Community Standards and Social media

Matthew Herek (@mherek) currently serves as the associate director of young alumni engagement in the office of alumni relations and development at Northwestern University.

Back in 2000, during my former life as a residence hall director at Michigan State University, the department decided to implement a “community standards” model from Syracuse University.  Briefly defined, community standards were rules initiated and enforced by students that determined how they would live together in residence halls. Certain items were non-negotiable—for example, students could not initiate a standard that lowered the legal drinking age. The theory behind community standards was that they were developed and refined by the community itself, within reasonable boundaries set by the university.

Does this sound at all familiar? Isn’t this exactly how most places have been developing social media policies? Taken a step further, isn’t this how social media outlets have gained their own identities?

For example, I’ve scoured LinkedIn looking for one shred of a policy that says “this is a professional website; please include only resumes and no pictures of your vacations.”  Likewise, I cannot find anything on Facebook that gives a brand page a maximum number of posts per day before the network will block posts from being seen by users. 

In the era of hard-to-understand privacy agreements, where it can feel like social media sites are taking more and more of our information and perhaps using it for ethically fuzzy ventures, I believe the users of these sites have more power than they realize. The users set the stroke for what is and isn’t acceptable in many cases. My hypothesis must be somewhat true: Look how quickly Facebook parrots the features of another website (think Google+ circles) when it senses users are enjoying a piece of a competitor’s user experience.

I bring this up because I get the impression that many social media community managers, who often come from a marketing background, are locked into a paradigm of “managing the message" or “creating the whole user experience.”  I would suggest that we are simply wasting precious time on endeavors that will not bear much fruit. 

Years ago, the makers of TurboTax spent time watching how people did their taxes with pen and paper. They answered questions about how people put their receipts together, what sections of the complex tax form they worked on first, etc. The programmers allowed the user to develop the standards for the program. It is a powerful example of listening to your customers/community members.

Two years ago at Northwestern, our LinkedIn group was getting a little out of control.  During the economic downturn, the discussion board was becoming a “work wanted” display. Consultants wanted to make sure others knew about their services. Many community members were upset and made a point to tell us that the discussion board was no longer a space they wanted to be in. After a conversation between group members and moderators, a simple standard was established: People could market themselves only once a month. Additional posts on the same topic would be flagged and removed.  Since that time, the issue has not come up again. Note that it was not a heavy-handed reading of LinkedIn or university policies that brought about this compromise.

I really believe we are exhausting ourselves by not reading the signs of the times in our social media spaces. During his thorough and excellent presentation at the CASE Social Media Conference, Andrew Gossen gave compelling evidence that spaces like Facebook will help with fundraising in two to four years. Yet I would bet the change in my pockets that the only way for many advancement shops to maintain support of social media is if they can show a return on that engagement right now. However, today’s community of users is rejecting the attempt. That does not make them unwilling to donate; it means they do not look at Facebook as a philanthropic channel…yet. Let that message resonate and redirect your efforts to channels that support philanthropy tools like Kickstarter. 

Does it make sense to tout the fact that you have 20,000-plus users on LinkedIn if you don’t listen to them? How about treating 5,000 Twitter followers like disciples instead of partners? Or 9,000 Facebook likes as a passive audience for whom the “like” button is an online standing ovation?

Social media is clearly creating new kinds of communities. They are asynchronous and can be messy.  Those of us in advancement circles have a professional obligation to foster standards that make these smaller communities part of the more broadly defined “university community.”  You don’t have to give your community more control—they already have it. Now it’s just a question of whether or not community managers recognize this.

How Have We Grown? The CASE Social Media Conference, Then and Now

Jen Doak (@jpdoak) is the online communications specialist at CASE.

A lot has happened in social media and advancement since April 2011 when the second Social Media and Community Conference took place in San Francisco. It was a different time then: Facebook had not yet discovered chronology, people were posting pictures of lunch without fear of faculty-member retribution and most folks were struggling with questions like getting staff on board, letting go of control and how to measure return on investment.

