Social Media: Online outreach visibility and viability

Faculty of Liberal Arts & Professional Studies
Social Media:
Online Outreach
Visibility and Viability
© Timothy Hudson ::: ideas@idealized.com

© Timothy Hudson | ideas@idealized.com
2
What Is Social Media… & Why bother?
Conversational – two way interaction
• Social media engages the audience to be an active
dialogue participant rather than a passive recipient
• Traditional media publishes in print, television and
radio, websites etc – they are non-participatory
• Being the author of social media positions you as an
accessible expert, not just an expert

3
Types of Social Media?
• Social Networks: Facebook, Orkut, QuQu, MySpace,
Yahoo & Google groups, LinkedIn, etc: use varies
• Blogs: Excellent for two-way communication and
dialogue building – journal format with responses
• Microblogs: interactive, but short -- Twitter
• Wiki’s: Multi-author collaborative platforms
• Streaming media and Podcasting:
YouTube, iTunes, Vimeo, MetaCafe
• Photosharing: Flickr, Picasa, etc

4
Social Media is Constantly Changing
• A fractured environment – constant changes in the
landscape
• Definitive winners constantly changing: Facebook vs.
MySpace vs. Google+ vs. LinkedIn Groups vs……
• All are web-based and accessible remotely
• Increasingly accessed by handheld devices: Mobile
changes landscape significantly

5
Social Media Success: Connect!
It’s all about reciprocity
• The more you engage, the more your audience will
likely grow
• This is a two-way street – the more dialogue, the
bigger the reach
• TIP: Link to, and comment on other people’s social
media: they will likely have alerts set up to advise them
automatically when they are mentioned or retweeted
• Alerts may inspire the followed to see who is pursuing

6
Social Network Success: Be Active
Content needs to be current
• Very easy for readers to disconnect: there is infinite
noise – cut through by giving real value and expertise
• If content is outdated or out of touch, connections will
drop: potential reputation impact
• Non-participation may be better than being out-of-
date

7
Assessment: Goals & Audience
• Who is your audience?
Make it easy for them specifically
• Different audiences have different sophistication and
social-media tool familiarity – analyze and cater to
them if possible.
• Significant difference between audience --
Students vs. Professor Emeritus

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What do you want to achieve?
Build visibility, perception, connections, reach (brand?)
• Find co-investigators
• Get funding or grants
• Get media attention
• Build awareness and reputation
• Knowledge mobilization & outreach
• Advance a cause

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They will not come just because you build it.
• Specific research content will likely have a very
limited audience, but a potentially high-value audience
• Not a silver bullet to drastically increase visibility
• Fast and reasonably easy way to access that
audience and become part of it

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Assess your future goals to decide your toolset
• Will you do this yourself?
Usually easy after an initial learning curve – allows you
to truly “own” the content and drive the process
• What help can you access? What tools exist already?
• YorkU Wordpress vs. Blogger or Blogspot
• Moodle has online chat, listserves, etc, but normally
to a predefined audience

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Social Media Models
Are there any good models to build upon?
• Every specific case has its own ideal toolset
• Poll your colleagues: some may have had bad
experiences in the past, might be different now
• Early adopters may have used outdated tools making
things seem more difficult to a novice
• What good work is being done already? Using a
common framework is not plagiarism.
• Expertise exists at your institution – tap into it

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Social Media Visibility: Boost It
How will you be found?
• Do you have a pre-existing social-network? Leverage
it!
• SEO: Search Engine Optimization
• Connect and link your various online identities
• Are you your own worst enemy?
Retire the casualties: Vanity surf – find and remove old
information lurking on the web, or use those pages to
redirect where you want people to go

13
Social Media: Analyze Cost / Benefit
The medium is the message
• Being accessible with social media says something,
just as not being there says something
• Rigorously assess your results and connections:
is there a better way to engage, a broader audience to
reach? Online forums in major media, newspapers, etc
• Can you do what you want with traditional media,
websites and listserves?
• If you start, you can always remove it later

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Social Media: Analyze Cost / Benefit
Are you ready to commit?
• Expect to actively engage:
Social media is largely founded on the basis of
ongoing dialogue, where value and interactivity is
frequent and timely
• Will the benefits warrant the investment of time and
learning?
• Law of unintended consequences: Will there be
unexpected outcomes such as unwelcome attention?

15
Specific Social Media Tools
• Social Networks
• Blogs
• Microblogs
• Wiki’s
• Streaming media and Podcasting
• Photosharing
• Not to mention RSS, curated content, bookmark
sharing, etc

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Social Networks
Facebook, Orkut, QuQu, etc
• What is its perception – privacy, advertising, fluffy?
• Does your audience want to use it?
• 500 million-plus Facebook users is a big pond
• but…for example, 47% of Indians using social media
use Orkut
LinkedIn Groups & Google+
• Can these function just as well?
• Easy to set up – but will they last, do you own them?

17
Social Networks
LinkedIn
• Professional perception, broad reach
• Allowing publication list, history, degrees, etc
LA&PS Researcher Online Profiles
• Not a social network, a searchable community of
experts and a potential reciprocal link

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Blogs (weblogs)
Blogs
• Function as many things to many people – best for
more robust two-way dialogue.
• Senior administrators want to blog: many start, but
time commitment is significant issue and most cease
activity
• Resources exist at York to set up and launch
• David Doorey is an award winning expert

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Microblogging / Twitter
Twitter
• 140 character limit per tweet
• Works well with text devices/cell phones
• Following alerts the followed, may start following you
• Other users can see who is retweeting them:
connection potential
• Can feed into other media via RSS

20
Video Streaming / Podcasting
YouTube, Vimeo, etc
• Production required, but gets easier all the time
• Many tools now exist to make things very easy to
produce content: iMovie, smartphone video, HD
webcams, etc
• Audio is the key, not picture quality
• Diane Zorn is an award winning expert

21
Video Streaming / Podcasting
Is YouTube really social media?
• Has the ability for users to comment
• Frequency of embedding in blogs, etc
• Viral uptake – usually outrageous (search double-
rainbow), but also Rand Paul
• Tie your work to popular issues
• Ubiquitous media
• Vlogs (video blogs) becoming more popular
•

22
Tools to Simplify Social Media
Your new best friends: social media dashboards
• How many sub-channels do you want to populate?
• Can you use one tool that can feed your information
to all locations?
• RSS feeds to an aggregator for reading
• TweetDeck | HootSuite
for publishing and following
• Posterous

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Social Media: TRY IT!
Test it now – it is much easier than many think
• Set up a test account and post anything, then close
the account or change it
• Be careful with specific account or user name, you
may only get “one shot” with a good name
• Get a colleague, family-member or friend to review
your first forays
• It can be very rewarding, but also may become time
consuming – do the cost/benefit analysis

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Social Media Resources: YorkU
Internal YorkU resources
• LA&PS Research Office
• LA&PS e-Services Office
• LA&PS Communications
• YorkU Centre for Support of Teaching
• YorkU Learning and Technology Services

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Social Media Resources: External
External resources
• Mashable.com
• nextmedia-source.com

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Social media…..
This presentation was made in Toronto by York University
Communications Manager Timothy Hudson to professors
and administrators interested in expanding their online
presence.
I am a strategic communications professional with 25+ years
of experience and welcome opportunities to present on
strategic communication issues, social media, online video,
design, branding and image.
Email welcome: ideas@idealized.com
ca.linkedin.com/in/idealized

Social Media: Online outreach visibility and viability

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