Social Media for Business and Community Engagement (BCE)

Marc DobsonAndrew Stewart

What is BCE?

“...the relationships academic institutions create with external organisations and individuals.”

(Netskills, 2011)

4 BCE Dimensions

(Netskills, 2011)

4 BCE Dimensions

Which of the following dimensions do you think your area of work falls into?

A. Employer EngagementB. Knowledge Transfer/ExchangeC. Lifelong LearningD. Public EngagementE. N/A

What is Social Media?

What makes social media different is its ability to use the Internet to allow for fast and effective two-way interaction to take place.

Personal or Work

Social Media across HE

98% Facebook Profile

100% Twitter Profile

98% LinkedIn Profile

97% YouTube account

(Edwards, 2013)

Social Media for BCE

3% Dedicated “Business” Facebook Page

22% Dedicated Twitter profile

51% Actively used their LinkedIn companyprofile

(Edwards, 2013)

Average audience size across HE

Facebook fans: 27,600Twitter followers: 9,500LinkedIn followers: 3,700YouTube subscribers: 935*

*(Average video views were much higher – over 460, 000)

(Edwards, 2013)

Why Social Media?

#1 Engagement

#2 Transparency

#3 Cost

#4 Search

(Facebook, 2013; Netskills, 2012; Twitter, no date; YouTube, no date)

1.19 billion

1 billion

230 million

Tech Top Trumps: http://bit.ly/tech-top-trumps

Location‘‘Online distance learning makes complete sense for the future delivery of work-based learning, both from an operational and a financial point of view.’’ (Toole, 2011)

Types of Social Media

Blogs/Micro Blogs Social/Business Networks

Image/Video Sharing Content Curation

Slidecasts Webinars

Social Gaming Mobile Apps

Collaborative spaces Location-based

Forums

(McCaul, 2010; Jisc infoNet, 2012; Stewart, 2013)

#1 Crowd-wisdom

#2 Crowd-sourcing

#3 Crowd-resourcing

The Innovation Commonshttp://theinnovationcommons.co.uk

Social Media Strategy

Having a separate social media strategy can create an additional burden not only in terms of having to produce it in the first instance, but also in keeping it up to date, and ensuring its use within the institution.

Social Media StrategyDoes your department/organisation have a social media strategy?

A. Integrated into other strategic documentsB. We have a corporate social media strategyC. We have a departmental/service social media strategyD. We do not consider social media at a strategic levelE. I don’t know

Integration...fundamentally, it’s about helping you to achieve your organisation’s strategic objectives.

Define your audience

#7 Inactives

#6 Spectators

#5 Joiners

#4 Collectors

#3 Critics

#2 Conversationalists

#1 Creators

Roles and responsibilities

(Gizmodo, 2013)

Style and tone

(Moth, 2013)

Measurement

1# Quantitativee.g. aims, engagement, and cost.

2# Qualitativee.g. feedback, recommendations, and references.

Any questions/comments so far?

Raise your hand and use the microphone, or ask a question in the chat window.

Remember to start your question in the chat window with ‘Q’

Social Media Guidance

“Social media isn't something that you "do", instead you have to "be" social.”

(Peter Thompson, 2013)

Content

● Of interest to your audience● On topic● Keep it brief● Use of multimedia● Opportunities for your audience to interact

Frequency

● How often to communicate?● Making communication a habit● Am I repeating myself?

Scheduling

● Lining up your content● Automated posting - If That Then This● When’s the best time?

Scheduling - be careful!

When are you most receptive?AM PM

Managing accounts

● Passwords● What if you’re not around?● Profiles● Manage expectations

Managing accounts

Know your tools

● Get to grips with the platforms● Try them out first● Good practice● Only use what’s effective

Archiving social media content

● Often offered by social media platforms● Can allow for analysis of data● Useful for tracking development of social media

activity over time

Use of social media in BCE

“Partnership is a two-way thing. And exploiting web technologies means institutions can have a much enhanced impact both within a locality and beyond”

Simon Whittemore, Jisc

Alumni Engagement - why?

●

http://mashable.com/2009/07/23/alumni-social-media/

Helping Alumni Find Jobs Providing Tools To Spread Information

Collaboration and Connecting With Students Alumni-Generated Content

Fundraising: From E-mails to Tweets Promoting Alumni Networks

Training Alumni To Use Social Media Mobile Reunions

Meeting Alumni Where They're At Connecting The Dots: Google Maps

Alumni Engagement - benefits

● Supporting recruitment of prospective students● Reduced print costs● Increased engagement ● Re-engagement with ‘lost’ Alumni

AGENT Project - Mentoring

● Mentors and mentees using Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn

● Focus on employability

Blogs for Alumni Engagement

Storify

Storify Feed at Newcastle

Open Education Resources

"The great promise of technology in education was to provide cost-effective access to a high quality education experience, and that's what OER is doing for us"

Martin Bean, Vice Chancellor, Open University.

Open University - SocialLearn

● OpenLearn has existed for some time to make OU content available to the public

● Social justice mission - policy to openly release 5%+ of content

● Over 600 courses available (2012)● SocialLearn built to harness the power of social

networking to allow users to control what and how they learn

●

Digital storytelling

● Narrative based videos● Short● Images and text● Recorded voiceover● Music and Video (keep it to a minimum)

“Stories are about how we experience things, and now about how they actually are”(Dr Chris McKillop, 2004)

Public Engagement - Pi Day Live

Questions and Answers

Raise your hand and use the microphone, or ask a question in the chat window.

Remember to start your question in the chat window with ‘Q’

Useful Links

We’ve produced a Google Doc with resources mentioned in today’s session, plus more useful links.

Thank you!We hope you enjoyed today’s webinar - we would appreciate your feedback

References are available on the following slide. To save the slides from today click on save, whiteboard or they are available at https://www.surveymonkey.com/s/sm4bce-feedback

A recording of the webinar will be made available shortly - the link will be circulated to registered participants

ReferencesEdwards (2013) http://bit.ly/sm4bce-coventry

Facebook (2013) http://newsroom.fb.com/Key-Facts

Gizmodo (2013) http://bit.ly/gizmodo-hmv

Jisc infoNet (2012) http://www.jiscinfonet.ac.uk/infokits/kt/

McCaul (2010) http://bit.ly/leeds-collab-tools

Moth (2013) http://bit.ly/moth-fails

Netskills (2011) http://bit.ly/BCE-AE

Netskills (2012) https://www.netskills.ac.uk/share/file/988

Perry (2012) http://bit.ly/surrey-alumni

Stewart (2013) http://bce.jiscinvolve.org/wp/2013/11/13/national-innovation-commons/

Toole (2011) Social media: key tools for the future of work-based learning

Twitter (no date) https://about.twitter.com/company

YouTube (no date) http://www.youtube.com/yt/press/en-GB/statistics.html