I had written a semi-serious post from that conference on my favorite quotes taken from the hashtag, and there are still many insights that I think  hold true and will for some time. For example:

• “Technology has created an environment where we don’t tell them what’s important: They tell US what’s important.”
• “If you don’t pay students, you may also exclude high-quality low-income students from being able to work for you. Pizza is not pay!”
• “What’s the ROI on social media? I don’t know; what’s the ROI on our phone system?”

But the state of social media at institutions has evolved in those 360 short days. Facebook’s got an IPO (and Instagram), Google+ has become the empty new McMansion development across the street, and attendees at the 2012 conference in Chicago have moved from “How do we get on board?” to “What do we do next?” and “How do we sustain engagement?”

Our stellar 2012 faculty had key insights on crisis communication, content strategy, social media in alumni affairs and fundraising, and recruiting students using social and mobile. Now that their colleagues have started to realize the importance of social media, attendees were looking at how to get their presidents tweeting.

Here’s a Storify of just a few of this year’s insights, again thanks to our enthusiastic #casesmc Twitter community. If you’d like to join in on the discussions (and often-wacky side discussions), you can do so on Twitter, Facebook and Tumblr. And check out mStoner marketing manager Mallory Wood’s post on resources, live-blogs and presentations.

How have you seen the social media and advancement landscape change over the last year? Which insights have you found evergreen and which need to be amended—or discarded?

 

Social Media Medley: Seven Lessons from Promoting the 103rd Annual Drake Relays

By Aaron Jaco, Paul Kirk and Holly Worthy 

We communications professionals look forward to developing and executing social media strategies for high-profile campus events. At Drake University in Des Moines, Iowa, events don’t get much bigger than the Drake Relays, a track-and-field experience that touches all of the university’s key audiences in very real and very different ways. Alumni flock to campus for the festivities, including reunions; local sports fans fill the stadium to see the world’s best track-and-field athletes; and even prospective students pay attention to events like Street Painting.

To engage these audiences and others, we have initiated an integrated, collaborative social media strategy for promoting all aspects of the relays. Here are a few lessons learned as the university prepares for Relays Week, which will be held April 21-29:

(1) Collaboration is key to promoting an event that spans more than one office. At Drake, the relays involve the organizational and marketing efforts of our marketing and communications office, athletics department and alumni relations office.

We share a common audience in the Drake Relays and can do much to benefit each other. The week of the track meet, which draws more than 40,000 attendees to Drake Stadium, doubles as an unofficial student homecoming, a centerpiece for major alumni reunions and a draw for community events such as a parade, an indoor pole-vaulting competition and the world-famous Beautiful Bulldog Contest.

(2) Partnership is only achieved through a clearly communicated shared vision and goals. Before a social media plan took shape, our alumni office held meetings with the athletics and marketing teams to establish a shared vision for a “Relays Week.” For the first time, that vision intentionally encompassed everything that occurs in and out of Drake Stadium. The meetings resulted in a community website, the first visible sign of our new collaboration and a major step forward for Relays fans’ online experience.

From there, the marketing staff drafted a social media plan that advanced three primary goals and a series of tactical objectives. The work of a few minds set the basis for productive conversation while a team of 10 staff members worked through the details.

(3) Streamlining communications is also key. In the past, we’ve promoted the relays through at least four Twitter accounts (@DrakeRelays, @DrakeUniversity, @DrakeAlumni and @DUBulldogs), but this year @DrakeRelays is the focal point. We have gained a lot of positive engagement by following Relays athletes and fans who mention our event; they often follow back and keep in touch. We also created an official Facebook page for the relays, and a Facebook event with nearly 1,200 invitees. We are sharing the most important and engaging content via those “main” feeds. Content specific to one sub-audience (such as alumni-only news) still gets promoted via audience-specific pages/feeds rather than the official Relays outlet.

(4) Institutions need to lay a foundation of content. After setting initial social media and content strategies, we created a shared account on Hootsuite that we can use to schedule tweets in advance. Ticket information, event times, parking details and other logistics are set to broadcast at varying intervals between now and the end of Drake Relays—giving us the freedom to work on fun and engaging content like trivia contests, photo galleries and videos. 

