The Potential of Social Media for Business

Development in Higher Education

Sue Beckingham | @suebecks

Areas to explore

• Who are your key audiences?• Identify the most appropriate platforms (e.g.

LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook) to engage with your target audiences

• Explore how social media can increase efficiency and effectiveness without increasing workload

• Agree an overall approach to harness the excellent work that is already undertaken by individuals across the Faculty

Develop a strategy and set goals

Getting started:The Trinity of Social Media

Safko 2012

Blog

Microblog

Social Network

But first… Questions to consider• What audiences will you aim to engage? • What type of content will you deliver? • How often will you post content, and where

will it come from? • Who will be responsible for posting content

and engaging the community?

Who is your Audience?

Students: prospective and current

Parents of Students

Alumni

Partners

Companies

Looking from the outside in:

What does your audience LOOK for?

What does your audience SEE?

http://www.shu.ac.uk/

http://www.shu.ac.uk/faculties/hwb/

What messages do you want to

share?

To be efficient and effective use social media to:

• Improve upon (but not replace) existing communication

• Provide real time information• Promote events to new audiences• Encourage sharing: the ripple effect• Advocate transparency and openness

Message Frequency

Daily• Share information via Twitter,

Facebook or LinkedIn on upcoming open days, sporting events or exhibitions

• Include news items you read elsewhere that are relevant to your core content and that will be of interest

• Respond to blog comments, tweets and Facebook posts. The idea of social media is to engage in a dialogue, so be sure to facilitate the conversations.

Weekly• Post a new blog post

• Include a short video capturing for example highlights of an event such as graduation or guest speakers

• Ask students to write a how-to or instructional article

• Participate in related forums or LinkedIn groups

AND to continue this dialogue face to face

CREATORS

CURATORS

CRITICS

CONVERSATIONALISTS

COLLABORATORS

COMMUNICATORS

Social Media EMPOWERS individuals to become digital:

is an information goldmine

5.7 billion professionally oriented

searches were carried out in 2012 on LinkedIn

11 thousand within 60 seconds

http://socialm

edialondon.co.uk/how-people-using-linkedin-2013/

A strategic approach to using this channel has yet to be developed

http://socialm

edialondon.co.uk/how-people-using-linkedin-2013/

Build trusted and valued relationshipsPost status updatesShare news, evaluations, reviews, industry articles, thought leadership pieces or ask followers to interact on hot topics. Posts will appear on your Company Page and in the news feed on the homepage of each of your followers. When followers like, comment and share your message spreads to their networks and builds viral distribution.

Share rich, relevant contentShare images, infographics, or any compelling content that you’ve developed which can help to build a relationship with your target audience.

Encourage virality through sharing buttonsAsk followers to like, share, and comment on your updates. This helps spread your message to their entire network.

LinkedIn (2013)

Develop your Follower Community

By adding the LinkedIn Company Page button link to

all of your marketing communications e.g. your

emails, newsletters, website and blogs.

Twitter

200 million active users creating over 400 million tweets each day

Second quarter results June 2013

1.15 billion

819 million mobile MAUs

Monthly active users

(MAUs)

51% increase year-over-year

Share presentations on Slideshare

Slideshare

Receive email updates providing analytics

Pinterest

Give Students a Digital Tour Around Campus

Indiana University: 23549 Followers

Create various Pinterest boards

Learning in Action BoardClassrooms, Lecture Theatres, SeminarsStudent Union, Society Activities

City Scene BoardCityscapes, Landscapes, LandmarksPopular restaurants (including pictures of food)Entertainment Venues, Sports GroundsMuseums, Galleries

Engage Students and Alumni

This Pinterest board is a collection of photos of Duke University's campus taken by the Duke community at large. Want to see your photos here? Submit your photos using the

hashtag #pictureduke on Instagram or Twitter.

See what’s resonating with followers

• Keep an eye on update metrics so you can fine-tune your messages and increase engagement.

• Use follower analytics to gain a deeper understanding of your follower base, community growth, and engagement levels.

• Leverage page analytics to learn about page traffic & activity.• Knowing how you compare to your competitors’ pages is a

great way to determine whether you should change your strategy.

Engagement = interactions + clicks + followers acquired

Time for your own

Social Profile Spring Clean?

The Test

distinct

dabbling

disastrous

dissed

disguised

Are you digitally…

(The Undercover Recruiter 2013)

What are people actually seeing about you when they search for you online?

Digitally Disguised - Nothing shows up when someone searches for you online. You essentially don’t exist! Sad, but true.Digitally Dissed - You exist on the web but not on page one. Even if you show up on page 2 or 3 of search results, you might as well be invisible as most people do not go past page 1 to find information about you.Digitally Disastrous - A lot of information does show up for your name, but it is either negative or worse yet about someone with a bad reputation or criminal record who happens to have the same name as you!Digitally Dabbling - There are some on-brand results for you and it accurately reflects who you are, but more information is needed to truly compel others to engage and do business with you.Digitally Distinct - This is where you want to be. There is a lot of relevant information about you on page one of search results and beyond. You are sending out the right message and even others are talking about you online building your visibility and credibility.

http://theundercoverrecruiter.com/own-solid-online-reputation/

How do you show up on Google?

The Potential of Social Media for Business Development in Higher Education

Sue Beckingham | @suebecksSheffield Hallam University