SOCIAL MEDIA STRATEGYfor communication and disseminationAda Giannatelli, Politecnico di Milano - METIDJune, 26th, 2014, 11:30 AM CET

Disclaimer: due to the continuing development of social media, no guarantee for the accuracy of information over time can be assumed

Aim of the webinar

To inspire the use of social mediato communicate project activities and results (dissemination), with a special focus on education and research context

Webinar outline

1.Definitions and context2.Examples3.Tools4.How to increase the impact on social media5.How to manage dissemination on social media

Duration: 1 hour

Definitions

Social media strategy for dissemination

websites and applications that enable users to create and share content or to participate in social networking (Oxford dictionary)otherwise known as Web 2.0 toolsaccessibility also from mobile devicesfree or (relatively) low cost options

websites and applications that enable users to create and share content or to participate in social networking (Oxford dictionary)otherwise known as Web 2.0 toolsaccessibility also from mobile devicesfree or (relatively) low cost options

action plan aimed at achieving specific objectives

action plan aimed at achieving specific objectives

making project results available (European Commission)

making project results available (European Commission)

self-explanatory

pictures

self-explanatory

pictures

hashtags to increase tweet

searchability and virality

hashtags to increase tweet

searchability and virality

circulating in-depth content from website

circulating in-depth content from website

Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) on Twitter

Online Educa Berlin on Twitter

backchannel to enrich the ftof experience

backchannel to enrich the ftof experience

hangoutshangouts

promotion of new reports and

content from website

promotion of new reports and

content from website

World Bank on Google+

promotion of events and

news

promotion of events and

news

live chatslive chats

promotion of learning offer

(e.g. new MOOCs)

promotion of learning offer

(e.g. new MOOCs)

Open University on FaceBook

Effective webinars group on FaceBook

community around a EU-funded project (Tempus BLATT project)

community around a EU-funded project (Tempus BLATT project)

Media&Learning conference on LinkedIn

professional community around a conference (follow-up, enhancing exchanges among stakeholders)

professional community around a conference (follow-up, enhancing exchanges among stakeholders)

E-learning 2.0 group on LinkedIn

Erasmus Plus group on LinkedIn

professional community around the European Erasmus+

programme

professional community around the European Erasmus+

programme

Open Education Europa company page on LinkedIn

disseminating research results with a visual

approach

disseminating research results with a visual

approach

British Medical Journal on Pinterest

OBJECTIVES TACTICS INDICATORS

Raising awareness about the project

Posting about content published on project website:•on project FB page / group •on subjet-related pages/groupsExamples: •Global Partnership for Education on FB https://www.facebook.com/globalpartnership•OnlineEducaBerlin on FB https://www.facebook.com/ONLINEEDUCABERLIN

• organic reach of FB page / of FB post

• engagement (= Likes + Comments + Shares + Clicks)

Disseminating project research results

Publishing regularly documents and presentations on project channel on SlideShare•Example: EuropeanSchoolnet http://www.slideshare.net/europeanschoolnet

Visual magazine on Pinterest •Example: Research of the British Medical Journal http://it.pinterest.com/thebmj/research/

Views and downloads on SlideShare

“Tactics” describe the means by which the strategy is carried out operationally

Benchmark similar projects to get inspired

“Tactics” describe the means by which the strategy is carried out operationally

Benchmark similar projects to get inspired

Social media strategy objectives

OBJECTIVES TACTICS INDICATORS

Promoting ftof events and webinars

Tweeting alerts, infos and updates about yet-to-come events•Example: tweets about MOOCamp on France Université Numérique https://twitter.com/universite_num

Number of clicks and retweets of specific tweets

Enhancing FtoF events

Backchannelling on Twitter (providing an alternative channel alongside the event)•Example: backchannel Media&Learning Brussels #mlconf13)

Content curation on Scoop.it to circulate and integrate conference contents•Example: http://www.scoop.it/t/online-educa-berlin

Number of tweets with backchannel hashtag

Social media strategy objectives

OBJECTIVES TACTICS INDICATORS

Building a professional community around the project, facilitating interaction among partners and stakeholders

Animating a group on LinkedIn •Example: Europeana Network https://www.linkedin.com/groups?home=&gid=4143376&trk=anet_ug_hm

Google hangouts •Example: http://live.worldbank.org/google-hangout-youth-and-open-government-in-sports-world-cup)

Promoting Google Hangouts on LinkedIn company page •Example: https://www.linkedin.com/company/the-world-bank

LinkedIn group members, comments and discussionsGoogle hangouts participants

Social media strategy objectives

Some data

Some data

impact on information visualization on social media: e.g. text length, picture size

impact on information visualization on social media: e.g. text length, picture size

Some data

Some data

globally, the fastest growing demographic on Twitter is the 55–64 year age bracket (Oct, 2013 source: ComScore)

globally, the fastest growing demographic on Twitter is the 55–64 year age bracket (Oct, 2013 source: ComScore)

Which tools

?

