This document provides tips for CEOs on using social media, specifically LinkedIn and Twitter, to build their personal brand and profile. It recommends establishing a LinkedIn profile and company page to represent your institution. It suggests engaging with influencers and groups in your field, and contributing thoughtful content on topics relevant to your work. The document also offers best practices for using Twitter, such as following experts and influencers, engaging in conversations, and using hashtags and retweets to spread your message. The overall goal is to establish yourself and your institution as thought leaders in your industry through strategic social media engagement.
9. Put your brand front and centre
Make yourself more easily found on LinkedIn search with a crisp, punchy
headline describing what you do and where you work
Caroline McMillen
Biomedical
researcher and
higher education
leader at University
of Newcastle
10. Tell your
brand story
Showcase the University
and your
career, highlighting
personal
and UoN accomplishments
or merits in the Summary
and
Experience sections. You
can use youtube
videos, images, slides.
TedX presentation? Staff
image? Research
reputation campaign
image? Conference
presentation?
11. Let Your
Network
Speak for You
Build your reputation
with
endorsements and
recommendations
from colleagues,
researchers,
business contacts,
LinkedIn group
specialists.
Use skills and
expertise keywords
from profile
12. Next up: your company brand
Establish the University‟s
Company Page
13. Connect your
company page to
your personal
page
Caroline McMillen
“As an institution that is making its
mark on the global stage, we are
characterised by people who are
willing to change the status quo
and transform their fields of
practice.”
14. Connect your Colleagues
Increase the University‟s pages‟ visibility on LinkedIn by
encouraging fellow employees to add their current position
15. Now you have a foundation
Time to build a following
17. Connect your
online
properties
Give your brand more
opportunities to be found
by the right people – Link
the University LinkedIn
page to the website and
other social media
platforms
“Any time we have other forms of
communication
in other online properties we really
need to look to see
how we’re linking to LinkedIn”
- Mike Cox, Senior Strategic
Planner, Modea
18. Find and Join
LinkedIn
Groups
“Do a search and find the groups
that are talking about the things
that matter to you and the
University. Join those groups and
contribute.”
– Gary Schirr, Social Media
Professor
Type your topics into this search
bar on LinkedIn
19. Group Suggestions
• Higher education teaching and learning
• Leadership think tank
• Innovative learning and education
innovators
• Clinical research professionals
• Biomedical engineering
• Inside Higher Education – the new
conversation
20. Contribute in
LinkedIn
Groups
Engage with active members in
target Groups to gain thought
leadership and build a
reputation for your personal
and University‟s brand
21. Be seen as somebody who’s a member and
who cares and provides good advice – the
benefits will accrue.
– Gary Schirr, Social Media Professor, Radford University
“
The primary benefit of us being on LinkedIn
is to show thought leadership and to provide
value to people in the space.
– Alex Shamy, Head of Growth Marketing, Heyo
22.
23. Influencers
Choose which influencers you would like to follow; comment on
their content, like or share
Click on Interests under the top search bar
Click on Influencers
Click on All Channels
Find Higher Education
32. Core Content
• Establish a rough idea of the topics on your radar that you
would like to engage others with on social media
• Regularly scan the online environment (Twitter, Google,
LinkedIn) for conversations you can join and be part of the
information flow in social media.
• Discover what your brand‟s perspective is on these topics
• Thought leadership topics
– Research funding
– Corporate planning
– MOOCs
– Rankings
– Women in leadership
– Equity and excellence
– Healthy workforce
34. Goal: LinkedIn Influencer
• LinkedIn measures your social media
engagement when evaluating your
potential „influencer status‟. They look at
your:
– LinkedIn presence
– Blog activity
– Followers from this blog and other forms of
social media e.g. twitter
35. Lets look at using this area on our
website to aggregate your social
media engagement from our
Website, Blog, LinkedIn and
Twitter.
Aim: Aggregate social media
engagement and foster traffic
back and forth from LinkedIn to
our website.
Features on this page:
Your Twitter feed
Rss feed from
• The Conversation
• LinkedIn influencers you
want to partner with
UoN LinkedIn feed
Staff on LinkedIn scroller
37. Tweet Tips
• Always use a URL shortener
• 140 characters but ideally under 100 so people can retweet
• # are used to affiliate a tweet with a topic. Use # to try and
promote a viral following for a specific topic
• Engage followers and influencers by including @mention in
your tweets that resonate with the influencer. Tweet + link +
@mention + #topic
– Vicki often does the @mention at the start which excludes her other followers.
There is a private message option on Twitter which is a better option. Take a look
at how Andrew Dempster used @mention. You need to be apart of the flow of
information from one source to your audience.
– Tweet events but include an action, some information or a quote – always
question the value
– Ian O‟Connor is often tweeting about events. He should contribute more to the
conversation. A little self promotion is good but if your entire history is about you
then you have got it wrong. 4-1-1 rule by the Content Marketing Institute. For
every 1 self servicing tweet, retweet 1 relevant tweet and share 4 pieces of
relevant content written by others. Most websites enable you to share their
content.
