Social Media 101 for Educators

Social Media 101
for Educators
May 2010, Keene State College
Presented By Leslie Poston
#SM101KSC

©Leslie Poston, All Rights Reserved, Not For Reuse Or Resale

Video Made By
Erik Qualman, Author: Socialnomics


Overview
✓ Choosing Platforms

✓ Getting Set Up

✓ Posting Etiquette

✓ Following & Friending Etiquette

✓ Terminology

✓ Time Management

✓ Usage Examples and Best Practices

✓ Privacy & Reputation Management

✓ Keeping Up With New Tools


How do I avoid being
overwhelmed by options?


Use The Rule of Fives


Pick 5 Platforms For
Your Focus & Energy

}
✓ TWITTER

Starter Pack
✓ FACEBOOK
✓ LINKED IN
✓ BLOG
✓ READER or AGGREGATOR


OUTREACH = Twitter

GROUPS & INTERNAL = Facebook

KNOWLEDGE SHARE = Blog

LATERAL REACH = LinkedIn

NEW INFO & LEARNING = Reader or Aggregator


Twitter (Getting Started)

Recorded with Jing, a free screencasting tool that allows you to record and share 5 minute how-to videos


Twitter (Making It Useful)

Recorded with free tool Screentoaster.com

Twitter (Keeping Up)

✓ Twitter.com +
Search Tools + Lists
✓ Seesmic Desktop +
Search Tools + Lists
✓ CoTweet + Search
Tools + Lists +
YourTeam
✓ Scheduled
Check-Ins

Facebook

✓ Teacher to Class =
✓ Personal Proﬁle Group
(required)
✓ Teacher to Teacher =
✓ Fan Page School Fan Page
(now “Like”)
✓ Teacher to Student =
✓ Group Page Friend on Proﬁle (limited
(per class) until after grad)

✓ Community Page ✓ College or Department
(passive) Outreach = Fan Page,
Community Page


Facebook (In Practice)
✓Groups can replace your clunky Blackboard interface
✓Fan Pages can help with college recruiting
✓Groups can help bring alumni together for causes
✓Fan Pages can become a place to inform parents
✓Event Pages can help bring outside community in
✓Content can be shared for broader reach
✓Classes can be taught right online in many cases
✓Papers and Reading can be assigned and discussed
✓Ofﬁce hours can be held online in chat
✓Upload videos for students to reference later
✓Have students upload content as part of courses


LinkedIn

✓Educator to Educator
✓Educator to School or Organization
✓Educator to Department
✓Leverage Groups
✓Controlled, lateral networking


Blog!

Contrary to recent opinion, blogs are not dead.

They remain a great way to demonstrate knowledge, interact with
students and colleagues, as well as to inform parents.

If you can’t afford to host your own, use a free site.

I recommend: WordPress.com or Blogger.com

Signing up and getting started is super easy!


Reader or Aggregator
✓ Ingest Information ✓ Track Information

✓ Share Information ✓ Commentary

✓ Monitor Personal Use ✓ Develop Your Use Ratio

✓ What Do Others Find ✓ What Do You Find
Important? Important?

✓ Trend Tracking ✓ Social News Filter


You’ve set up proﬁles and platforms.
You’ve gotten a basic grasp of what each kind is for.
You’ve interacted a little to test the waters.

NOW WHAT?


What’s The “Best” Way To Interact On...

Facebook?

Etiquette Twitter?

LinkedIn?

Blogs and Comments?

Readers and Aggregators?


Who the heck are all these people,
and why are they following ME?


Guideposts for Following
& Friending

1. You do not have to follow back every person or company who follows you
2. Using search tools to find topics of interest and people talking about them will net
you a more valuable stream
3. Being engaged and joining conversations, hashtags, and groups will draw more
interesting and useful people into your circle
4. Keeping your follow ratio tight will help you cross various following algorithms and
grow without limits
5. Create and maintain lists of educators etc to sort for yourself and help others find
useful colleagues & organizations
6. Worry less about quantity and more about quality of followers on all platforms (5
people who give great value are much better than 500,000 lurkers or spammers)
7. Slow down! You don’t have to do all of this in the first five minutes. You’ll be happier
if you go at your own pace.


