This is a handout for the presentation I did at PRSA's summit for the Counselors to Higher Ed section on 18 April 2013 in Washington, DC. I shared reflections about what I learned about social media in researching and editing the case studies for our book, Social Works.

1. What I’ve learned
about #socialmedia
Michael Stoner
PRSACHE 2013
We’re not in a post-social era, we’re in the post-
hype era.
Time to make social work for us.
Social media = web-based tools used for social
interaction. The most important brand names are
Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, LinkedIn, Flickr, though
blogs are an important component of any social
strategy.
Social networking is what people do with social
media: rank, comment, share, post, rant, etc.

2. Social Works
mstnr.me/TkXwLu
Campaign:
a focused effort to achieve goals using a variety of
channels appropriate to the results sought
Social Works: How #HigherEd Uses #SocialMedia to Raise Money, Build Awareness, Recruit Students, and Get
Results is unique. The 25 case studies in Social Works demonstrate that social media has the maturity and
reach to be an integral component of campaigns focused on building awareness, recruiting students, engaging
alumni and other key audiences, raising money, and accomplishing important goals that matter to a college or
university.
The case studies in Social Works will inspire college and university communicators, marketers, web team
members, and other staff, offering models and details for highly successful initiatives. And, they will convince
presidents and other senior leaders that social media is not just valuable, but essential, to achieving
institutional goals. In short, Social Works belongs on the shelves (or on the e-readers) of college and university
staff who want to learn how to get results with social media. Published 25 February 2013 by EDUniverse
Media.

3. “By three methods we may learn wisdom:
First, by reflection, which is noblest;
Second, by imitation, which is easiest;
and third by experience, which is the bitterest.”
Confucius

4. 1.
Social media ≠
technology.

6. 2.
Social media ≠
a magic bullet.

7. There were many, many predictions about how Second Life was going to
revolutionize learning, teaching, and student recruitment:
Ohio University went further to build its virtual community in Second Life through
the exploration of teaching/learning. The university has a well constructed campus
in Second Life with various buildings such as a student center, learning center, and
arts and music center. Students may explore the virtual campus and join real student
organizations at the student center. Student groups can meet and collaborate on the
virtual campus just as they might on the real one. There is also a virtual art and
music center where students may meet artists and listen to live music in the
cyberspace (Briggs, 2007). (From http://deoracle.org/online-pedagogy/emerging-
technologies/second-life.html)

8. 2.
(corollary)
There is
no magic bullet.

9. 3.
Everything
is connected
to everything else.
[bit.ly/9uemQS]
This is Barry Commoner’s first law of ecology and mStoner’s first law of branding.
It’s essential to keep in mind when structuring communications and marketing
activities. Because of the way the world works today, it’s easy for organizational
anomalies to be observed and amplified. Consistency counts. Not only in
appearance (do your communications look like they come from the same
organization?) but voice.
Furthermore, your online presence doesn’t occur in a vacuum but is also
connected to everything else you do:
People’s experiences with your staff when they visit your office.
A customer’s experience with your accounting department.
The condition of your buildings.

10. Your ecosystem ...
• Compelling brand: aspirational but grounded
in institutional reality.
• Powerful stories: reinforce brand, multiple
media, well-told, shareable, demonstrating
value.
• Compelling creative: a strong visual
vocabulary for your brand & stories
• Strong channel strategy: well-managed,
connected, curated

11. 4.
Social is important
in a campaign.
But there’s a lot more to
a successful campaign.

12. Case 25: “Promoting Faculty Experts: The University of Nottingham and the Election of 2010,” Social Works, pp. 215-222.
The communications and marketing team at the University of Nottingham created a campaign focused on positioning Nottingham as the definitive source of expert commentary on the
2010 UK elections. This involved both staff members in the communications and marketing team as well as faculty with expertise in politics. By live blogging 24/7 during the election
season, they wanted to draw the attention of reporters and major media , scholars at other institutions, the general public, potential students, and public opinion influencers. Before the
effort began, they developed a series of goals to which they attached specific numbers. For example: “to generate 20 pieces of national and international [media] coverage…”; “… to help
increase applications by at least 5%.” In preparation, the team researched reporters, bloggers, and experts, developing extensive lists of media contacts. One staff member worked closely
with the faculty experts and bloggers to time tweets and posts in response to developing election themes. Traffic was largely driven by Twitter (123 tweets with 7,779 click-throughs),
online PR, and linked placement of faculty experts supported by their blog posts and traditional PR work. By the campaign’s end, 104 blog posts had delivered more than 90,000 page
views. The campaign exceeded all the targets set by the office. And: “Every item of national media coverage on Election Day featured a University of Nottingham spokesperson,” for a
total of 466 national media hits. Applications to the School of Politics & International Relations rose 15%.
Relevant URLs
electionblog2010.blogspot.com
www.youtube.com/user/60secondpolitics
nottspolitics.org

