Find Them, Keep Them!
Joel F. W. PriceFriends’ Central School
Webmaster & Information Management
twitter: @jfwp | @friendscentralemail: [email protected]: http://facebook.com/friendscentral
photo by Michael Stoner http://twitpic.com/1fjdjv via
http://twitter.com/mStonerblog/status/12163387684
Know Your Constituents!
• Where do they live online?
• Where do you live online?
(Did you just answer the same thing twice?)
Two Things You Should Be Using
• Google Alerts– Easy-to-use, daily emails about any/every
topic regarding you or people at your school
• Facebook– Probably the place most of your
constituents are (even the older ones). Try entering your school name in the search box!
Network Commonalities
• They all bring people together
• Most social networks are designed with for-profit uses in mind, but educational uses emerge and can be very powerful
Constant Evolution
• Over time, we have seen the creation of apps, notifications, pages, updates, connect, and community pages– Yahoo! releasing more Facebook
integrations (including flickr integration)
Open Your Mind
• You probably do not want to just copy what other schools do (you are unique)!
• Applying a new mindset to social media will benefit you and your constituents.
Try It Out
• See what happens
• Create a new social media experiment– Track it (Google Analytics)– Assess whether it is worthwhile
Where, and Why?
Learn, Shape, Innovate
• 1. Use the tools first – plork (pronounced “plurk” = play + learn + work)
• 2. Adapt tools to fit your school
• 3. What will you build for your constituents?
Fan Pages: Two Ways
• 1: Branded through WhippleHill’s Fan Page Integration
• 2: Using Facebook Apps to syndicate content (Apps I recommend: SocialRSS, My Flickr, FBML)
More on WH + FB Fan Page Integration:http://inside.whipplehill.com/2010/05/26/facebook-fan-page-integration-comes-to-podium/
HTML (FBML)
RSS Feed (SocialRSS)
flickr pix (MyFlickr)
Your Expectations
• You have expectations when using Google, Amazon, or Netflix
Source: http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/5/51/Google.png
What Do Your Constituents Expect?
• Facebook can be used both proactively and reactively.
• Do you know what gets reactions from your constituents?
Community Pages
• The launch of these (01 APR 2010) have already affected:
– Your Fan Page• Control
– School “Subgroups”• Branding
Community Pages, continued
• Drawing on wikipedia entries, other “mentions” of your school name
• CNN President is more afraid of Facebook than of FOX News, due to the number of users and the type of information exchange
Source: http://www.businessinsider.com/chart-of-the-day-social-networking-sites-dominate-sharing-2009-7
Social Media Time Allocation
• Consider your current strategy
• Consider your team size and skill set
• In which places could you experiment?
Set Goals, Metrics
• Ideally: you’ll set concrete goals and measurements in order to accurately measure and report successes and failures
• Sometimes: you’ll just put it out there and see what happens, then learn!
Be Flexible
• Sometimes, due to the workflow, you may need to temporarily change the way you communicate:
– Facebook posts to twitter– flickr posts to a blog and to facebook– News posts to homepage and Facebook
Valuable Resources
• Inside Facebook• Mashable• Stanford University’s Fan Page• Alumni Futures• Adaptivate | Webinar Registration• The Value of a Facebook Fan [PDF]• Your Influences (please share!)
Stay Connected
Thanks to Travis Warren and the WhippleHill team!
This slide deck is available on slideshare.Joel F. W. Price | Webmaster & Information [email protected]://friendscentral.orghttp://facebook.com/friendscentral
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