Taking the Web 2.0 Plunge: Diving into Social Media2010 AASCU Communications Conference for Senior Public Relations & Marketing Professionals March 8-9, Washington, DC

Valerie Lopez Director of Media Research, Cision@valerielopez

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

Diving into Social Media

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

Types of Social MediaSocial 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

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

The Conversation Shift

PR

The Media

The Public

Us

Traditional Media Model

Social Media Model

► What is my goal?

► Who is my target community?

► How do I engage?

► How will I measure my success?

Questions to Ask…

Listening

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

Locating Communities Through Social MetricsFind patterns across multiple measures of influence

Engaging

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

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?

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.

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

► 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

A quick note on measurement

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

Stanford University on Facebook

YouTube EDU - UC Berkeley

► 36, 486 Subscribers

► 4,820,174 views

► Online lectures

Podcasts @Darden

Twitter - @NorthwesternU

University of Virginia

Case Studies

Case Study

Challenge

► Communicating with the 15-19 year-old demographic

► Lack of name recognition

Goal

Target Community

► Prospective students between the ages of 15-19 that are interested in a private, liberal arts education at a four-year university

► To engage with the group candidly and clearly, and often, without an institutional filter

Objective► Provide smart, stylish and

authentic content via Lynn.edu, student blogs, Facebook pages, YouTube

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

Case Study

Challenge

► Create sustainable word-of-mouth for DePaul among parents

Target Audience► Parents of Prospective

Students

Goal Solution

► Establish stronger relationships through a customer service and information-sharing

► Created DePaul Quad (www.depaulquad.com), an online community to foster dialog among parents and the university

*Case Study by womma

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

Taking the Web 2.0 Plunge: Diving into Social Media

QUESTIONS?

Valerie Lopez Director of Media Research, Cision@valerielopez