We built up the Facebook page by using the new Timeline functionality to enter dozens of historic milestones from Drake Relays’ history. The page is no longer just a bulletin board, but also a valuable archive—a sort of digital museum. We intend to provide a place for fans to explore, learn and build friendships.

(5) Teamwork fosters creativity and experimentation. This year, we’ll try our hand at Foursquare and Pinterest—neither of which we’ve used for event promotion. We created a Relays profile on Foursquare with event venues, attractions, parking lots and plenty of tips, photos and lists with the goal of helping fans navigate the Relays via mobile devices. Our Pinterest presence is a collaborative pin board on the Drake University profile. This year’s experience with these platforms will help inform our strategy for 2013. 

(6) Don’t forget to promote social media via traditional media.  While we’re hard at work curating web and social content, we need to remember that our audience doesn’t live online. Traditional media promotion is critical to awareness-raising in any social media campaign. Make sure to use hashtags, URLs and icons in print advertisements, banners, sandwich boards and other tangibles as appropriate.

And finally:

(7) Social media feels like a sprint, but it’s really a marathon. Set a reasonable pace and keep at it. Push through obstacles. Build your audience (and skills) over time to reach the finish line—or, at least, to accomplish your objectives.

Aaron Jaco is digital media specialist in the Office of Marketing & Communications at Drake University.
Twitter: @aaron_jaco.

Paul Kirk is assistant athletic director for media relations in Drake’s Athletics Department.
Twitter: @PaulKirk_Drake.

Holly Worthy is assistant director of Drake’s Office of Alumni Relations, where she specializes in digital media.
Twitter: @hworthy.

A Crisis Communications Case Study: Snowmageddon at Seattle U

Sarah Hyde is the social media coordinator for Seattle University.

A snowstorm hit Seattle over MLK, Jr. weekend that resulted in our campus closing from Tuesday night through the rest of the week. Snowstorms in the city are rare and can shut down the entire public transportation system. At Seattle University, our inclement weather communications plan includes protocol for posting updates on our website, general phone line, local news websites, campus-wide email blasts and social media. During the week of “Snowmageddon,” as we dubbed it in our office, our social media outlets turned out to be a vital source of information sharing.

Seattle University campus during the January snowstorm. Image by Chris Joseph Taylor.

Each day of the snowstorm, as other universities announced closures and cancellations, people flocked to our Twitter and Facebook channels seeking information.

The pros:

• Facebook and Twitter are easy and fast to update and allow for rapid exchange of information. It’s easier to update Facebook several times with small updates and news than it is your website.
• News outlets, hungry for content, scan social media for images and videos, which can lead to greater exposure for the university. This can be a great opportunity to get your campus in the local media.
• Social media gives a platform for opinions, which can be helpful in determining the mood in the community and future planning.

The cons:

• It’s a lot of work for your social media manager and communications team. During Snowmageddon, Seattle University was closed from Tuesday night through Friday but many of our team members worked 12-hour days, staying up late waiting for updates and decisions and then rising before six a.m. to share information and answer questions.
• Social media gives a platform for opinions. Above, this was listed as a pro— but it can also be a con.  Those opinions are often negative, and users are easily frustrated when information is not shared quickly enough or decisions are not to their liking. Comments can stack up fast, so Facebook, in particular, requires constant moderation. As much as you might want to delete a negative comment, you can’t as this could lead to increased backlash.

Should your university find itself in a “snowy” situation this school year, don’t hesitate to make Facebook and Twitter your go-to places for news and updates. Of course, you’ll want to cover all your bases regarding your website, phone line, etc., but  more audiences are turning to social media for current information and also to compare you to your neighboring schools.

