New Communication Tools

Nick DeNardisAssociate Director of Web Communications

January, 15, 2009 mac.wayne.eduSaturday, January 17, 2009

Overview• Not just about talking at consumers

• Give consumers a reason to participate

• Listening to and joining the conversation

• Resisting the temptation to sell, sell, sell

• Don't control, let it go

• Embrace experimentation

• Patience

January, 15, 2009 mac.wayne.eduSaturday, January 17, 2009

Don't just talk at consumers

• Work with them throughout the marketing process

• Its about caring to know your current and prospective students

• Its about wanting your current and prospective students to know you

• Participation

January, 15, 2009 mac.wayne.eduSaturday, January 17, 2009

Degrees of Participation1. Observing

2. Searching

3. Conversing

4. Connecting

5. Creating

6. Controlling

January, 15, 2009 mac.wayne.eduSaturday, January 17, 2009

Give consumers a reason to participate

• Putting up a splash page is not enough

• Pushing out news updates (or sports) is not enough

• Every community takes nurturing

• Content must add value

January, 15, 2009 mac.wayne.eduSaturday, January 17, 2009

The conversation is not on your pages

• Facebook (600,000 new sign ups per day)

• Twitter (Growth Chart)

• LinkedIn

• Social Media Firehose (Link)

• Listen in, you might be surprised, people don’t hold back. This is THEIR platform.

January, 15, 2009 mac.wayne.eduSaturday, January 17, 2009

Trust is what you are selling

• Transparency is key

• When asked who is the one behind the mask, we tell them.

• Word spreads fast. Very Fast.

January, 15, 2009 mac.wayne.eduSaturday, January 17, 2009

Don’t control, let it go

The story ofhttp://twitter.com/waynestateuniv

January, 15, 2009 mac.wayne.eduSaturday, January 17, 2009

Embrace experimentation

• No “right” or “wrong” way

• If anyone claims to have figured it out they are wrong

• It’s about keeping a head of the pack

• Every day there is a new tool

• Remember Facebook at one time had less than 1000 users.

January, 15, 2009 mac.wayne.eduSaturday, January 17, 2009

Patience

• Not every effort is going to result in a huge amount of success, you cannot expect it

• Every effort does build momentum

• Success will come in time

January, 15, 2009 mac.wayne.eduSaturday, January 17, 2009

What we learned

• Listen in

• Talk and respond to customers

• Content is king, always give value

• Let real users add real content

• Experiment

• Did I mention the only cost for all of this has been time?

January, 15, 2009 mac.wayne.eduSaturday, January 17, 2009

Sites• http://twitter.com/waynestate

• http://twitter.com/wordwarriors

• http://www.facebook.com/pages/Detroit-MI/Wayne-State-University/25794202967

• http://wcs.wayne.edu/blog/

• http://digg.com/

• http://www.youtube.com/user/WayneStateUniversity

• http://delicious.com/waynestate

• http://flickr.com/photos/waynestateuniversity

• http://friendfeed.com/waynestate

January, 15, 2009 mac.wayne.eduSaturday, January 17, 2009