GETTING STARTED WITH SOCIAL MEDIA

“Social networks aren’t about Web sites. They’re about experiences.” – Mike DiLorenzo, NHL social media marketing director

By now, you know that using social media is an essential part of your activities at Duke. But how do you take those first steps towards learning about various tools like Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, and their business implications?

If you are new to social media, or haven’t approached it strategically yet, then this guide is for you. This is just a primer as you get started. Please use your social media community on campus as a resource to continue learning and growing your online presence.

Social networks & blogs are the fourth most popular activity online, beating email.

67% of the Internet’s population visits social networks.

10% of all time online is spent on social networking sites.

1.5 million pieces of content are shared daily on Facebook.

If Wikipedia was a book, it would be 2.25 million pages long . Facebook tops Google for online

behavior in the United States.

Social Media = relationships

WHAT IS TWITTER?Twitter is a free, microblogging social networking site that allows users to post short (140 characters or less) updates to “followers.” Posts can be made via the Twitter website, by text message, by email or via many movile devices and applications. Despite its incredible brevity, people have found many uses for Twitter:

• Asa“status”updater,userspostcommentslike“working on writing a paper right now” to let others know where they are or what they’re doing• Asa“mini-blog”whereuserspostshort,frequent updates with their thoughts and current concerns•Asaquickwayofsendingoutananouncements• Tokeeptrackofindividualsandorganizationswithout directly interacting with them

FINDING AND SHARING CONTENTTo find new people to follow, try using the Twitter search function to find other users with common interests. Groups use hashtags to create easy to follow conversations. The more you tweet about a certain topic, the more likely others with similar interests will find and follow you.

WHAT IS FACEBOOK?Facebook is a social network that allows registered users to share status updates, photos, links, events, and other content. Facebook users create a “profile” for themselves, and then connect with others by “friending them.Userscandecideonhowmuchinformationtheyshare-whethertheirprofilesarepublic,onlyvisibleto friends, or visible to friends of friends, etc. Users can also create “Pages” which can display information, updatesandphotosfororganizations,businesses,clubs,etc.toconnecwiththeircommunity.

PRIVACYFacebook privacy continues to be an evolving issue. Users should be aware of the possibility of private profile items being made public when Facebook policies change, so it’s important to review your own privacy settings on a regular basis. Privacy settings and issues should always be considered in social media.

ANATOMY OF A TWEETRT Thisstandsfor“re-tweet”andmeans that we are reposting a tweet from someone else

@ Include the @ symbol in front of a username to direct that user’s attention to your tweet

bit.ly.f23kh Example of a shortened URL. Serveral services help shorten long URLs so they fit within a tweet and provide analytics

# These are called hashtags. Hashtagging has become the standard way to follow a discussion about a trend, event or topic. This allows anyone that searches for this term to see your tweet in context of a conversation or an event.

ANATOMY OF A PROFILE1. Profile picture and Twitter username

2. “Tweets” to see your Twitterstream

3. Followers and lists

4. Suggestions to connect

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IDEAS FOR APPLICATIONSStudents can easily search through both Flickr and YouTube to find campus-related content. Student users and/or groups may start YouTube channels or Flickr accounts to upload and share videos and photos gathered for course assignments. Groups can also set up private accounts to share media with a limited number of users. Images and videos are also great content to include on websites and integrate into other online profiles, such as blogs.

“The difference between PR and social media is that PR is about positioning, and social media is about becoming, being and improving.”

Chris Brogan

WHAT IS YOUTUBE?YouTube is a website for sharing user-generated video. Registered users can upload video files, comment on and rate videos, and interact with each other through YouTube’s community tools. Users can create a video “response” to a video for ongoing dialogue and the site is used by several “vloggers” that create short blog-like videos on a periodic basis. Uploads are limited to videos that are no more than ten minutes in length, unless using an official channel.

SITES.DUKE.EDUDuke offers free WordPress blogs to students, faculty and staff. WordPress is a popular web-publishing platform for creating blogs, web-based presentations and even entire websites.

USING WORDPRESS?• Createawebsite• Createaplacetodisplayindividual or group-created materials• Useitasawaytocurateaudio, video and multimedia content• Createasitetousefora presentation with images and links• Askstudentstocreateportfolios• Setupstudentcollaboration

SOCIAL MEDIAYou can use WordPress to bring together different social media elements in one place. A single WordPress site can include links to your most recent YouTube videos, an area displaying recent photos, and even blog posts that you’ve linked to using Twitter and Facebook.

BUILD YOUR VOICEhttp://sites.duke.edu

WHATISFLICKR?Flickr is an online photo management and sharing application. Registered users can upload digital photographs and make them accessible just to themselves, to a group of family and friends, or publicly. Duke uses Flickr to tag and share images from around campus.

ABOUTFLICKRPAGESFlickr photos can be linked to and, depending on permissions settings, can also be downloaded or displayed via link on other sites. Flickr photo sets can also be dislayed as slideshows or thumbnails using other platforms like Facebook and WordPress.

RESOURCES FOR THE DUKE COMMUNITYDuke University is regarded as one of the leading colleges in the nation in the area of social and digital media. Your colleagues and community offer an invaluable resource for education and collaboration in the area of social media in higher education.

Did you know that Duke has a social media manager?

Contact Cara Rousseau cara.rousseau@duke.edu@CaraRousseau919.491.5018

DUKE’S SOCIAL MEDIA AGGREGATOREXPLORE MORE.

Social Mediasocialmedia.duke.edu

Facebookwww.facebook.com/DukeUniv

Twittertwitter.com/DukeNews

YouTubewww.youtube.com/duke

UStreamwww.ustream.tv/dukeuniversity

Flickrflickr.com/photos/dukeuniversity

WordPresssites.duke.edu

FourSquarefoursquare. com/ dukeu

Duke on Demandhttp://ondemand.duke.edu/

iTuneshttp://itunes.duke.edu/