Be ready when the storm hits! Here are some suggestions for weathering the storm:

• If you don’t have a social media manager, identify someone on your communications team who can take the reins of moderating your university’s social media accounts. This person should be comfortable handling a variety of comments—positive and negative. Give this person a lot of caffeine and pats on the back as he or she won’t be sleeping much for a few days!
• Maintain good communication between your social media manager and the person who makes decisions about closures and cancellations. The social media person is going to be on the front lines answering questions and fielding criticism, so he or she needs to be well-informed and up to date.
• Have some official language drafted that’s approved by your school’s decision makers that the social media person can share on Facebook and Twitter. Be sure to think ahead and have language prepped for multiple situations.
• Be prepared to supply the local media with images and video of your students enjoying the snowy weather.

With a little organization, you can maximize a rare opportunity to capture a different aspect of campus life and share it with the world!

The Seattle University campus under a blanket of snow. Image by Chris Joseph Taylor.

 

Media Relations Professionals as Social Media Educators: An Interview with Sheleah Reed

Jennifer Doak (@jpdoak) is the online communications specialist at CASE.

Have you started monitoring your institution’s online presence—and seen something shared by students you wish you hadn’t? It’s easy to feel powerless in a situation like this, but some media relations professionals are taking a proactive role in educating students about what can be seen and what should be shared on social media.

One of them is Sheleah Reed, executive director of communications at Prairie View A&M University (PVAMU), a historically black institution with more than 8,600 students on the outskirts of Houston, Texas. She manages media relations, alumni relations and her institution’s social media presence within the division of Student Affairs and Institutional Advancement. It’s all the more impressive, then, that she makes time to educate students as an adjunct instructor in the department of communication at the university. I spoke with her to find out more.

How did your role as social media educator come about?

I believe I was picked to talk to our student leaders about managing their own brand because of my experience as a former student leader and in my current role as the official spokesperson for Prairie View. When I was a student, I was editor-in-chief of the student newspaper, a position that was in some ways a bridge between the students and the administration. Being in that role helped me see that some of the things people do online aren’t exactly great, and  gave me the insight to talk about social media in my current position. This generation of students is heavily involved in social media, so it became a large portion of the conversation. What started as what NOT to do became WHAT you should do.

I have been invited to speak to every student group on campus—the student government association, athletes, contestants competing for SGA president and Mr. and Miss PVAMU. I have also spoken to students during a membership intake class for Greek organizations. The class wasn’t on social networking, but I saw it as an opportunity to talk to students who will represent the university on how to use hashtags and what pictures to post. The Office of Student Activities and Leadership has been the leader in requesting these social media discussions, followed by the Athletics Department.

What do you teach students? Is it within a large lecture class, a seminar or something more informal?

As an adjunct in the department of communication, I usually start conversations with classes within that department. I have spoken everywhere from small classrooms to large auditoriums, and usually we talk about how people can use what you post against you. My favorite thing to tell students is, “You aren’t there to translate the message, so be careful that you are OK with the 500 ways your photo or 150-word message can be translated.”

During a discussion with the football team, I went to Twitter and read tweets from that morning without showing them the Twitter handles. They said, “Who would say that?” and then I told them it was one of you, your teammate, Madonna or someone else. That really showed them how what people say on social networks can be taken a lot of ways, and you can’t be there to explain what you mean.

What has been the response from students?

During the years it’s changed, just like social networking has changed. Freshmen don’t pay as much attention, but once they’re sophomores and want to start participating in groups, they become more tuned in.

What do you think all college students should know about social media and Internet use in general? Do you think they arrive at college with some of this awareness?

I think students should know that Facebook and Twitter are real life. That’s a running joke among our students—it’s not real. But in fact, it is. Just because you may not be serious or literal about the content you share doesn’t mean that others won’t take them seriously. They see that content as an extension of your true life. Where you check in, who you are friends with, what you like and what you post are all summed up as part of your personality.

I don’t think many of our students understand the reach of social networking. Maybe it’s in part a cultural issue—many people say that African Americans are on the lower end of the digital curve. Whatever the reason, many students do not seem to understand that they can’t take back what is already out there. Interestingly enough, I have tons of Facebook friends who are students—when something happens I find out mostly because they have already posted it. It’s an advantage as an educator to have student friends on Facebook because they can see a bigger picture of me, with family and opinions, and they know I’m trustworthy. Most of the students become more careful and guarded with Facebook after our conversations, but now and again they slip.