13. Channels: Election 2010
blog posts expert commentary
YouTube explainers about key topics & issues
email reporter updates & reminders
Twitter reporter updates & reminders
website updates, links to key articles

14. Social woven into campaigns
Roughly what percentage of your campaigns*
included social channels?
2013 52
2012 41
*campaign defined as “a focused effort to achieve goals using a variety of channels
appropriate to the results sought”
From CASE/Huron/mStoner Survey of Social Media
in Advancement 2013
In the past two years we probed if (and how) institutions
were using social media in campaigns, which we
define as “a focused effort to achieve goals using a variety
of channels appropriate to the results sought.”
Note that this definition can (and sometimes does) include
efforts to raise money, but is intended to acknowledge that
social media is often incorporated into initiatives that
have objectives other than just fundraising.

15. 5.
There’s a lot more
to social media
than Facebook.
Facebook: still the dominant channel for social media in .edus according to CASE/mStoner/Slover Linett Survey of Social Media in Advancement 2012. But
there are challenges to relying on Facebook.
ROI: There are simple metrics we can get — reach, comments, shares, likes, etc — but because of Facebook’s one-page-fits-all model, it remains a challenge to
tie them to concrete business goals. Posts have a short tail; compare that to your website or blog (on mStoner’s blog, several of our posts from 2009 are among
the most accessed today): Facebook posts get half their reach within 30 minutes of publication [www.marketingcharts.com/wp/direct/facebook-posts-get-
half-their-reach-within-30-minutes-of-being-published-24453/]
Engagement fatigue: Michael Stoner, mstnr.me/Ux1CLI; Facebook Usage Declining: mstnr.me/PXzkya
Underfunding in .edu for social media: Chief Marketing Officers of 249 U.S. companies in August 2012 said they would increase current spending on
social media from 7.6 percent of their overall marketing budget to 10.7 percent over the next 12 months. They expected to see that number rise to 18.8 percent
in the next five years, according to a survey from Duke’s Fuqua School of Business. Is your institution keeping pace? [Moorman, Christine, and T. Austin
Finch. The CMO Survey. Duke University, Aug. 2012. Web. <http://cmosurvey.org/files/2012/08/The_CMO_Survey_Highlights_and_Insights_August-2012-
Final.pdf>]

16. Source: http://www.slideshare.net/tkawaja/
social-lumascape-8223008

17. @mstonerblog modifications of a widely
shared infographic about social media

18. Channel use/growth
% Use % Growth
Facebook 0 96
Twitter 82 2
LinkedIn 75 7
YouTube -2 71
Blogs -13 42
Flickr -13 38
Web.edu -9 34
Vendor community -1 32
Home-built community 20 7
Geosocial -2 15
Pinterest 0 28
Instagram 0 27
Google+ 0 22
Tumblr 0 9
-25 0 25 50 75 100
From CASE/Huron/mStoner Survey of Social Media in
Advancement 2013
This chart shows the percentage who say they use each
social media channel (at all), and the lighter green shows
how this has changed since last year.
The lower section shows the social media channels we asked
about this year for the first time.
While Flickr shrinks, Instagram grows; Pinterest and
Tumblr may be taking some of the share that Blogs held in
the past

19. Responding to options
• Many recommend a thoughtful approach about whether to adopt
new social media channels:
“Attempting to be everywhere by jumping on the latest platform without a clear
sense of purpose is wasted effort. This is a case where more is not better.”
• A sense of how the platform connects with your audiences is key:
“Research where your audience is, and survey where they want to see you! If no
one is on Google+, then it is a waste of time to add this to your efforts.”
“Targeting platform to audience—i.e. current students via Facebook, alumni via
LinkedIn and Twitter, integrating strategy and selecting what platforms make
sense and what platforms not to utilize, don't be on all platforms in small ways,
strategically select key platforms and focus resources on those few.”
From CASE/Huron/mStoner Survey of
Social Media in Advancement 2013

