linkedin 3d for higher education - post-conference overview
TRANSCRIPT
LinkedIn 3D for HEIntegrated approaches between Marcomms, Careers &
Alumni Relations
Post-Conference Summary
#LinkedIn3D
June 2016
LinkedIn 3D for HEConference Overview• The conference ran in April 2016, hosted by Birmingham Business School, University of
Birmingham, UK
• The objective was to bring together Higher Education / University representatives from different departments (Careers, Alumni Relations, Marketing & Communications) in order to:– Explore and share Challenges, Wins and Future needs in their own area– Explore how they can work more effectively together across departments
• Event Summary and Agenda: (for link see Additional Resources at end)– Morning : Welcome, Keynotes and Vertical sessions– Afternoon: Key Themes sessions, “unconference” format, Wrap-up
• 125 delegates attended
• Twitter #LinkedIn3D
Contents
Themes• Careers
• Community
• Content
• Academics
• Alumni
• International
Extras• Additional Resources
• Useful Groups
• Contacts
Careers – the Challenges• Coaching a shift from “online CV” to “networking &
career/employer research skills”
• How to best develop communities & build a “[careers] brand within a [university] brand”
• Teaching digital literacy to millennials – what is the best way?
• Time constraints / efficiency – what to prioritise?
• Overcoming the “fear of making mistakes” that can be passed from careers staff to students – too much attention on negative aspects of social media
• Understanding overlap of stakeholders, how to work together• Careers and alumni to share the generation of content
Careers – sharing the wins
• LinkedIn is an Intelligence gathering tool for career development; the Alumni Tool gives legitimacy to careers advice, for finding mentors, & volunteers
• LinkedIn bridges the gap between current students and alumni
• 'LinkedIn photo booth' at employability events
• Employers are global; LinkedIn enables careers staff to engage globally
• Groups - Contacts not lost if staff member leaves
• Track DLHE non-responders and ask them to complete
Careers – development feedback / requests• LinkedIn Students app launching in UK in Autumn – designed to
help students explore career options: https://lnkd.in/studentsapp
• Student / academic tariff for LinkedIn Premium would encourage greater use (but students need to develop a strong profile first to derive proper value)
• Analytics for Groups to judge engagement
• Ability to use a “Group ID” rather than personal profile in Group communications
• Run more networking sessions / webinars for staff
Community – the Challenges• Joining the alumni page is a ‘rite of passage’ – it happens but
does not automatically inspire the person to engage with content
• Justifying ROI of Groups without analytics/ visible engagement• Idea of ‘successful group’ theoretical, no model examples
• How to overcome the lack of interaction in Groups – how to generate meaningful, engaging content
• Deciding who should be allowed to be members of Groups
Community – sharing the wins• Successful Groups can be run by alumni volunteers (Durham)
• Your University Page (news feed), your website and other channels, can all feed into Groups
• Creating weekly topics to get conversations started
• Networks enable students to connect with employers/alumni globally
Community – developmentfeedback / requests• Analytics for Groups to judge engagement
• Ability to enforce guidelines in breakaway Groups / get breakaway groups to feed into parent alumni groups
• Leveraging more staff members to post / comment to encourage engagement
• Using alumni volunteers to create more discussions
Content – the challenges
• Corporate Communications cannot control all social comment – but how can it monitor, guide and positively influence activity as much as possible?
• Comms still searching for the ideal tools to manage multiple social channels
• How can Comms leverage a range of social content contributors? E.g. from different faculties, departments, alumni, students…
• How can Comms get VCs and Leaders to blog / post / contribute content?
Content – sharing the wins• Good content works on multiple platforms – don’t restrict to just Facebook
or just LinkedIn
• Be human - Don't be a robot: adapt your tone to increase engagement. People and students respond better to people than logos
• Students and alumni are interested in campus imagery and video, such as accommodation and memorable haunts – nostalgia is effective with alumni engagement - e.g. SHU - Psalter Lane Art & Design building
• Good engagement user-generated content:– Requesting alumni to share memories of graduation, photos - shows genuine connection– Instagram takeover: letting students do the work – see this #SHUInsiders example– The value of staff contribution - useful reference: "3-2-1: The art of employee-first content"
• Interactive video campus tour - good for several audiences (prospective students, alumni etc) – plus “genuine” video gets more engagement - see Newcastle example
• Periscope v Facebook – see pros and cons in Matt Horne’s post
Content – the LinkedIn wins• LinkedIn is a good place for showcasing research (top level) – this can then
link to more details / official repository
• LinkedIn now has #hashtags– You can collate posts using the hashtag in the body– e.g. search on #studentvoices (use the Posts filter for the results)– (note : original URL works but is unwieldy; need to use a vanity url e.g. example)
• Sharing stories on LinkedIn University pages – Careers & Alumni Relations work most effectively together (especially when able to leverage Academics!)
• Example of University using a Showcase page for specific audience content = OU for Wales
• It's easy to post blogs on LinkedIn, and you can enhance your personal brand as well as that of your institution (see here for more)
Content – development feedback / requests• In-tool analytics on social engagement with content
• Content Management & Scheduling - either in-tool or via 3rd party tools like Hootsuite
• Vanity URLs for university pages
• University Page Newsfeed - not lose posts after 30 days - ideally archive and retrieve capability for page admin
• LinkedIn pages management via the app (or a dedicated app for this)
• Improved use of video content
• Alerts to Admin about new content (e.g. posts on LinkedIn) by staff and alumni
• Hashtags in body content should be clickable
Academics – the challenges• Academics largely not on LinkedIn - only at the Business Schools
- so how do we get them motivated and up & running?
