Sorry, I Don't Do Impressions: Metrics Under the Microscope

In my past life as a Los Angeles stand-up comic, I was always envious of comedians who could do good impressions of celebrities and public figures. I was never any good at masking my voice, which became evident at an early age when I would fail attempts to prank call my friends. However, as I spent more time around the comedy scene, I learned that impressionists were not always held in high regard as many saw it as a cheap way to get laughs. Take a look at the casts of Saturday Night Live and you’ll notice there always seems to be one person who is really good at impressions…and they’re also really good at not appearing in any other movies or television shows. When it comes to comedy, impressions fall under short-term engagement with the audience and don’t have much staying power.

These days, I stand face-to-face with impressions of a different kind. As a community manager working in alumni affairs, I grapple with Facebook and Twitter impressions on a daily basis, and while the venue is very different, the evolution of how I look at them isn’t much different from the world of comedy. Facebook defines impressions as: 

“[T]he number of times a post from your page is displayed, whether the post is clicked on or not. People may see multiple impressions of the same post.”

Back in January, I started compiling a monthly social media report for our alumni networks (Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, YouTube, Livestream) and quickly wore out my shoulder from patting myself on the back. According to Facebook, we had racked up more than 600,000 impressions! Break out the bubbly; this was SERIOUS engagement with our alums!

Now, it didn’t occur to me at first that the number of living Cornell alumni is only about 250,000 and that this number might be a little misleading. Unfortunately, as I continued to dig into our metrics, I discovered the harsh reality of impressions. 

I came across the amount of post feedback we received and the number of stories created off of the posts. These numbers were far lower than the number of impressions, and I became suspicious of what impressions were really telling me about our engagement. I decided to compare these two numbers directly to the number of impressions our Facebook page compiled in the same month. Below, you’ll see the slide I constructed to demonstrate the percentage of our impressions that actually engaged with a post.

I’m not sure this is an absolute apples-to-apples comparison because none of these numbers represent unique users. However, I think it provides a general idea for how many of those 700,000 impressions really count as engaged users. You could build the same slide for a Twitter account by looking at your number of impressions, then comparing it to your number of replies and re-tweets. 

Okay, that’s enough bad news. Let’s talk about the positive side: Even though I concluded that less than 1 percent of all impressions are actually engaging with our content, that’s still almost 10,000 stories and other pieces of feedback created within one month. That’s a solid total considering how many events you would have to put on in one month to interact in-person with 10,000 alums. Now again, this is not a unique number of engaged users, so it would most likely be less than 10,000, but I think you get the idea. 

Like funny impersonators, impressions within social networks are not completely useless. Impressions do provide a general snapshot of how far your content is being spread. It is certainly worth tracking impressions from month to month to see what type of content results in your page/handle having a further reach. But when you really want to be honest with yourself and determine how much you have engaged your followers, look beyond the giant impressions number that Facebook hopes will entice you to spend some dough. We have to fight the temptation to take advantage of internal naïveté and report these falsely impressive stats. 

Saturday Night Live alum Darrell Hammond is a funny guy. He set the record for the most character impressions (107) in the TV show’s history during his tenure from 1995-2009 (another record). Yet how many truly memorable Hammond sketches can you recall? Conversely, it probably takes fans little time to recall a classic Will Ferrell moment. Ferrell’s characters were original and complex while Hammond simply mimicked someone we already know. We can’t be content with a number just because it’s large if we want to boast about our engaged community. We have to dig deep into the actual interactions we’re having with our followers, find out what makes them tick and use that to map our strategy. The complex and original content that triggers sharing and feedback is what we need to concentrate on if we hope to become a household name to our followers.

Then again, maybe I’m just a bitter ex-comic who lacks the ability to change the pitch and tone of his voice…

Twitter Chat Recap: Takeaways from the 2012 Social Media and Community Conference

The first-ever #casesmc chat, on strategies, concepts, mantras and next steps inspired by and gleaned from the 2012 Social Media and Community Conference. Bonus: There is a list of commencement hashtags to follow at the bottom of the post. Feel free to add others in the comments!

#CASESMC chat: Takeaways from the 2012 conference

The first-ever #casesmc chat, on strategies, concepts, mantras and next steps inspired by and gleaned from the 2012 Social Media and Community Conference. Bonus: Check out the bottom for commencement hashtags to follow.

Storified by CASE � Tue, May 08 2012 16:51:04

Question 1: Now that you're back in the saddle and inboxes returned to manageable levels, what were key points/concepts you came away with?

Strategy was definitely a theme here, whether for crisis communications or campus-wide content.