20. 6.
Don’t neglect the
channels you own.
Pushback from small companies, nonprofits: Facebook is screwing brands, driving reach down so brands will pay for more posts: “Facebook: I want my friends back!” [dangerousminds.net/
comments/facebook_i_want_my_friends_back];
“Facebook's EdgeRank Changes: A U.K. Company Claims They're Killing Small Businesses” [readwrite.com/2012/11/05/facebooks-edgerank-changes-a-uk-company-claims-theyre-killing-
small-businesses]. Josh Constine, “Killing Rumors With Facts: No, Facebook Didn’t Decrease Page Feed Reach To Sell More Promoted Posts,” TechCrunch[http://techcrunch.com/2012/11/07/
killing-rumors-with-facts-no-facebook-didnt-decrease-page-news-feed-reach-to-sell-more-promoted-posts/] says that the actions by Facebook’ that sparked the blog post at Dangerous Minds
are beneficial in that they reduce spam in newsfeeds and therefore are good for brands. What’s striking to us is the lack of trust in Facebook, which makes Dangerous Mind’s claims entirely
plausible. Todd Sanders (@tsand) offers another view in “Facebook decreases reach… grab your torch and pitchforks” (http://blog.uwgb.edu/social-web/facebook-decreases-reach-grab-your-
torch-and-pitchforks/), arguing that if you’re awesome, people will respond, no matter what the aggregate data says or how Facebook changes their algorithms.
Underfunding in .edu for social media: Chief Marketing Officers of 249 U.S. companies in August 2012 said they would increase current spending on social media from 7.6 percent of their
overall marketing budget to 10.7 percent over the next 12 months. They expected to see that number rise to 18.8 percent in the next five years, according to a survey from Duke’s Fuqua School of
Business. Is your institution keeping pace? [Moorman, Christine, and T. Austin Finch. The CMO Survey. Duke University, Aug. 2012. Web. <http://cmosurvey.org/files/2012/08/
The_CMO_Survey_Highlights_and_Insights_August-2012-Final.pdf>]

22. Promotion & marketing
We use mostly online tools to promote your social
media initiatives, but also many offline ones.
Website 90%
Email 88%
Social media 79%
Blogging 27% Up 4%
from 2012
SEO or search engine marketing 24%
Internal publications 68%
Direct print mail 54%
External publications (not your institution’s pubs) 22%
Outreach and marketing at events 59% Up 7%
from 2012
Radio 7%
TV 5%
Other 3%
From CASE/Huron/mStoner Survey of
Social Media in Advancement 2013

23. 7.
Planning is your
friend.

24. “In preparing for
battle I have always
found that plans are
useless, but planning is
indispensable.”
General Dwight D. Eisenhower

25. A good plan includes
1. Goals and objectives.
2. Audiences.
3. Channels, tools, and assets.
4. Marketing & promotion.
5. Timeline and budget.
6. Benchmarking & measurement.
7. Reporting.

26. William & Mary Mascot Communication Plan
February 2009 - September 2009
Status Deadline Comments
PLANNING
Brainstorming
Create an concept/identity for the mascot project complete 2/1/09 Joel Pattison designed - Mascot Search
Build a website complete 1/31/09
Create a blog complete 1/31/09
Send graphic and concept to campus stakeholders complete 2/26/09 for their use in print and on the web
KICK OFF
Message/announcement from President complete 2/27/09
Release from University Relations complete 2/27/09
Spot in Alumni Magazine (March issue) complete 3/28/09
REINFORCE KICK OFF
Announcement in WMDigest complete 3/4/09 post asking for feedback on guidelines
Announcement in Student Happenings complete 3/4/09 post asking for feedback on guidelines thru 3/16
Announcement on myWM complete 3/4/09 post asking for feedback on guidelines thru 3/16
eConnections goes out 2nd Fri of each month; deadline
Announcement in eConnections complete 3/12/09 is 1st Thurs of month
goes out to 46,000 monthly; includes
Announcement in Momentum complete 3/20/09 faculty/staff/currentparents
Unveil Colonel Ebirt Blog complete 3/2/09 in FAQ and on Ebirt's facebook
Send Release to all three student newspapers complete 2/27/09
Announcement on Tribe Athletics website complete posted week of 2/27 and week of 3/9
Announcement in Tribe Pride Newsletter complete March
Announcement on W&M Alumni site complete 2/27/09
placed in Campus Life section and "M"; 4/9 added to
Communities page; added to Alumni and Current
Mascot Search Widget for www.wm.edu complete 6/5/09 gateways on June 5 - June 30
Added Mascot Search link to Athletics bridge page menu complete 4/15/09
Sent blurb and graphics to Business School complete 3/25/09 Included in Mason Experiences March 2009
Sent blurb and graphics to Law School complete 3/31/09 will appear in Law eNews for late March
Portion of plan for William & Mary Mascot
Search developed by Susan T. Evans, who ran
the campaign at William & Mary.

