Social Media and building alumni relationsTips, tricks and tales of success

University of Oxford Alumni OfficeAlison Edwards and Joanna Whiting

14 November 2012

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• Why social media?• Strategy

• Practicalities• Advertising• Success stories

Why social media?

The pros…

+ Informal+ Immediate+ Viral+ Simple

The cons…(just a couple!)

- Too informal? - Unknown audience?- Time-sink

• Why social media?• Strategy

• Practicalities• Advertising• Success stories

InformInvolveInspire

Integrated communications strategy

Gulp.What does this really mean?

• Incorporate social media into your communications and marketing planning

• How will you determine success?

• Internal comms

• Why social media?• Strategy

• Practicalities• Advertising• Success stories

Make it easy on yourself

• Start small

• Make yourself visible

• Many hands make light work

Tone

• Informal, social, chatty, nostalgia

• Information, interesting, news, relevant,

• Professional, networking, careers

Planning

• Content calendar• Frequency of posts• Tweet whilst you sleep!

(Just kidding. Sort of…

On that note…

You are looking at social media…

Aren’t you?!

Repurpose and reinforce

• Highlight existing activity• Share content from

other platforms• Retweet• Hashtags

• Why social media?• Strategy

• Practicalities• Advertising• Success stories

Advertising on facebook

£ Draw attention to key stories? • Promoted posts

££ Bigger budgets and bigger aims?

• Targeted paid advertising to increase your audience

Oxford Alumni ad 1: targeting 32,520 users£63.40 spent22,725 users reached1030 new likes

Monitor

• Facebook page insights and Ad Manager• Google Analytics• Bit.ly• Twitter counter• Klout• Etc….

• Why social media?• Strategy

• Practicalities• Advertising• Success stories

‘A picture is worth a thousand words’

Starspotting

Questions, questions

Dive in!

What are you waiting for..?