I have removed myself from Twitter, though, because I found it overwhelming!

What should media relations professionals interested in educating students keep in mind?

I think it is important that the staff in communications and marketing departments are seen as experts. The students that attend our institutions, as well as the faculty and staff who work for them, really reflect our brand. You can’t manage what anyone says, good or bad, but you can help them to understand the big picture. For example, our student government association members have to understand that they are seen as the experts related to things happening on campus. If there were a student death, for example, and they posted incorrect facts, it could be seen as reliable by the media.

Using Social Media in a Crisis: A Snapshot

Chris Syme is a former higher education communications associate who now heads her own agency, CKSyme.org, based in Bozeman, Montana. The agency specializes in crisis/reputation communications, social media integration, and training.

A majority of higher education institutions have had one or more potential reputation-damaging events discussed in traditional and social media channels in the last 12 months, according to a new study. In addition, while 85 percent of reporting schools have crisis communications policies, only 59 percent of those policies address the use of social media in a crisis. 

The study was conducted by CKSyme.org in partnership with CASE in the fall of 2011. Highlights of the survey findings are below, reports for higher education and independent schools can be found on the CASE website and a full set of survey results can be seen on CKSyme.org.

The State of Crisis in Higher Education 

• In the last 12 months, 49 percent of responding institutions have had to enact crisis communications plans at least once. In that group, 7 percent had to enact their plan four to six times.  

• In the last 12 months, 66 percent of institutions reported that potential reputation-damaging events about their institutions were discussed in social media channels. Of that group, 7 percent reported four to six events, and 3 percent reported seven or more events discussed in social media channels. Five percent did not know if there were any conversations about them on social media channels.

The State of Social Media in Higher Education

• All reporting institutions had an official presence on Facebook. Other official channels used were: Twitter (94 percent), YouTube or Vimeo (92 percent), LinkedIn (55 percent), official blog (31 percent), location-based check-ins (18 percent), and MySpace (3 percent).  

• Respondents reported having several other "non-official" social media channels operating under the institution's umbrella. Heading up the list was alumni relations with 84 percent. Only 26 percent of institutions reported requiring registration or training for users who represent the institution on social media channels.

The State of Crisis Communications in Higher Education 

• Eighty-five percent of the respondents have a crisis communications policy. 

• Only 59 percent of the institutions with policies address the use of social media in that policy. Only 17 percent of the reporting institutions have a plan for “unofficial” social media channels that represent the university. Both of these statistics are troubling. Given that social media is the real-time channel of choice for public and news agencies for breaking news, schools would be wise to include social media in their crisis plans and to include a plan for all channels that represent the university.

• Respondents with crisis communications plans were asked about what elements were included in their plan. Ninety-nine percent have an emergency email notification system. Other elements included were: media relations crisis plans (90 percent), text message alert systems (89 percent), dark or emergency websites (59 percent), a social media monitoring plan (56 percent), message templates or talking points (50 percent), and campus electronic signage (38 percent).  The statistic that stands out here is the lack of a social media monitoring plan that can keep institutions aware of breaking news, online and traditional media mentions of their brand and help manage misinformation.   
  

Best Practice Takeaways

1.       Implement a social media monitoring system--now. A social media monitoring system can help you keep track of what is being said about your institution in the social media universe, alert you to issues you may not be aware of and help you gauge public understanding and sentiment around an issue.  See the CKSyme.org blog on the survey for more information.

2.       Develop a social media policy. There is a misunderstanding among many that a social media policy is a prohibitive document. The best social media policies operate as a guide to empower people to use social media channels responsibly in a way that builds the organization’s brand. CASE has a collection of sample social media policies available to members as well as a previous post on the CASE blog.

