Student Affairs Social Media Plans and Strategies

Ed Cabellon | Director, Campus Center – Bridgewater State University#NASPAtech | October 28, 2011 | #NASPAtech27 | @EdCabellon

OVERVIEW

Strategy & SupportManagementLiteracyAssessmentOther things to consider

bit.ly/sasmplan

What are you trying to build?

Blasting out information?

Advertising?

An extension of your community?Or an entirely new one?

Strategy and Support– What are your goals?– Why do you want to take

this on?– How does it contribute to

student learning and engagement in your Student Affairs Unit?

– Timeline? Set a temporary timeframe.

– What online media tools best fit your intended goals?

– Who do you need approval from?

Rondileau Campus Center:– Goals: To extend our community building online. To build an online

Information Hub (mirroring our Info Desk). To connect students with BSU programs and services.

– To meet students where we knew they were.– Through engaged learning opportunities in our student employment– We set an initial “semester” trial period– Initially Facebook was our point of entry. The use of Facebook Fan

Pages were our focus.– We needed approval from our AVP initially. Then IC.

• Who will be your Core Social Media Team?• Have you created job descriptions that clearly

outline learning outcomes through their core duties?• Content Development / “Conversation”• Community Development / “Voice”• What will your Social Media Guidelines be?• Will there be a schedule of posts or will it be more

organic?• Will you be using Social Media dashboards like

Hootsuite or Tweetdeck?

Rondileau Campus Center:– Social Media Team: Professional Staff, Grad Staff, and Student

Employees– Our “Conversation”: Content based on Class Cancellations, Blog Posts,

Photos, Videos, Community Questions, Cross Promoting Events.– Our “Voice”: Customer Service centered, friendly, prompt. Initial each

post for transparency.– Guidelines: Post every two hours starting at 7:30am with Class

Cancellations. Respond to posts and likes within a four hour window. If one can’t respond to a post, they must notify the Director.

Get Your Hands Dirty

Jump In!

Building Technology Literacy

-Digital Identity Education- Personal Use of Online Media Prior to Office Use-Reading Research onSocial Media and Student Engagement.

What do we need to teach and learn?

Assessment• What is your definition of success?• Can this definition be measured? How? • What analytics packages are valuable?• How will you use this data to help

improve your overall plan and implementation?

As a Student Organization•Our volunteers make connections happen.•Those managing the Social Media accounts are mindful how they use it personally.• Get as many people involved in the process of creating content, especially during organizational meetings.

As a Department• Recognizing they are paid to represent the institution.• Using the conversations a bridges to bring people into the Campus Center• Being a connector and promoting other campus departments, organizations and programs on our page!

• Common Denominators for Success• Comments, Shares, & Likes on Posts• Other Facebook Users Tag Your Organization in their posts• Community is posting questions and comments on your wall

Facebook Success For The Rondileau Campus Center =

Assessment – Fan Page Insights

Shows: Active Users,Daily Users, Likes,

Demographics, MediaConsumption, External

Referrers Specify date range

Total number of viewsIn the range specified

Total number of Likesand comments in range

specified

Assessment – Fan Page Insights

Total number of viewsIn the range specified

Total number of Likesand comments in range

specified

Top viewed posts on your fan page

Breakdown of contentcontact on your fan page

Twitter Success?

Assessment of Success

• How many times are you getting @ mentioned in others Tweets, either through conversation or simple mentions.• How often are your Tweets getting Retweeted? (RT or Quoted RT)• How many times are you listed by others on their twitter accounts?• How often are your tweeted links getting clicked? Are you using a link shortener like http://bit.ly to measure clicks?• Have you grown your followers steadily as you’ve used your Twitter account?

Assessing Success• Metrics #1: Unique Visitors & Number of Visits (overall, per post)

• Other Important Data:• Most Visited Day of the Month• Most Visited Day of the Week (Average)• Most Visited Time of the Month (Average)• Average Time Spent on Blog • Which posts got the most views?• Top External Referrer?• Top Key Search Words and/or Phrases

Assessing Success• Metrics #2: Average Number of Comments

Take the # of comments / # of Posts =

Conversation Rate

Assessing Success• Metrics #3: Online & Offline Growth

Have you grown over time?

• BLOG: Have you optimized your content for search ability?•Are you working with your Institutional Communication office?•How will you partner with other Student Affairs units to share and promote each others’ content?•Listen first, then engage.

Final Thoughts….

http://bit.ly/naspatech27

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Student Affairs Social Media Plans and Strategies

Ed Cabellon | Director, Campus Center – Bridgewater State University#NASPAtech | October 28, 2011 | #NASPAtech27 | @EdCabellon