PRIVACY


Self Maintained Silo’d Link Level Sharing


What About My Reputation and Brand Protection?

✓ School Wide Guidelines for Staff
✓ Privacy Education for Students
✓ Learn to Engage Where Issues Occur
✓ Practice Authenticity & Human Business


Time Management
✓Schedule during regular email checks, make part of daily
routine
✓5 days a week, 7 if you have the bandwidth
✓Do make daily short status updates
✓Don’t stress about daily blog posts
✓Don’t be afraid to declare RSS bankruptcy once a month
✓Answer what you can, you won’t be able to answer every
question or comment everywhere
✓Be patient, it takes about a month to grow your network
to a point where it is interesting and useful
✓Take breaks if you start to feel stressed


Who’s Doing It Right For Education?


Basic Social Media Policies In Place

•Washington University
•Adrian College
•Washington State
•Missouri Valley College
•Florida International University
•DePaul University
•Columbia University (not comprehensive)
•Social Policy Generator for College Newspapers


Social Media Degree Programs

London South Bank University (launched 2008)
Birmingham University (launched 2009)
University of Georgia (Also integrates into work ﬂow)
Some colleges and universities like UNH and SNHU are
just now adding social media to their curricula
Starter Pack: Education User Build
Professors Online
University Quick Search
Financial Aid Information
Admissions Quick List


Terminology
➡ Follower - someone who opts to listen to your updates on Twitter
➡ Friend - the social media term for a connection on a social network (not always an actual real life friend,
sometimes a coworker or other entity)
➡ Connection - most often used on networks like LinkedIn for someone in your network
➡ Stream - the continuous roll of updates and information on social media
➡ Firehose - what happens when your stream gets noisy and unmanageable with too much information or when
information is going to fast to keep up
➡ Network - your net of connections, friends and followers online
➡ RSS - real simple syndication, a way to have things you are interested in online delivered to you for ingestion
➡ Tweet - a 140 character long status update on Twitter
➡ Update - a status update on other social networks, usually short (140 - 420 characters)
➡ Status - the short messages used on platforms like Facebook and Twitter to tell people what you are thinking,
what’s happening around you or what you are doing, or to converse with people on those platforms
➡ Blog - a shared online website similar in style to a journal with daily, weekly or monthly entries and the ability for
readers to comment and interact
➡ Hashtag - an abbreviation or code starting with the # symbol, used to sort and ﬁnd conversation about or at a
conference, event, chat or general topic (example: #SMCEDU, #SMBNH)
➡ Feed Reader - a tool used for collecting, sharing and reading the RSS feeds you subscribe to
➡ Aggregator - a tool that collects content and social activity in one place
➡ Direct Message - a private message between two parties
➡ Reply - a public message between two parties
➡ TOS - terms of service agreements, found on every social site and many web sites
➡ Privacy Policy - where a web site or service lets you know what they plan to do with your information and content


(Q&A Session)


Leslie Poston, Magnitude Media
@leslie or @magnitudemedia on Twitter
800•501•4049 phone | 928•438•5038 fax
leslie@magnitudemedia.net
Co-Author: Twitter for Dummies (Wiley, 2009+)
Contributor: Social Media ProBook (Eloqua)
Author: Grande Guide to Social Advertising (Eloqua)
Author: Social Media Metrics for Dummies (Wiley, 2012)

If you enjoyed my presentation, won’t you recommend me on LinkedIn?
http://linkedin.com/in/leslieposton

Connect with Magnitude Media’s pages also:
http://www.linkedin.com/company/magnitude-media
http://facebook.com/magnitudemedia
http://magnitudemedia.net

©Leslie Poston, All Rights Reserved

Social Media 101 for Educators

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