So your academic project is running successfully. Fantastic! Now it’s time to spread the word to your community and beyond. Social media is one of the most effective vehicles for doing just that. Looking to provoke discussions around your project? Secure more funding? Garner more publicity? Or just help people understand what you’re doing and why it’s important? There’s a (free!) social media tool for everything. We’re hosting two HP Catalyst online workshops to help you leverage social media to boost your project’s visibility and achieve your goals.
This first workshop will teach you all of the social media essentials, including:
• Defining your goals
• Building a solid social media identity
• Knowing and leveraging your various audiences
• Discovering what pages to follow
• Setting up your own Facebook and Twitter pages for your project
• Posting different types of content
• Creating and finding effective content to share
• Understanding what content to share in different platforms
• Connecting with your immediate community and global community
• Centralizing your social media platforms
9. Define your goals.
1. Build Community. Connect our talented and dedicated
volunteers with each other.
2. Build Business. Increase brand recognition and site traffic.
3. Build Credibility. Promote intercultural awareness and
geographic literacy to foster recognition of expertise in our field.
1. Increase visibility of our project beyond the HP
Catalyst Network.
2. Make connections with other educators to create
alliances and share resources.
3. Encourage entrepreneurs from around the world
to take part in our project.
13. It’s OK to Eavesdrop.
Twitterfall.com
#HPcatalyst
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Photo via BigStock
15. What Content? Tell Your Story
• What Do I Post?
– News
– Announcements
– Events
– Milestones (Give audience a preview or upcoming event to
pique interest)
– Photos of project (behind-the-scenes)
– Video clips (*multimedia is a big plus)
– Media coverage
– Giveaways
– Trivia, Contests, Surveys
– News about partners, contributors
(people/businesses/organizations like attention)
16. Content Creation: Reach the World
• How do you find/create content that is
compelling for your audience?
– Search for relevant orgs., groups on FB & ‘Like’
17. Content Creation: Reach the World
• How do you find/create content that is
compelling for your audience?
– Community sourced content, community interest,
– FUN!
18. Content Creation: Reach the World
• How do you find/create content that is
compelling for your audience?
– Internal news, info, communications, cross-
promotion
19. Content Creation: Reach the World
• One Step Further
GOALS:
1. Connect our talented and dedicated volunteers with
eachother
2. Increase brand recognition, site traffic - build business
3. Promote intercultural awareness and geographic literacy -
build credibility/recognition of expertise in our field
20. Content Creation: Reach the World
• One Step Further
GOALS:
1. Connect our talented and dedicated volunteers with
eachother
2. Increase brand recognition, site traffic - build business
3. Promote intercultural awareness and geographic literacy -
build credibility/recognition of expertise in our field
21. Content Creation: Reach the World
• One Step Further
GOALS:
1. Connect our talented and dedicated volunteers with
eachother
HOW?
•Volunteer, participant webinars or G+ Hangouts
•Create Twitter lists with participants that others can follow and
for your own records/communications
•Share stories from volunteers in similar geographic locations,
or group content
22. Content Creation: Reach the World
• One Step Further
GOALS:
2. Increase brand recognition, site traffic - build business
HOW?
•Post on blog, ask participants to be guest contributors, post
question on social channels, answer on blog/website
•Video troubles but can be very effective – recorded Skype
interviews or live chats with volunteers around the world, post
on website (events calendar, volunteer applications)
•Add Reach the World logo, icon, or words to photos and videos
posted to social channels
23. Content Creation: Reach the World
• One Step Further
GOALS:
3. Promote intercultural awareness and geographic literacy -
build credibility/recognition of expertise in our field
HOW?
•Connect with geographers, host live Twitter chats of FB Q&A
•Post volunteer articles from National Geographic partnership
on social media channels
•Host contest for volunteers to take and post photos of pictures
with national or state officials in their location
24. Content Creation: Business Math at
Conestoga College
GOALS:
1. To increase the visibility
2. Make connections with other educators who are
doing similar things
3. Encourage entrepreneurs from around the world to
take part in our project and share how they use math
with our students.
25. Content Creation: Business Math at
Conestoga College
HOW?
GOAL: Make connections with other educators who are doing similar things
•The Power of Google
26. Content Creation: Business Math at
Conestoga College
HOW?