27. 8.
Goals.
Goals.
Goals.

28. Goals/results: Election 2010
Involve 4 fac in media relations 8 academics became involved
position fac as experts continued momentum in media requests
Every item of national media featured a
20 pieces of intl. coverage University spokesperson. 466 items achieved,
over 75% of them national or international.
build media networks: 5 new Bloomberg, Reuters, the Guardian, New York
outlets Times, International Herald Tribune, BBC.
recruitment: 5% app increase 15% increase
try out new online PR approach approach was basis for many subsequent
projects
gain experience with online & “The campaign built skills and capacity and
social media has improved confidence and creativity.”
1. To involve at least four new Politics academics in media activity by the end of the campaign and to
develop their media expertise.
2. To position Nottingham academics as key political commentators.
3. To generate 20 pieces of national and international coverage, attaining an estimated advertising value/
ROI on budget of Elm (an ROI of 66,567%).
4. To build media networks for the School and wider University, establishing links with five major new
media outlets.
5. To support recruitment activity and help increase applications by at least 5%.
6. To trial successfully a new approach to online PR that could be used as a model in support of profile and
impact to feed in to the Research Assessment Framework (REF).
7. To gain experience of using blogging, Twitter, online tracking and other digital tools to build capacity
within the Communications Team.
Case 25: “Promoting Faculty Experts: The University of Nottingham and the Election of 2010,” Social Works,
pp. 215-222.

29. Goals/results: Election 2010
“The campaign's value for money can also be measured in relation to the
"legacy value" of the media connections built which continue to feed in to
Nottingham's growing PR profile, a profile which has seen coverage
double overall during the course of the [2011] year. Thanks to Election
2010, the School of Politics and International Relations at Nottingham
has just launched a new, permanent blog - Ballots & Bullets - averaging a
new post every day.
“It has been successfully received by other members of the academic
community and has also helped to improve the profile of the
Communications Team. It prompted colleagues to speak to the
Communications Team first and has, so far, made savings against the
planned use of external consultants totalling approximately £50k as
internal colleagues see what can be delivered internally by a newly
invigorated team.”
Case 25: “Promoting Faculty Experts: The
University of Nottingham and the Election of
2010,” Social Works, pp. 215-222.

30. Measuring ROI
“It is difficult to measure ‘return on investment’ from
the use of social media”
2010 34
2011 32
2012 33
2013 38
From CASE/Huron/mStoner Survey of
Social Media in Advancement 2013

31. Donations are not primary
outcomes for social
How do you measure success for your SM activities?
Rated in top two
Outcome Measures (quite a bit/
extensively)
Number of active “friends,” "likes" 73%
Volume of participation 57%
Number of “click-throughs” to your website 53%
Event participation 40%
Anecdotal success (or horror) stories 26%
Penetration measure of use among target audience 19%
Volume or proportion of complaints and negative
comments 12%
Donations 15%
Number of applications for admission 10%
Surveys of target audiences 9%
From CASE/Huron/mStoner Survey of Social Media in
Advancement 2013
You see that donations are pretty low on the list of ways that CASE
members typically gauge their success in social media. We are looking at
mean ratings on a scale from 1 to 5 where 5 means it is used extensively.
Top metrics are
• Number of active “friends,” “likes”
• Volume of participation
• Number of “click-throughs” to your website, but the field is pretty
wide.
Perhaps it needs to be even wider, or more precise, because the sense of
difficult in ROI is, if anything, growing over time.