38. LinkedIn and Twitter
share icons
LinkedIn and Twitter share
icons
Sharing content from the source
• Look for these icons circled
• Make sure you are logged in to Twitter
and LinkedIn on the device you are
using (PC or Mobile)
• The bird icon is Twitter
• The „IN‟ icon is LinkedIn
39. When you click
on the LinkedIn
icon there is
always an option
to share to Twitter
too.
You can post to
groups or
individuals on
LinkedIn
Twitter has no
targeting options
you can only
send to ALL
followers
43. Second: visit your Twitter account
Third: click on the composition icon
Forth: paste the URL from Google Shortener: ‘Comment + URL + #topic’ (no tag chosen her
Fifth: click Tweet
44. Retweeting
When you follow a content source,
their content will appear in your
newsfeed. When you retweet you
are passing this content onto your
followers
45. • It is good to have a mix of tweets, replies and retweets (4-
1-1 rule helps you do this)
– David Battersby, Andrew Dempster and Vicki Thomson are the only people
profiled who retweeted or shared content
– See example interactions and mentions in the twitter.com/Uni_Newcastle
• Create a contest which asks followers to contribute
– Popular Twitter chat examples - Blogging @MackCollier Sundays 9pm
#blogchat and Trending business topics @samfiorella Wednesday 8pm
• Learn who your influencers are and engage with them
(retweet or share their content). Reach out to top sharers
and perhaps be their guest blogger. The more you engage
with your top influencers, the more they will continue to
promote your content.
– Vicki‟s influencers are Andrew Dempster (667 followers) , Joanna Mather
AFR reporter, The Conversation, Kevin Rudd and a few MPs.
Tweet Tips
46. Messaging
• Make sure you are contributing to conversations?
• Build relationships, reciprocate
• Engage and be engaged
• Be part of the flow of information
• Don‟t be repetitive
– Jan Thomas has often tweeted several times in a row about the same thing
– Andrew Dempster tweets are varied
– Vicki Thomson has a lot of emphasis on politics at the moment
• Know what your influencers are tweeting about and respond accordingly
• Create VALUE, retweet material to be helpful to your network, but write
your own material too
– Vicki Thomson is often retweeting or sharing other information and not writing
her own material
• Tweets can be a mixture of educational and entertaining and soft/hard
promotion (come to Open Day vs. register for Open Day or download the
schedule)
47. Following Tips
• Import your contact databases
• Follow people your competitors are following
• Follow those your followers are following
• Search for experts in the field tweeting
• Establish a set of subjects you might be tweeting about and key terms
used online
– Scan Twitter or Google to find out the key terms being used use these as
#topics
• Spend some time trying out different searches and # that are relevant.
When you find the people contributing most to the conversation, follow
them.
• Find people talking about the Uni, industry or subjects you are interested
in
• Try and follow back those following you
• Read the tweets of those following you and search for keywords relevant
to you
48. Followers
• Becoming someone‟s follower accomplishes four goals:
– You are identifying accounts that will be relevant and interesting
to you, the Uni and the sector
– You let people know you are on Twitter, and encourage them to
follow you back
– You associate yourself with a specific group of industry experts
and thought leaders, demonstrate your interest in the space
– You are getting to know influencers and they are getting to know
you
• Easier than starting a conversation at a cocktail party but remember the
relationship can be paper thin.
– Don‟t clutter your newsfeed if you don‟t like someone‟s content
unfollow them
49. Following on Twitter
Who do you want to start following? Create a list
• University newsrooms
• Media, journalists (higher ed and overseas)
• Business leaders Rupert Murdoch, Bill Gates
• Ministers
• University Networks – here and overseas
• Associations
• LinkedIn influencers
• People in LinkedIn discussion groups
50. Twitter proviso
• Vice-Chancellor of @uni_newcastle.
#HigherEd, #Research, #Leadership, #Equity.
All views are my own. Retweets not
necessarily endorsements.
• Wall paper – NeW Directions art?
51. LinkedIn Connections
• Do they live in my
community?
• Do we belong to the same
group(s)?
• Are they connected to
someone I know?
• Do we or have we worked in
the same industry?
• Do we share common
hobbies, interests or
causes?
• Have they read or spread my
content?
• Have they included a
personal note with the
invitation?
Editor's Notes
The idea behind social media is to participate in the flow of information. Successful CEOs do this through their brand so that people engage with their brand’s perspective.
Naomi Simson communicates her brand effectively through her profile and content pieces.
There is a significant piece of work to carry out here with HRS and Marketing and Public Relations.
The next best thing to being an influencer
The 4-1-1 RULE of Online Content Marketing - 1 self serving post to 1 Twitter retweet or 1 LinkedIn share and sharing of 4 external content pieces. Remember to write your own content too.
This is because not all followers or connections are reading your content all the time. Depending on how many people they are following there newsfeed is often very crowded. Only 15% of your audience will be checking their feed extensively (up to 7 times a day).
The media team does this for the University’s LinkedIn page. You could choose to often share content from UoN’s channels with a personal comment to your LinkedIn and Twitter.
This is also part of a significant corporatepiece we need to work on