GOAL: Encourage entrepreneurs from around the world to take part in our
project and share how they use math with our students.
•Search for entrepreneurial and math organizations in Facebook or Twitter,
then engage and survey, ask questions, post challenge on their pages, host
live Q&A
27. Content & Tools
• What type of content do you post to Facebook
vs. Twitter, etc.?
– Can post same content, format varies
– Differing features
Facebook Twitter
Events ✓ Text only
Polls ✓ Text only
Videos ✓ Text only
Photos ✓ ✓
28. Reused Content is Encouraged!
• Cross-posting can yield positive returns.
– Internal:
• Ex: Set up Facebook event, share on Twitter, blog,
YouTube, Google+ to get more eyes, ears, attendees!
• Reach different audiences that prefer different tools
• Different makeup of content (YouTube video promo of
event, Facebook event link in text, event
graphic/photo)
*Make sure format is appropriate for each tool.
29. Reused Content is Encouraged!
• Cross-posting can yield positive returns.
– External
• Partners, collaborators, participants like to be
acknowledged and valued. Re-share their content to
your audience to help boost their credibility, increase
their audience, and they may do the same for you.
• Share related and relevant content from other groups,
just be sure to cite them appropriately!
30. Results-Driven
(Audience-Focused) Content
• How do I post for maximum return?
– Secret potion:
• Include a minimum of one:
– Link
– Tag
– Photo
– Video
33. Search, Measure, Schedule
• Tools like HootSuite, Social Oomph, Radian 6,
Tweetdeck can help you manage multiple
accounts and search for relevant messages.
39. There’s homework. And a campaign!
Photo via BigStock
go.nmc.org/social-media-help
or #hpcatalyst
40. Stay Connected and Stay Tuned!
samantha@nmc.org
September 26th Workshop:
Measuring Your Social Media Efforts
Photo via Bigstock
Sign Up: go.nmc.org/catalyst-soc-media
Editor's Notes
The NMC is proud to partner with HP’s Office of Sustainability & Social Innovation for this HP Catalyst Online Workshop series!
A little bit about the NMC …now offering K-12 memberships!
Here’s an overview of the content we’ll be covering in the workshop today. The theme of this workshop is building a solid social media identity to boost project visibility.
What is a social media identity? I’ll explain how identity is really a combination of goals, audience, inspiration, and image.
Listen before you talk. Meaning, before you create any social media pages spend some time on your favorite social media platforms and listen in on conversations. Get to know how like-minded people are using them. Before we planned this workshop, we made a point to hear from you first and get a sense of what platforms you are using.
Similarly, we wanted to find out how you were currently using social media tools so we could gain a better understanding of your needs.
And finally, we have a great sense of what your desired learning outcomes are because we asked. Polling is something you can do on practically any social media platform! For starters, think about putting a small focus group together of friends and colleagues and ask them what they’d want to get out of your social media pages.
Asking questions like this on Facebook and Twitter are a great way to stimulate conversations and get to know your audience and their needs better.
Ok, so after you’ve listened to your team and have a good grip on everyone’s perspectives and expectations, it’s time to sit down and define your goals. Going into social media knowing exactly what you want to get out of it will keep you focused and on track. Two HP Catalyst project leaders, Tonia Lovejoy and Lisa Koster were gracious enough to let us use their projects as examples today. It’s important to note at the outset that both their projects are in different stages and are inherently very different. As a result, their goals are different -- and that is how it should be. Tonia manages the Reach the World project from New York in the New Learner consortium. Lisa manages the Business Math project at Conestoga College in Canada, as a part of the STEM-preneur consortium. Tonia is working with an organization; Lisa is working with a college. That in of itself should signify a difference in goals. For example: As a learning-focused organization, branding is important. And as a college project, sharing resources with other educators is a top priority. Your goals will inform and shape your identity and your content. Rebecca will revisit these projects and goals later in the workshop to show how each project can accomplish them.
