Twitter
Twitter
■ Let’s take a look at a few examples:
■
■
■
@Harvard
@LoyolaAdmission
@HBSAlumni
LinkedIn
■ Stats:
■
■
■
■
More than 135 million members in over 200
countries and territories
59% are currently located outside of the
United States
Execs. from all 2011 Fortune 500 companies
are members
There are more than 1M LinkedIn groups
LinkedIn
■ What is it?
■ Social media platform for professional networking
■ Replaces the rolodex
■ How it works:
■ You sign up, and make connections
■ Contact network is built up consisting of direct
connections, the connections of each of their
connections (termed second-degree connections)
and also the connections of second-degree
connections (termed third-degree connections)
LinkedIn
■
■
Connections can be used to get introductions to
other members
Can be used for recruiting and job search
□
□
■
■
Employers can list jobs and search for potential candidates
Job seekers can review the profile of hiring managers and
discover which of their existing contacts can introduce them
Users can follow different companies
Users can create groups, join groups of interest
(associations, alumni networks, etc)
LinkedIn
■ When used correctly, the platform can:
■
Be the breeding ground for institutional
connections
□
□
□
■
Current students to alumni
Alumni to alumni
Faculty and staff
Perfect place to:
□
□
Recruit faculty, staff
Advertise graduate programs
LinkedIn
■ Best practices:
■
■
■
Have senior administration, faculty and staff
join
Create or source the creation of an alumni
group(s)
Encourage students to join, interact with
faculty/staff, and connect to alumni
■ Let’s take a look at an example: Harvard U.
YouTube
■ Stats:
■
■
■
■
48 hours of video are uploaded every minute
Over 3 billion videos are viewed a day
More video is uploaded to YouTube in one
month than the 3 major US networks created
in 60 years
70% of YouTube traffic comes from outside the
US
YouTube
■ Stats.
■
In March of 2009, YouTube launched YouTube
EDU
□
□
□
Educational hub of the content being uploaded to
YouTube by colleges and universities
May, 2011: 450 universities worldwide have established
a channel via YouTube EDU
Schools have uploaded 63,500 hours—or about seven
years—worth of video content
Foursquare
■ Stats
■
■
■
Around 15 million users worldwide
Over 1.5 billion check-ins, with millions more
every day
Businesses: Over 600,000 using the Merchant
Platform
■ What is it?
■
Location-based social service for smartphones
Foursquare
■ How does it work?
■ Users "check-in" at venues using a mobile website,
text messaging or a device-specific application by
selecting from a list of venues the application
locates nearby
■ Location is based on GPS hardware in the mobile
device or network location provided by the
application
■ Each check-in awards the user points and
sometimes "badges“
■ Let’s take a look for Foursquare for Universities
Google Alerts
■ Simple way to be notified of brand mentions
by email
■
■
■
■
■
Free to use
Easy to set-up
Can be leveraged by anyone
Can be specified as desired
Let’s take a look at this tool
Success Stories
13,546 members
13 subgroups
DePaul University’s
LinkedIn Group
Image from Mashable
So this shows up on your page…
How do you respond?
■ Craft your answer and share with the group
■ Write down three other online strategies or
procedures you would take
Now let’s try cross-platform messages
■ Make a tweet, Facebook message, and
LinkedIn post using the following blog post:
http://news.mnstate.edu/2013/02/freeze-yourfanny-challenge-saturday/
(Dragon Entertainment Group: @MSUMTheGroup)
Questions?