3.       Implement a social media management system. A social media management system (SMMS) should have multiple functions that can facilitate monitoring, publishing, lead and conversion tracking, measurement and customer relationship management, depending on what your institution’s social media strategy is (see Jason Falls’ report on management systems).

4.       Establish registration or affiliation of campus social media accounts. Establishing a database of administrators and passwords held by a community manager allows the university to remove old accounts or delete or post to any university-related account in an emergency.    Best practices for affiliated social media accounts are emerging from institutions like the University of New Hampshire and Tufts University.

5.       Establish a community manager for campus social media. Even though this last takeaway may seem redundant, many reporting institutions did not have one single supervisory department for all campus social media. This does not imply that one department should handle all campus social media, but that there should be a centralized resource that acts as a hub to the campus “spokes” so there is continuity in branding and messaging, especially in the event of a crisis.

Social Media: The Haze is Lifting and the Landscape is Coming Into Focus.

Susan T. Evans is a senior strategist at mStoner and chair of the 2012 CASE Social Media and Community Conference. Before mStoner, Susan was the first director of creative services at the College of William & Mary in Williamsburg, Va.  

I think things are starting to clear up on the social media front:

• Experimentation? Check.
• Senior administrators understanding what a hashtag is? Check.
• Facebook and Twitter icons on your home page? And, check again.

Let me offer a bit more evidence about my assertion that most educational institutions have a sharper focus on how to use social media:

Most of us are using the right tool for the right job. Perhaps you saw the "social media explained" photo I'm including in this post. I saw it first on @ThreeShipsMedia. Let's face it, for a while, social media channels were generic. The only goal—the simple intent—was to have a conversation. While it's still about conversation, the Twitter post is not the Facebook update is not the Pinterest pin. And there seems to be less reliance on an approach that simultaneously publishes the same content to all social channels. Most of us are packaging content differently depending on the channel or we are using certain channels for certain types of communication.

Thanks to mobile, social media is now a push technology. The first time I suggested social media as an official communication channel, many resisted it because they preferred to "get it in their email." There was a fear that if we didn't use a push technology, the audience simply would not bother to come to us for a message. Mobile changes all of that. I've characterized mobile as social for quite awhile now. And, the proliferation of mobile devices (some claim that 50 percent of undergraduates have smartphones) and apps means we can be almost certain that our social media content streams are being regularly pushed to the audiences we want to reach. Nowadays, our audiences always have their small screens with them.

People, not brands, use social media. There is social media noise but we've learned that the authentic voices are more likely to get attention and responses. Why explain this further when Lori Packer's recent post provides an excellent summary? Enough said.

Bring the campus life section to life with social media. These days, integration of the official web presence with social media content streams is default; it's expected. Back in the day, the lighthearted content of a college or university website was contained in its campus life section. Do you think you could crowdsource the campus life section of your website? Do you think official higher education websites have improved because of the "external pressure" from the looming social media content on the periphery?

Humble, anyone? Many social media strategists recommend that content produced for your social channels should not be all about you. Instead, your institution should use social media to contribute to the broader conversation. Enter tools like Pinterest where, according to Oberlin social media coordinator Ma'ayan Plaut, recommendations to the community of users suggest "avoiding self-promotion." Take Ma'ayan's advice: "Use social media to help you tell your story."

If your view is still hazy, sharpen your focus by consuming the best of what's out there. Blogs like this one and conferences like CASE Social Media and Community are tremendous resources for sharing ideas and keeping your communication strategy rich and relevant. Hope to see many of you in Chicago for #casesmc.

Progress? Check.

Using New Media Tools to Promote Faculty Research

Jen Doak is the online communications specialist at CASE.

Most media professionals are now familiar with some online tools—if they don’t at least read blogs or participate in social networks, then they have had articles or press releases published on their institution’s website. But how can new media like blogs and content-sharing sites help advancement folks with an issue as old as parchment and quill pens: getting a general audience excited about academic research?