Who are your current audiences? What new audiences are you trying to reach? Teachers? Volunteers? Students? Potential Funders/Investors? Follow them. Get to know them. Make sure the content you share applies to at least one of your major audiences. If you’ve been heavy on posting items that students might be interested in, shift gears with your next post and target it towards educators. It’s OK to change up your audiences as long as your voice and goals remain the same. First of all, you should know right off the bat that not every bit of content you share will appeal to all these audiences at once. Just make sure you keep you keep each audience in the back of your mind when building the social media pages and sharing content. For example, if in the morning you make a facebook posts calling for community volunteers to help facilitate a gaming workshop, you might want to think about sharing a resource in the afternoon that could help other educators develop similar projects. Funders: In terms of potential funders, frequent updates on how your project is going is key. Ideas: Take a one minute video on your smartphone of a planning meeting in action and share it on Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube. Create a photo album of the students engaged in the project and add to it regularly. Make your captions short but explain what they’re working on. In grants, a lot of what you’re doing is trying to help potential funders visualize your project. Social media is your visual evidence -- it is a collection of your project artifacts. Community Volunteers: Similarly, finding volunteers is easier when prospective volunteers can see your project. If you’re posting about the need for volunteers, post it with a picture of previous volunteers in action and state how much was accomplished. An example post might be: “Looking for volunteers to coordinate a gaming workshop for just a few hours a week. At our last workshop, they really made the students’ day and helped our project grow considerably.” -- with a photo of the last workshop in action.
Once you have your goals, it’s time to identify who your audiences are. There are usually multiple people you want to target. In the case of the HP Catalyst projects and other academic projects, it comes down to: 1) other educators across the globe 2) community volunteers 3) students and of course, 4) project investors/funders. Start applying your goals by finding organizations who have similar ones! At the NMC, I look to other academic institutions and organizations all the time to see what they’re doing on social media. If something is working well for them, there’s a good chance it will for us. I can then find a way to NMC-ify it and make it applicable to our audiences. My alma mater, the University of Texas, does a great job posting campus news and highlights. I look to them often for inspiration.
Academic speak is formal. No one on Facebook and Twitter wants to read a grant proposal. They’re looking for a voice that is concise, approachable, and easy to understand. Be professional but be colloquial. Above all else, be a human being. Always give other people credit. Karma! Before you even set up your pages, prepare 5 posts that you’d like to share. Send them to your colleagues and friends and get feedback on whether: a) your voice/identity reflects your goals 2) shows an understanding of your audiences 3) is approachable and 4) is relevant/interesting. Build your identity through voice. Ok, so you have your goals, your audiences, and your inspirations. It all comes together through your social media voice. What image do you want to project? Think about it. Social media platforms are a place to be more colloquial than other academic forums. You still want to be professional no matter what, but you also want to be approachable. Whatever you do, keep it brief. People are more likely to stop and look at your content -- and even click on it -- if you’ve kept it within their attention span. The NMC is an organization that is optimistic about the future of education. We find ways to highlight the important academic work our members are doing in everything we do -- including social media. What do you want your project’s image to be? Does it have a sense of humor? Is it all about promoting the mixing of disciplines together, such as business and math? Is it about being global? Factor that into your voice.
It’s OK to eavesdrop. In a moment, Rebecca is going to delve into content creating and sharing with you. But before she does, I want to talk about making sharing content less daunting. There’s a tool I use for Twitter called Twitterfall (twitterfall.com). I enter hashtags, user names, and key words that are relevant to the NMC. Twitterfall updates me in real time the conversations that are taking place around those people and topics. I can see what other people are saying about what I care about and join the conversation if I wish and make some new friends :)You build your own following by first following other people. Following people and interacting with them increases your changes of being followed back and building your community. Eavesdropping on hashtag conversations that are relevant to you will give you a better understanding of how your audience is using Twitter and what issue they care about. Using those hashtags yourself allows you to enter that conversation and the people involved will start keeping tabs on you. Make a list of hashtags and people/organizations that are relevant to you in a Google doc or a place where you can update it regularly.
Sam walks audience through FB set-up and pointers.
Sam walks audience through Twitter set-up and pointers.
It’s your turn to set up a Facebook, Twitter, and/or YouTube channel (if applicable) for your project! We know you’ll have questions throughout this process, so guess what? There’s a Facebook group for that! Post your questions to the HP Catalyst Social Media FB page or ask away on Twitter, using #hpcatalyst.