I'm still thinking about social media and crisis response -- the need to have a system in place and to practice. #casesmcAndrew Gossen

I agree that fully integrating #socialmedia into crisis communications is really important. #casesmcMichael Stoner

I would say the importance of strategy. If the strategy is well thought out, implementation will be easier #casesmcTamarah Cook

@CASEAdvance This might seem like a no-brainer, but: Don't just think strategically, act strategically. #casesmcGretchen Edwards

#casesmc Defining success is a relative thing and it changes constantly. Still means you should define it!Ma'ayan Plaut

@CASEAdvance Break down your silos and talk to other people about what you're doing with social media. #casesmcLindsey Nemcek

How would you start breaking down those silos? Here's one suggestion.

@ldrakert We started a casual, monthly meet up called #soccoffee for those who do #socmedia at #WFU. It's helping break down silos. #casesmcGretchen Edwards

I gotta fever, and the only prescription is more video.

A lot of reinforcement for what we already have in our plans, but encouragement to add more video and really focus on strategy #casesmcJason Gerdon

@JGfromOC Video is like cow bell, you always need more. Of course the strategy behind video does lead to the overall success. #casesmcTamarah Cook

From #higheredlive: The ultimate goal for video should not be to dump it onto YouTube and hope the Internet gives it a hug #casesmcPatrick Powers

@patrickjpowers love that line. I'm at a place now of figuring out what story I want to tell about us via video. #casesmcJason Gerdon

On to the next question. Question 2: What ideas/strategies/platforms learned at the conference do you plan to implement at your institution?

A2. Shifting location-based strategy after hearing @JeffreyKirchick #casesmcPatrick Powers

#casesmc A2 Sadly/fortunately @JeffreyKirchick's making me rethink the role of location in everything I do, personally and professionally.Ma'ayan Plaut

A2 Focusing on developing a cohesive strategy and some clear guidelines/best practices that can be shared across the university. #casesmcJason Gerdon

Q2. @plautmaayan did a great job leading discussion on Tumblr. I am looking forward to getting this going. #casesmcTamarah Cook

Question 3: Is there anything you were doing before that you plan to change (or discard) now?

#casesmc A3 Get everyone doing anything social around these parts in the same place, online or in person, to start working together.Ma'ayan Plaut

A3. Doing too much. Nice to refocus on those efforts actually moving the needle, not just those that shine at the moment. #casesmcPatrick Powers

One of my takeaways from #casesmc is how small efforts can make a difference, but need to be connected to larger initiatives & outcomes.Michael Stoner

Question 4: Other than silos, what current social-media-related challenges do you face at your institution that you hope to overcome?

A4 best practices. Lots of folks want to use social, but there isn't a lot of strategy behind it. Trying to educate, then execute. #casesmcJason Gerdon

A4: Educating those around you on the benefits of social can be a challenge at some institutions. #casesmcMallory Wood

#casesmc A4 Getting more voices in on the conversation other than my own. So, school-wide buy-in rather than just institutional.Ma'ayan Plaut

A4. Getting people to understand there is strategy behind social media, not just tools to blast your message. Engagement is a must. #casesmcTamarah Cook

@TamCook43 then you have to define engagement. :) #casesmcJason Gerdon

A4: lack of coherent sm presence across campus. hoping to add more voices with addition of student sm group. #casesmcMichael O'Neill

A4: also try to get people to understand it's about engaging a community and not just a tool to push info. #casesmcMichael O'Neill

Question 5: If you were next year's conference chair, what sessions would you create for the 2013 Social Media and Community conference in Cambridge, Mass.?

A5: I'd absolutely incorporate more sessions on web video. #casesmcMallory Wood

A5. I loved the roundtable discussions. More of those so we can choose multiple topics to discuss in small groups. #casesmcTamarah Cook

A5: I'd also have a session on how to utilize interns or student workers to help w/ day-to-day community management. #casesmcMallory Wood

A5. Maybe by then Google+ will be enough of something to talk about. Or not. #casesmcTamarah Cook

A5 Please offer the simulcast again this year. It was great and appreciated seeing what others were doing. #casesmcSarah Freeman

A5: Love to see more discussion around sm for use in cap campaign. @agossen discussed it and I'd love more discussion around it. #casesmcMichael O'Neill

#casesmc A5 More on team-work/team-building. We're all cogs in a wheel that work together, just how we begin it is a challenge. More ideas!Ma'ayan Plaut

I missed the group projects at #casesmc this year. I learned a huge amount about how a SM team can work from those sessions in '10 and '11.Andrew Gossen

#casesmc More cookies. Those were some really awesome cookies.Ma'ayan Plaut

There was a discussion on covering commencement through social media as well. Here are a few hashtags for inspiration, as well as one person's experience on the CASE blog:

Hashtags
#webstergrad
#wfugrad
#wmgrad
#KUgrads
#rpigrad
#tufts2012

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.

