Taking the Web 2.0 Plunge: Diving into Social Media

1. Taking the Web 2.0 Plunge: Diving into Social Media 2010 AASCU Communications Conference for Senior Public Relations & Marketing Professionals March 8-9, Washington, DCValerie Lopez Director of Media Research, Cision @valerielopez

2. What We’ll Cover • Diving into Social Media • What is Social Media? • Social Media’s impact on PR & the media • Listening • Tools for social media monitoring • Locating communities through social metrics • Engaging • Personality 2.0 • The Rule of Thirds • Creating • To Blog or Not to Blog? • Higher Ed in Social Media • Case Studies • Lynn University • DePaul University

3. Diving into Social Media

4. What is Social Media? “Social Media is the democratization of information, transforming people from content readers into publishers. It is the shift from a broadcast mechanism, one-to-many, to a many-to-many model, rooted in conversations between authors, people, and peers.” - Brian Solis, PR 2.0 blogger and principal of FutureWorks

5. Types of Social Media Social Networking Sites • Facebook, MySpace, LinkedIn Lifestreaming/Microblogging • Facebook Status, Twitter, FriendFeed & others Social News Sharing Sites • Digg, Delicious, Reddit & more: important places to participate Blogs & Podcasts • Citizen media with huge influence, especially on niche topic Social Photo/Video Sharing • YouTube, Flickr, Picasa

6. Social media’s impact on PR & the media • Focus on the social capital of the journalist, not the outlet • News is consumed differently – and on the go • Niche sites available to everyone • More direct-to-consumer • Communities, not audiences

7. The Conversation Shift The Public The Media Traditional Media Model PR Us Social Media Model

8. Questions to Ask… • What is my goal? • Who is my target community? • How do I engage? • How will I measure my success?

9. Listening

10. Monitor. Find out what’s being said about you online Engage. Respond quickly to establish that you’re listening Tools • Google Alerts (http://www.google.com/alerts) • Twitter: http://search.twitter.com • LinkedIn: Advanced Answers Search • Technorati.com • Google Blog Search (http://blogsearch.google.com) • Paid Monitoring Services

11. Locating Communities Through Social MetricsFind patterns across multiple measures of influence

12. Engaging

13. Personality 2.0 Go in with a plan Be yourself, but remember that you represent your brand Social media gives others a snapshot of you: What does your picture look like? Listen to the tone of each site before engaging Creating a mix of content: ⅓ about you, ⅓ sharing articles/ideas, ⅓ conversation Regularly clean up your profiles Stay for the marathon, not the sprint, to build relationships

14. To blog or not to blog? • What is the goal of my blog? • What can I offer that is unique to my blog and can’t be found elsewhere? • Who will my blogger(s) be? (They must want to blog or it won’t work.) • Can I stick with the blog for the long haul? Will I be able to post regularly?

15. Developing Video/ Audio Content Identify a goal for utilizing multimedia content You can make your content viral and fun For SEO purposes, be sure to include some text with your video/audio Accessing to multimedia tools is easier (and cheaper!) than ever Multimedia content is social: If you share it, they will come.

16. University of Phoenix Online Channel: youtube.com/user/UniversityofPhoenix Type of videos: Webisodes/Testimonial/Mini-documentary YouTube marketing voice: Everyman Inspiration *Source - Catherine Geil Reinhard & Mashable.com

17. A quick note on measurement • Know how you will measure your success before you engage • Always keep your target community in mind • Be patient – building a community, campaign or brand on the social web takes time

18. Ways Higher Ed is Using Social Media • Sharing/Creating Content • Engaging with their community • Promoting Student and Faculty Work • Broadcasting Events • Establishing Connections • Emergency Notification System *Source- Mashable.com

19. Stanford University on Facebook

20. YouTube EDU - UC Berkeley • 36, 486 Subscribers • 4,820,174 views • Online lectures

21. Podcasts @Darden

22. Twitter - @NorthwesternU

23. University of Virginia

24. Case Studies

25. Case Study Challenge Goal Target Community • Communicating with the 15-19 year-old demographic • Lack of name recognition • Provide smart, stylish and authentic content via Lynn.edu, student blogs, Facebook pages, YouTube • Prospective students between the ages of 15-19 that are interested in a private, liberal arts education at a four-year university Objective • To engage with the group candidly and clearly, and often, without an institutional filter

26. Results • Each student blog averages 1,000+ unique visitors • Facebook page has 500+ members • Media placements • Opened up conversations between past, present and potential students

27. Case Study Challenge Target Audience Parents of Prospective Students • Create sustainable word-of-mouth for DePaul among parents Goal Solution • Created DePaul Quad (www.depaulquad.com), an online community to foster dialog among parents and the university • Establish stronger relationships through a customer service and information-sharing *Case Study by womma

28. Results • 1,693 members of the community, approximately 30% of the parents who have been invited to join • An average of 1,700+ unique visits per month • Total of 200+ participants across the live sessions, an average of 30 per session. *Case Study by womma

29. Taking the Web 2.0 Plunge: Diving into Social Media QUESTIONS? Valerie Lopez Director of Media Research, Cision @valerielopez