• Need to get Academics to publish - how? Create and leverage champions, case studies?
• There are no UK academics who are LinkedIn Influencers - how can we change this?– LinkedIn response - need to get Academics posting regularly on LinkedIn, true
leaders in their field, and then propose case for elevation to Influencer status.
• Enforcing the use of LinkedIn in universities - staff fear overflow of connection requests and recommendation requests - how to help them?
Academics – sharing the Wins (1/2)• LSE – To appeal to Academics, need to change perception that LinkedIn is just for
getting a job– At LSE, Academics collaborate with internal departments to get content posted –
they don't do it themselves.
• Birmingham– Biosciences Academics not interested until shown the LinkedIn Alumni tool - now
see value– Academics use other platforms e.g. Academia.edu to share papers / engage
community – can we share / link that onto LinkedIn?
• Leicester – Social Sciences – via weekly alumni events, academics saw the value of LinkedIn, now started using it
• Warwick – Marcomms run social media training sessions for staff, and writing copy - good for internal PR too.
• Aston – Running LinkedIn webinars for staff and these go down well.
• Important to get Academics active & influencing on LinkedIn– Impact on own brand, university brand, attracting staff and prospective
students, current students / careers, alumni connections, research– Like Warwick, can Marcomms run social media / networking / content
posting training modules for staff?– Could Careers run LinkedIn sessions for Staff as they do for Students? – Important to focus the teaching on LinkedIn as platform for networking /
connecting, and skills - not just for jobs / CV (stop obsessing on profile).– LinkedIn is a good place for showcasing research (top level) – they can
then link to more details / official repository
• Enhancing your academic online presence using LinkedIn - useful Slideshare post by Sue Beckingham (SHU)
• Development request– Featured / Notable Academics (on the University Page)
Academics – sharing the Wins (2/2)
Alumni – the challenges• Can often be difficult to know when to stop things that aren’t working
• Challenging to determine whether to invest in expensive, flashy systems
• The data & contacts LinkedIn provides make it difficult to avoid duplication/saturation when managing central record of alumni engagement
• Managing Groups since inactive groups are worse than no group at all
• Getting alumni to create content versus just generated by alumni relations team
• Publishing can be daunting, who is the right audience?
• Tough to get user generated research, establish what they doing and what they want to see in terms of alumni relations/universities
• Challenging to determine what to measure, when (1 year on?), and managing data from mentoring meetings
Alumni – sharing the wins• Press releases and alumni stories have created improvement in engagement
• Use of short 6 digit code (on profiles) for alumni to show students which alumni are willing to be approached by students (Manchester)
• LinkedIn gives relevant up to date contact details for events which is positive
• Working closely with Careers to generate effective content• Use of guest editors to generate content for the day or week
• Get significantly more engagement than on Facebook
• Insights - communicating with alumni to identify/share why they started up their own businesses
• Register content with strong engagement and create a handbook for getting the best out of LinkedIn
• Contact alumni to get valuable data for rankings, accreditations, etc.
Alumni – development feedback / requests
• How can Alumni Relations be alerted to alumni activity? E.g. moved to new employer, new post, etc
• Ability to monitor alumni usage more closely
• Different requirements in different countries
• Cultural challenges in using photos - need to be aware of different sensitivities across different cultures
• International students, particularly Chinese, do not use and update frequently once returned to home country
International students – the challenges
• Use of LinkedIn photo booth at Career Fairs targeted to international students
• Target messages geographically using filters and alumni tool
• Key to approach for students to reach employers is through alumni
• Using LinkedIn in conjunction with student ambassador scheme
International students – sharing the wins
Additional resourcesIncluding LinkedIn 3D event overviews
LinkedIn Students site https://students.linkedin.com/uk
Eric Stoller Event Slides https://speakerdeck.com/ericstoller/why-your-digital-presence-matters
Dave MussonEvent Overview https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/35-gems-inspiration-from-linkedin3d-dave-musson
Joe FieldEvent Overview https://blogs.shu.ac.uk/socialmedia/2016/04/15/linkedin-3d-conference-7-key-themes-an
d-a-few-takeaways/
Matt HorneEvent Overview https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/what-i-learnt-linkedin3d-conference-matt-horne
Yasmin Ansari Careers post https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/lessons-strength-resilience-weightlifting-career-yasmin-ansari?trk=hp-feed-article-title-like
Sarah Blunt Careers post http://careerscaseload.com/3-things-linkedin3d-taught-using-linkedin-careers-adviser/
Conference Summary / Agenda – see here: https://lnkd.in/3D4HE)
• Careers– Social Media for Careers Professionals– Career Services Professionals (LNKD)– UK HE Career Professionals
• Alumni– Alumni & Advancement Professionals– Alumni Relations Professionals
• Comms– University Communications and Engagement Network– Social Media for UK Higher Education Marketing– Digital Communications Marketing in Higher Education
Useful Groups
Events contacts• Charles Hardy
Education Lead, LinkedInhttps://uk.linkedin.com/in/charleshardy
• Tripp MartinCareers in Business Manager, Birmingham Business School, University of Birminghamhttps://uk.linkedin.com/in/trippmartin13
• Jessica Holloway SwiftStudent Engagement Officer & Social Media Lead, Careers Network, University of Birminghamhttps://uk.linkedin.com/in/hollowayswift