Social Media for Young Alumni - A #CASESMC Preview

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

We need to talk about young alumni and social media. 

The need to engage young alumni seems to be on the agenda of most development operations today, the theory being that compelling young alumni to be part of the larger alumni community from the get-go is easier than convincing someone who disengages to reengage later in life.

Next month at the CASE Social Media and Community conference, I’m doing a presentation about young alumni and social media. It’s based on my own experiences as someone who was once a young alum and is now in charge of the engagement strategy for 20,000 of them. I’m using my space in the blog to offer a sneak preview of what I plan on discussing:

(1) I know more at 32 than 24: “Young alumni” is a massive demographic term when it comes to social media. If you’re older than 29, you actually didn’t have Facebook in college. If you’re older than 25, there’s a good chance you didn’t have WiFi in college. If you’re like me, in 2001, you used Dreamweaver to create a website that pretty much does what LinkedIn can do for you today.

(2) Avoid being the awkward guy at the cocktail party: We make the assumption that because people have clicked the "like" button they don’t mind us showing up in their Facebook feed non-stop.  

(3) Don’t put young alumni in a box before they are dead: It’s important that social media does not become the only place that we want young alumni to volunteer (Thanks for your interest in the club of Tulsa, how would you like to run our Facebook page?). 

(4) Larger-than-life figures are not scalable: In 2008, President Obama used social media in unprecedented ways to galvanize volunteers and raise a huge sum of money. Universities are not the same type of transformative force as a presidential candidate. We spend too much energy trying to create a replica of that moment instead of learning lessons from it.

(5) Engage the flux capacitor: Young alumni have specific memories of their time on campus (we all do really). We often fail to use social media to shake an emotional response out of young alumni and there are ways to do this!

(6) Young alumni need a social media Yoda: Young alumni will care about what you know once they know that you care.

(7) First listen to understand: The temptation to use the social media megaphone is great. How often are you using the tools in question to truly listen to what young alumni are saying?

(8) Transmit the story, but don’t control it: Young alumni in particular put tons of content on social media. Think about using it to tell their story to a wider audience.

As the conference is still a month away, I’ll be fiddling with this presentation until then. Maybe you’re coming and have something specific you want to see discussed. Let me know in the comments section.

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.

Book Review: Digital Leader by @equalman

Many people read author Erik Qualman's (@equalman) first book, Socialnomics. If not, you may have viewed one of his videos on YouTube regarding the social media revolution such as this one:

 

Qualman has aided several companies in building leading digital strategies, focusing heavily on the use of social media.

His latest book is Digital Leader. In it, Qualman provides an easily digestible (if not necessarily easily launchable) strategy for individuals to maximize their leadership potential in the social media/digital space.

Digital Leader breaks down into five main parts, each set around what Qualman sees as a truth that will help you develop your own digital STAMP. They are: Simple, True, Act, Map and People.

I personally enjoyed reading Digital Leader. Qualman writes with a style that is both conversational and motivational. Professionals who have spent time trying to articulate a vision for social media to supervisors and colleagues will find several "a-ha" moments in the ways that Qualman distills transformative technology into parallels with the non-digital world.

Qualman uses the book to challenge the reader to assess who they are currently in the digital world and to recognize the potential of who they could be in that same space. His suggestions are also quite realistic. Although Qualman wants people to take full advantage of the full spectrum of social media possibilities, he does recognize the need to power down and go offline. In fact, he recommends committing to checking email only twice a day. This is welcome advice for those of us who check our email with the fervor of Pavlovian dogs.

I have only two criticisms of the book. The first is that Qualman appears to implore people to use the digital space for only “big” moments. In parts of the book, he shows impatience for using time to talk about the TV show you watched as opposed to spending it creating content for a blog about changing the world.  He does this because he feels that every step we take in the digital universe leaves a lasting footprint—with the theory that we would want our footprints to stand out.  I agree with this to a point.  However, if our digital persona and our "IRL" (in real life) persona are indeed one and the same, authenticity only comes when we share all of ourselves. I think Qualman underestimates the long-term value of future generations knowing some of the day-to-day things that we found interesting in the present day.  For purposes of future research, we are all now primary sources. 

My second quibble is that at times he tends to remind the reader about some of the famous people he has shared the stage with or worked with.  His ideas are strong enough to stand on their own without him needing to seek an imprimatur from a well-known CEO or world leader.

This book is full of great ideas without being dense. It is the perfect read for an airplane trip (although I recommend the hard copy so you do not have to power down below 10,000 feet).

Qualman is on Twitter @equalman, and he interacts often with readers and answers questions.

If anyone else has read Digital Leader, I would be curious to know what your own assessment of this book is in the comments.

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.