Growing Your Roots: Social Media and Environmental Education

by

Executive Summary

East Side Media was asked to do three things:

1. Research on Constituency Groups

2. Analysis of Social Media Programming by ACEE

3. Review Outreach Strategies for Social Media

These results are relevant to all environmental education agencies.

Research on Constituent GroupsOverview

Keys in using social media effectively are knowing where your audience is and what they are talking about

Tactics used for engagement can be influenced by who your audience is, what networks they are on, and what they are talking about

Environmental educators have fairly well defined audiences, the research aims to identify what networks those audiences are on and what they are discussing

Research on Constituent GroupsAlberta Teachers

Strong community of Alberta teachers who are particularly active in Twitter. Their focus varies wildly, environmental education was not a strong focus of their activity

There are no locations (i.e. pages or groups) on Twitter that users congregate to interact, activity on Twitter is limited to individual user interaction on a user-by-user basis

Easiest and most direct means of accessing Alberta teachers on Twitter is through the “#abed” hashtag (stands for “Alberta Education”)

Follow the hashtag, participate in the conversations that happen, and reach out to the teachers involved in those conversations (especially key users who are very active and well networked)

Research on Constituent GroupsAlberta Teachers

Alberta teachers are also engaged in a lot of blogging

Blogging offers individuals with particular expertise the opportunity to write about the topics of their interest in greater depth than most other forms of social media and networking

Not uncommon to have professional sub-communities generate blogging networks to share, peer review, and collectively develop their expertise

Twitter and blogging can be complementary activities as Twitter is an effective networking tool for the blogging that one does

Research on Constituent GroupsAlberta Teachers

Facebook can also be useful in this way, but Alberta teachers are not using it as such

Blogging presents a useful opportunity for engagement between environmental education groups and Alberta teachers Topics of blogging for most Alberta teachers focus on two things: the subjects they teach (math, english, social studies, history, etc.) or pedagogy (I.e. theories and models of teaching itself)

• These topics have a naturally narrow focus for readership

Research on Constituent GroupsAlberta Teachers

By engaging teachers through their own blogs (linking to, mentioning, and responding to the teachers' blogs), environmental education groups will be able to expose their work to a larger audience while building a relationship with those teachers

Also worth engaging are school boards with blogs or elements of their websites that function like a blog

Research on Constituent GroupsConnecting with Other Groups

The tools available through Facebook (posts, likes, comments, pictures, videos, questions, etc. make using it as the primary avenue for engagement a natural fit

Help yourself by helping others: like others' pages, share others' posts, comment on and like posts of others, etc.

Very little barrier to outreach on Twitter, easy to connect and begin basic engagement with other organizations

Determine popular hashtags in use by Twitter users with which ACEE might like to connect (#green, #environment, #energy, #sustainability, #yyc, #yeg, etc.) and participate in conversations using those hashtags

Research on Constituent GroupsConnecting with Other Groups

Use Twitter engagement to eventually build relationships on more robust networks like Facebook, LinkedIn, and blogging

Research on Constituent GroupsConclusions

Focus on engagement: must sincerely and authentically participate in and become a part of the communities to which your target audience belongs

Remember to spend as much time listening as you do speaking (if not more)

Social media users are on networks for social interaction – two-way communication is key in this regard

Know who your audience is and what they're interested in talking about

Successful Use of Social Media

Always reply to comments and fashion responses to solicit further input from your audience

Demonstrating you're interested in your audience's opinions will help to generate more substantial relationships

Facebook

Reciprocity is key on Facebook (and most social media), make sure communication is two-way

Make sure all of the content you post is geared towards engaging your audience

Successful Use of Social MediaFacebook

More comments will increase the visibility and reach of your posts

Ask questions and seek feedback from your audience explicitly

Tagging people in your posts is a good way to get their attention

Vary your content to keep your page fresh and interactive

Successful Use of Social MediaBlogging

Blogging is a social exercise, do it well but also have fun with it

Timeliness of content is important, news move quickly online

Write conversationally and network with other bloggers where possible

Takes blogging cues from how you would operate your Facebook page

Use Facebook and Twitter to promote your blog posts

Successful Use of Social MediaTwitter

Focus on building a network, the bigger and broader your network the more influence and reach you have

Retweet other users' tweets and focus on one-on-one interactions

Show that you're interested in engagement & not just broadcasting

Always retweet in the old fashion (RT @usersname: tweet) & add thoughts to your RT

Use an MT (modified tweet) to partially repost a tweet too long to RT in its entirety

Successful Use of Social Media The Numbers Game

Facebook ads can help to build numbers quickly

Good to run an ad in conjunction with some sort of contest to pique curiosity and interest

Always build an engagement piece into the contest, just a page like isn't enough

Regular activity will help to build numbers on Twitter

Identify key, well-networked users to follow on Twitter

Successful Use of Social Media The Numbers Game

Create a list of people you want to have follow you and a strategy for convincing them to do so

Can pay to promote tweets, generally less effective than Facebook ads

Post regularly about timely issues to keep your blog readers coming back

Email better networked bloggers asking them to link or respond to one of your posts

Consider implementing a blogroll (list of recommended blogs)

Outreach StrategiesOverview

Don't promote your content with the same network of people every time, vary your pitches up to target specific people for different posts Determine a particular salable angle for your content that you can use in promoting and increasing exposure for it

Look not just at people who might interested in your content, but also people in their networks about whom you might not have thought or known

Do a cost benefit analysis on time spent promoting your content vs. other activities for your organization – find the right balance

Outreach StrategiesFacebook

If you have a pre-existing relationship with the owner of the Facebook page, then a private ask via telephone or email might be best If you know the page is alright with readers posting updates, then go ahead and do so

Asking permission to promote a post on someone's page before doing so is an important but often forgotten step

Consider also tagging a page you want to promote the post when you publish a link on your own page

Outreach StrategiesTwitter

If no relationship is pre-existing, then try tweeting a link to the blog post with a mention (@username) of the user you want to retweet and a short explanation of why they might be interest

Remember to leave some space in your tweet so that it is easily retweeted (at least 10 characters)

• Direct messaging a user who is following you is also available, though generally considered less effective

ConclusionKey Insights

Substantial opportunities for network and relationship building through blogging (especially with teachers), try incorporating more informal practice of blogging to increase content, focus on timely issues Focus efforts on developing Facebook, Twitter, and blogging as effective social media channels, leave other networks for later development

Always gear content towards engagement: how does what you post invite feedback from and interactions with your audience?

Balance quantitative and qualitative approaches, grow your networks but make sure you do so in a sustainable fashion by not sacrificing time and energy on quality engagement