Despite peculiarities of each tool…

…the only limit is your creativity

• building a professional community around a topic (group)

• interacting with experts and stakeholders

• Integration with SlideShare and Twitter

• most popular• useful to publicize

events and to recruit participants to research or e-learning activities

• integration with Scoop.it

• visual board to combine existing content (e.g. about the project + external related content)

• not very used by academia

• Hangouts: free videoconference with up to 10 people (useful also in academia)

• Extras: integration with Gdocs

• Sessions can be recorded

• 140 characters• useful to broadcast

news and links to blog posts, journal articles, …

• useful to engage in conversations (e.g. event backchannel)

Social media: examples of tools

stability over timesocial media landscape is quickly evolving and many free tools either expire or change their pricing policy;

familiar interfacepopular social media provide an interface target users are already familiar with and signed-up to

account federationmany social media allow to log onto third-party applications with their existing identity, so that people do not need to sign up separately.

(Popular) social media: advantages

sometimes less is moremaintaining many social media channels for the same project can be too demanding: sometimes it is better to choose and preside only 2-3 channels

backup of social media contentexport features (or custom procedures) that allow backup of social media content are often lacking or poor: possible loss of materials if the social media fails

cautious plans for indicatorsto set objectives it can be useful to benchmark performances of similar projects (e.g. project FB group members, Twitter followers, etc.)

internal policyconsider possible internal social media policy and terms of use of each chosen social media

possibly indelible contributions of social media users are persistent, which implies that they are stored for others to view and share, also out of the original context

Social media: caveat

How to increase the impact on social media

?

Which audience?

In the case of education and research projects, we can reasonably consider not only:

•teachers

•researchers

•students

…but also other stakeholders, such as:

•academia (universities, research institutions)

•educational and non-educational institutions at local, regional, national, European, and international level

•policy makers

•media

Tips to increase the impact of social media

Provide connections among dissemination channels•display social media channels on project home page and on project leaflet (if any)•display the other social media channels of the project on each social media channel•advertise project social media channels on personal social media profiles (e.g. LinkedIn, Twitter)

Use keywords, hashtags, and tags to increase content virality•upload slides and documents on SlideShare (or other document sharing tools) to increase virality and circulate the link on the other social profiles (e.g. FB, LinkedIn,Twitter)•use hashtags (Twitter) and tags (e.g. SlideShare) consistently: same spelling, punctuation and capitalisation•in case of international / EU-funded projects: mind localisation of tags, hashtags, and keywords•useful tools to get inspired about the most trendy / effective keywords and hashtags: Hashtags.org, Ritetag.com, Google Trends, Top Keywords of SocialMention.com

See also the handbook #1 and #2 of the Web2LLP project http://web2llp.eu/training

See also the handbook #1 and #2 of the Web2LLP project http://web2llp.eu/training

Writing for dissemination is different than writing an article for a scientific or professional journal:

•make text concise and go straight to the point; be sure that information is easy to find (using tags, keywords, and hashtags)

•leverage self-explanatory pictures in posts and tweets

•highlight key points / findings with bulleted lists

•write clear conclusions and recommendations, so that audience knows what to do with the information provided

•use clear and understandable language; if you must use technical terminology, define terms in lay language. Also organisations with “bureaucratic” style, such as EU institutions, are adopting a less formal approach

Writing style guidelines

How to create an audience on social media

How to create an audience on social media

How to create an audience on social media

How to manage dissemination on social media

?

Phases of dissemination on social media

Some useful tools

editing and monitoring tools

Hootsuite and Buffer allow to •schedule posts and Tweets for deferred communication •post on multiple social media channels at the same time•monitor the social media channels of the project from a single platform

Klout helps to measure the impact of the social media presence

utilityIFTTT (If This Then That) automates simple tasks, such as automatically adding new Twitter followers in a Google spreadsheet

Useful links

…

Designing social media strategy for disseminationhttp://www.scoop.it/t/social-media-strategy-for-communication-and-dissemination-of-e-learning-e-collaboration-and-research-projects

Implementing social media strategy: examples and toolshttp://www.scoop.it/t/social-media-strategy-examples-and-tools