Social Media Best Practices

Aaron Knapp (@AaronRAKnapp)Financial Aid Coordinator, UW Colleges Online

Jen WeberFinancial Aid Counselor, UW-La Crosse

#WASFAA

What We’ll Cover

• Office Account Best Practices• Personal Account Best Practices/Professional

Development• Importance of Social Media

– VisibleTweets example from #WASFAA• Questions

Best Practices : Content

• All business all the time is boring.– Common mistake is to drive your engagement

through promotional updates• Adjacent content

– Local scholarships, employment opportunities, free events on campus

• Frequency of updates– The half-life of a tweet, for example, is around

18 seconds for most users.

Best Practices: Be Engaging

• Ask questions • Monitor and Listen• Keep it simple• Cross-promote• Gamify

Avoid Fightin Words

ESPN suspends Keith Olbermann after Twitter Battle

Best Practices : Tips and Tricks

• Add content which makes your customers’ lives easier.

• Respond, Share, and Like. It’s social media so don’t be the one always talking and never listening

• Humanize your account. • Jokes

Best Practices: Earn Trust

• Show up• Be human- Don’t push buttons! don’t

react! Don’t fight!• Be off-topic – celebrate holidays and world

events. Tell a joke. No one lies to be marketed to constantly.

• Add Value. Offer assistance, answer questions, and go out of your way to make someone’s life a little easier.

Humor Gone Wrong

Personal Accounts

• Facebook• Twitter

• LinkedIn• Pinterest

Questions to ask yourself…

• If a personal account – is it for business or pleasure?

• How do you want to brand yourself/your office?

• Who do you want to have access to it?

• Would you be comfortable with a professional colleague/supervisor reading your posts/tweets?

Using Social Media for Professional Development

Opportunity

• Opportunity to connect with individuals in state organizations

• Chance to connect with individuals in other regions, institutions, and organizations

• Provide input, feedback, and advice on policy, legislation, student outreach, etc.

#FAChat

Great Sources of Information

• NASFAA (@nasfaa) on Facebook and Twitter

• WASFAA (@WiscFAA) on Facebook and Twitter

• Financial aid chat - #fachat backchannel and @thefachat

• Enrollment management chat - #emchat

• LinkedIn contacts, Linkedin groups, and new contacts you meet at conferences and events to follow up

• Also, Googling groups/content areas/individuals that you are interested in connecting with

The 3 C’s Of Social Media and Professional Development

Consumption

• Lots of ways to find information by following individuals, hashtags, and organizations

• When connecting with an individual or a group, refer to their posts, content, tweets, and the like to see if there are any more connections or information that you can obtain and use to expand

• Be open to the idea of connecting with someone you might not know to have a fruitful conversation or exchange information; this will help develop camaraderie and help you feel comfortable expanding your connections or opening up dialogue

Technique

• You can ease into conversations

• Start by taking information in

• Just like the FINAID-L listerserv, Twitter is public, but that doesn’t mean you have to pay attention to all

• No time commitment ‘required’

• Can assist in obtaining news, updates, regulations, and best practices quicker

• Processing• Engaging • Outreach• Sharing• Consumer Information

• Awards• Formulas• SAP• General Questions

• Advice• Resources• Tools

Impact

• Be aware of the footprint that you’re leaving

• Convey a positive and open message

• Creating content takes more time, but can be more impactful as a user of social media

• Ideas:• Blogs• Sharing ideas via Twitter• Tumblr • Start a hashtag chat• Contributing to other blogs as a guest author (hint hint:

the WASFAA blog)

• Great way to stay connected if you can’t go• Budget constraints• Other commitments

• Can follow/engage in conference program and content from home/office

• Opportunity to share thoughts, views, and insight with those at the conference

• Social media at conferences enhances overall participation• Meeting up with individuals/groups you’ve talked with on social media

sites• Ex: #fachat at the FSA Conference or MASFAA events

Visibletweets.com

• Visibletweets allows us to review aggregate posts using the #WASFAA backchannel, which can be fun and accessible way to see what others are posting :

www.visibletweets.com

Questions?