Social Media in the Education Sector. Does it compute?

Social Media in the Education Sector Does it Compute?

www.slideshare.net/florizelmedia

I’m Pauline Randall Florizel Media Ltd Social media Training, consultancy, reporting 3-d immersive environments Education and business techiebrekkie Monthly networking meetings for the tech sector Business and education

Before we get started… Social media is not free It costs Time Technology People Right, now we’ve got that out of the way…

How did we get to where we are? It used to be a one way street. Information was pushed via radio, tv, print towards the customer. The customer wasn’t encouraged to answer back.

Then the internet arrived The internet allowed more of a two-way conversation. But it was still a bit constrained. You couldn’t join in someone else’s conversation very easily, or offer advice, or ask questions, or just say hello, or just see what was going on… screen shot of early forum based on Hypermail

Finally - social media You can hear the conversations, join in and contribute Find out what your customers are saying about you. And then talk to them, find out what they want You can get the news and make the news You can find out what your competitors are up to.

Who owns your social media account? Ownership

Before you leap in… Who is creating the account? Have you established ownership? Who has access? Have you defined how the account(s) should be used?

What ‘voice’ does your account have? Think who is speaking Corporate image and content Can be used by several people Keep it professional (but still friendly!) Personal accounts contain personal content – do you want to share with your followers? Which platform? LinkedIn is always professional, Twitter may be personal

Look before you leap Online Safety and Confidentiality

It should go without saying but Once the info is out there, it’s out there Because you delete something doesn’t mean that no-one saw it, took a screen grab, Google cached it… Be careful what you share If you’re using Facebook you use pages not personal profiles And while you’re at it you might want to check your own Facebook privacy settings… Social media is not a forum to be used for confidential issues

How will you know when you’ve got there? Metrics

Facebook Over 500 million users

The Social Technographics Ladder Inactives neither create nor consumer social content of any kind Groups include people participating in at least one of the activities monthly except Conversationalists who participate in at least one of the included activities at least weekly. http://www.forrester.com/empowered/ladder2010

What you need to decide What are you aiming for? More website traffic? How much more? Over what period? More recruitment? Online? Offline? For specific courses? Sectors? More leads? How many more? Where does social media fit into your overall marketing strategy? What’s your budget? Time £££ Resources – you, other people How will you know when you’ve succeeded?

Some tools you could use Google analytics - http://www.google.com/analytics/ Social Mention - http://socialmention.com/ Google alerts - http://www.google.com/alerts Facebook metrics (on your Facebook page admin) Tweetreach - http://tweetreach.com/

The art of saying something in 140 characters

What is Twitter? Public microblogging service where you can post updates in 140 characters Use it to: Gather information Share information Hold conversations

Some sector examples http://twitter.com/#!/OpenUniversity - Open University http://twitter.com/#!/eduserv - eduserv http://twitter.com/#!/eduserv - National Union of Students http://twitter.com/#!/GuardianEdu - Guardian Education https://twitter.com/#!/rsc_ne_scotland - JISC RSC NE Scotland http://twitter.com/#!/ChichesterColl - Chichester College http://twitter.com/#!/anguscollege - Angus College http://twitter.com/#!/BordersCollege - Borders College http://twitter.com/#!/jameswattc - James Watt College http://twitter.com/#!/ElmwoodCollege - Elmwood College http://twitter.com/#!/edinburghnapierNapier University https://twitter.com/#!/UniStrathclyde University of Strathclyde

Good business example www.twitter.com/#btcare

Setting up your Twitter Account

www.twitter.com Username – keep it memorable and identifiable but not too long – it uses characters when people reply or refer to you. Picture – This is how you appear to other people – think about it. DON’T leave the standard twitter picture! Bio – think keywords. This should describe your institution and tell people something about your account. Would they find you from your keywords?

www.twitter.com Following people ,[object Object]

Your followers (with some provisos)Following people Celebrities unless you are REALLY interested in them Spammers Remember you can block people from following you

Twitter tools These can give you an alternative way to interact and manage twitter Hootsuite – web-based, multiple accounts Co-Tweet – web-based, multiple accounts, multiple users. On duty/off duty settings Look for extensions for your browser – e.g. if you use Chrome then look at Chromed Bird Plugins for your website so that your tweets show there too Tweetdeck – desktop client, multiple accounts, plus iPhone app Twitter - tweet from your iPhone or Mac or Android phone

Remember:It’s a conversation -that means listening as well as talking

Business and Professional Networking

How you can use LinkedIn Every time you change something on your profile you’ll show up on your contacts’ home page Research people before you meet them Login and see what others are doing Check your contact’s connections and see if there are people you’d like introducing to Join groups Ask and answer questions Check for events that you can go to

Profiles Complete all the sections Don’t just do one-liners – you are helping people find out about you Make sure you have links to your website, blog, twitter accounts and other social networks you are on Check your profile and see what others see

Need more help? Check out other people’s profiles and see how they have completed them Look at the help files – there’s lots of information there

Are you already in Facebook? If you aren’t then you can create a business account to manage pages and ad campaigns It is against the TOS of Facebook to have more than one account. If you already have an account then you have to use that to create your pages however fans can’t access your personal profiles. Check out the Facebook help page for more details http://www.facebook.com/help/?ref=pf#!/help/?page=721 Profiles are for people Pages are for organisations/causes

Not an easy option You need to keep in close touch with your fans Remember you are building a community – if nothing is happening then people won’t hang around. They may listed as a fan but they won’t be taking part

Managing a Page The Manage pages section lets you manage existing pages.

Linking the networks Tying it all together

Joining the dots Look at linking different networks together and think again You can sent tweets to Facebook and back again. And from LinkedIn to Twitter… A bit of judicious cross-posting is good but people want different content in different places. If you connect with someone on one network see if you might want to connect on another If I connect on LinkedIn I’ll usually check to see if that person is on Twitter

Joining the dots continued Don’t set yourself up on all the networks and then run out of energy to keep them up to date. Decide which is the most helpful to you at the moment, work on that one and then add in others later Unless you have dedicated staff you will struggle to do everything well. Think quality rather than quantity!

Do you… Use Google alerts to let you know what is happening in your sphere of interest? Do presentations that you could share? Try putting them up on Slideshare and linking back to LinkedIn and your website and increase your reach Write documents that you could share? What about putting them on Scribd? Lets more people know what you can do and the format is distributable

Do you… Have photos of what you do that you can share? Put them on Flickr. You can also use them for other things then – they can often be pulled into other sites from there. My Moo business cards get their photos from my Flickr account Or you could use Animoto and put your images together into a quick video together with backing music – easy as pie!

Setting up your own network? Consider Ning. It will let you set up a network with members, groups, discussions, events and is customisable. Ning is now a paid-for network only but if you are looking for a free one try searching for Ning alternatives An easy way to set up a powerful social network of your own

Social Media in the Education Sector. Does it compute?

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Social Media in the Education Sector. Does it compute?