32. The benefit of metrics
• Many of those who reported their social media initiatives have
not been successful noted that metrics were lacking.
• By contrast, those who report their social media use has been very
successful also say they have robust tracking mechanisms:
“We’ve created a weekly dashboard of target metrics for all of our social
platforms and our main websites that shows changes and topics that
resonated. This has greatly elevated awareness of our efforts among
university leadership.”
“We don’t think, we know. Calculations and reports are submitted monthly
on SoMe successes and returns, both subjective and objective. We’ve
boosted ticket sales to events, recruited students, and increased awareness
about many different things.”
From CASE/Huron/mStoner Survey of Social Media in
Advancement 2013
We have a question on the survey that asks respondents to evaluate
themselves on how successful they have been in their use of social
media, and why. We see a relationship where those who say they were
most successful also talk about a dashboard of metrics that they look
at weekly or monthly.
Were they able to achieve success because they were tracking what
worked and then did more of that, so the metrics enable success? Or is
it that they can speak confidently of their success because they have
the metrics? We heard the comment “we don’t think, we know,” which
is certainly a satisfying thing.

33. 9.
Your team needs your
support. And the
CEO’s.

34. Barriers to success persist
% who see this barrier in their unit “quite a bit” or “extensively 2013 2012
Staffing for day-to-day content management 55% 49%
Staffing for site development 44% 42%
Lack of relevant human resources in my unit 40% 37%
Slow pace of change 31% 22%
Expertise in how to implement it 25% 23%
Funding 26% 22%
Lack of IT resources 22% 20%
Lack of institutional clarity about who is responsible
22% 20%
for social media initiatives
Concerns about loss of control over content and tone
19% 17%
of postings by others
Lack of commitment by decision-makers 19% 17%
From CASE/Huron/mStoner Survey of
Social Media in Advancement 2013

35. Need for experienced staff
• Many believe that lack of staff devoted to social media hampers their
success and that they could improve with help from ... “Dedicated staff
person(s). Currently this responsibility is an add-on to current staff
positions and responsibilities . . . .”
• There are advantages to concentrating social media duties in fewer
staff people with greater expertise and sense of the big picture:
“I think we could do more to collaborate with other campus departments. In addition,
our small staff . . . does not allow for social media to be an explicit part of someone's job
description. If someone was able to focus on it day in day out, we would be pretty
amazing at it. As it stands now, we all collectively try to post when we can.”
“We do not have in-house expertise to help establish strategic initiatives or to ensure our
messages are consistent and aligned with other University messaging.”
“At our level (a college within a large university) we have been very successful because
we hired someone with solid social media experience who is in charge of all of our social
media outlets. This person has set clear goals and has integrated social media into the
majority of our campaigns.”
From CASE/Huron/mStoner Survey of
Social Media in Advancement 2013
In open-end responses, we heard that this add-
on method has its detractors. There is an
argument to be made for a concentrating social
media expertise in staff members who are more
expert and more dedicated to social media as
opposed to adding it on to the duties of many
staff members in many units. So there is some
call for collaboration between units to pool
human resources on social media.

36. Champion, expertise key to
success
“A champion is essential to the successful implementation of social
media in our institution”
2010 52
2011 63
2012 61
2013 72
80
“Expertise to help our social media efforts is readily available”
2010 26
2011 28
2012 31
2013 34
From CASE/Huron/mStoner Survey of Social Media in
Advancement 2013
I will end with this final look at some keys to social media
success. In light of the comments we looked at in the last
couple slides on the importance of expertise, it is heartening to
see that the sense that expertise is available has increased over
time.
I find it somewhat unexpected that the sense that a champion
is essential to success of social media has only increased over
time. But let it be a challenge to any of you in the audience who
might like to take up that mantle: you are needed.

37. 10.
Don’t be everywhere
until you can be awesome
everywhere you are.
(@mstonerblog + @tsand)

38. CASE/Huron/mStoner
Social Media & Advancement
Handout from CASE Social Media & Community
conference with key highlights: mstnr.me/Zs90hD
Topline Results from 2013: mstnr.me/ZBzoli
2012 White Paper (focuses on campaigns using social
media): mstnr.me/CASESMA2012

39. Contact
Michael Stoner
president, mStoner
Michael.Stoner@mStoner.com
@mstonerblog
mStoner.com/EDUniverse.org