Menachem Wecker, formerly a writer and editor for George Washington Today, The George Washington University’s online news site, is now an education reporter with the U.S. News and World Report. He is also the conference chair for CASE's Annual Conference for Media Professionals, which will be held in Washington, D.C., next month. While there, Menachem will be moderating a panel on using new media to translate faculty work for a broader audience. He was gracious enough to answer several questions on the topic.

What are the common challenges for media relations professionals in promoting faculty research?

I'd say the primary challenge is that there isn't necessarily a common language. Many faculty members speak a language called "academic," which may be foreign to media relations professionals.

On the faculty side of things, if you've devoted your entire career to studying something narrow, like the sociology of Elizabethan cutlery, the chances are very good that you are going to resist having to collapse the research in your magnum opus to small sound bites that work well for reporters. Even if the media relations professional is well versed in a particular academic discipline, she or he is increasingly called upon to be a generalist as well, and how many people can follow a scholarly conversation in law, medicine, business and the arts?

There's also another issue, which is one of scope. New research--under certain conditions--can be newsworthy, but it also might be too technical or too focused for many journalism outlets. It becomes the media relations professional's task to find a way to make that research more accessible and more relevant to larger audiences.

What advantages do new media tools have over traditional media approaches to these challenges?

One topic that we are going to address on the [Media Relations Conference] panel is the potential of blogging. Many professors' email boxes are goldmines of information. One professor I used to work with--a former U.S. ambassador to Ethiopia and Burkina Faso--used to exchange thousands of words over email with reporters covering East Africa and the Horn. We started publishing those email exchanges on the blog, and just by repackaging existing content and posting it to the [publication sharing] site Scribd.com, we got tens of thousands of fresh eyeballs.

The only investment many "new" (though they're hardly new!) media tools require is time; many of them are free. Professors—if they write accessibly, blog regularly and construct their sites properly and strategically--can sometimes achieve digital followings that overshadow many of the reporters that they used to pitch.

What new media tools or platforms work best for promoting faculty research?

With the caveat that I'm on the payroll of none of these companies, I'd say the following tools/platforms are essential, in descending order of importance:

1. Scribd (for posting transcripts and then embedding them in other sites)

2. Twitter (for driving traffic to your site or as a microblogging platform if you don't have a site)

3. WordPress, Blogger or another blogging platform

4. Facebook/Google+/Tumblr (if you've got the time)

5. BlogTalkRadio or any of the other web-based radio stations.  

How can media relations professionals collaborate with faculty, either using new or traditional media approaches, to ensure accurate translation and effective promotion?

When I worked at George Washington University's Elliott School of International Affairs, I was charged with raising the profile of 300 faculty members (about half were full-time and half were part-time). Of course, that was too many to actually collaborate with. My thought was that I would start with the ones who really wanted to be engaged in social media and to connect with reporters, and in the unlikely event that I actually could help all those professors, I would then resort to begging/bribing/threatening/or in any other way cajoling the others to enlist.

Needless to say, I more than had my hands full with the ones who were already excited about social media—and it turns out they were the ones who were willing to work hard at building online presences and audiences. That'd be my advice to media relations professionals: Work with the folks who are already interested in the power of social media. And don't be surprised if those who used to be nay-sayers change their minds when they see their colleagues' success.

 

How do you use new media to promote faculty achievements? (You can also use the hashtag #casemrp to discuss these and other advancement and media relations issues.)

What's Going On? A Few Great Crisis Communications Sites

Jennifer Doak is the online communications specialist at CASE.

Crisis planning is a necessary part of any institution’s communications strategy. And social media outlets have become the best way to get up-to-the-second information out to your audience. I recently found a few great examples through a Facebook group and thought I’d share.

Many institutions have set up websites that replace homepages in the event of an emergency. San Diego State University’s urgent information page has information on how to receive text alerts, a Twitter feed of its news account and general information on campus emergency preparedness.

The University of Southern California’s emergency homepage replacement site includes similar resources, including relevant phone numbers and access information.

Wright State University has a wealth of information on its emergency management site, along with an explanation of possible text alert delays and a widget for the National Terrorism Advisory System. It provides audio files of pre-recorded messages for campus building alerts as well as information on email alerts, text and voice messaging, radio and TV channels, and which social networks to follow. I really like how it has a sidebar that lists specific procedures and resources for tornadoes, winter weather, evacuation and more.

And during the most recent Virginia Tech shooting, a Blacksburg student newspaper, The Collegiate Times, provided a thorough, accessible account of the day through its Twitter feed.

Stuck on what you should plan to say through these channels? Deborah Grant, vice president of university communications and marketing at Tulane University, gives some advice managing communications in the face of a crisis on our Advancement Talk podcast (available as a premier benefit).

What’s your institution’s crisis communications plan? What institutions are really great at providing this information?

Top Five Social Media Happenings of 2011: A Completely Unscientific List

Matthew Herek currently serves as the associate director of young alumni engagement in the office of alumni relations and development at Northwestern University.

‘Tis the season for end-of-the-year lists: Most fascinating people, best songs, greatest dance innovations and most shocking reality TV moments are just a few that I've seen. Not to be outdone by the cacophony of experts providing you with their ideas on the most groundbreaking events of 2011, I am happy to provide you with my Top Five Social Media Happenings of 2011: A Completely Unscientific List. These opinions are my own (aren’t they always?) and are listed in no particular order:

1. Twitter continues to be the place where news breaks: In late November, the athletic director at the University of Arizona was ready to announce the identity of the new football coach. There were no leaks to favored reporters from hometown papers. Initially, there wasn't even a press release. Instead, he chose to announce the new coach on Twitter, complete with a photo taken on his phone. This shows that campus leaders (presidents, athletic directors, etc.) are usingTwitter to announce campus news in their own words, bypassing the filter of television or newspapers. It is another example of why leaders in alumni relations need to know how to use Twitter, even if they have no desire to tweet or interact in the "Twitterspace." Leaders need to ask themselves if they want alumni to learn of campus news before they do. If the answer is yes, they don’t need a Twitter account.
2. LinkedIn launches Classmates: Most alumni career offices have long implored their constituents to create and launch a LinkedIn profile. In some cases, it has been difficult to teach alumni what to do with that profile and how to use it to help build a solid network for career development purposes. LinkedIn has begun taking steps toward recognizing the affinity that individuals have for their alma mater with their Classmates feature. Using the feature allows alumni to search by a variety of factors for fellow alumni who they may want to connect with. It also has the potential to help alumni offices take a snapshot of the career paths alumni are entering in different geographic areas.
3. Facebook changes….again: This should be a standing item on all social media lists. Facebook changed its interface, then it changed how top stories were determined and then it changed its insights metrics. All of this proves one thing about Facebook—users are simply ambassadors with embassies in the Facebook world; the rules can change at anytime. The challenge for those of us who see value in social media is finding a way to articulate to decision-makers why 8,100 impressions one day can suddenly become 1,200 impressions the next day. As social media sites continue to evolve, it may make year-to-year comparisons impractical from a reporting standpoint. This will certainly frustrate the more numbers-driven among us.
4. Streaming video gets easier: More and more schools are starting to take advantage of the capabilities offered by sites such as Ustream. One of the pleasant surprise this year at Northwestern was the success of a livestream from our reunions/homecoming program in October. Sites such as Ustream are helping us get the good news of our different programs in front of more eyes worldwide. Streaming video could be key to ramping up future alumni engagement on an international level.
5. Google Plus came...left…then came back…kind of: When word broke that Google was launching a "Facebook killer," quite a few of us started looking for invites, hoping to be early adopters. Unfortunately, Google did not allow businesses or groups to have Google+ identities in the early days of the launch. Then Facebook adopted many of the features that made Google+ an interesting competitor. In 2012, we should give Google+ a second look. The hangouts feature provides a slick way to have meetings with alumni from around the world. If no other part of the interface survives, I hope that part does.

Much more happened in 2011 in social media and more will continue to happen in 2012. Technology keeps challenging us to stay on our toes and generate new ways to serve our constituents. What are your top five trends in social media?