Blogs and Twitter

What Every Business Needs to Know about Web 2.0 and Social Media Blogging & Microblogging & Facebook November 2010 Martin De Saulles University of Brighton

They are different • 140 characters • Unlimited post length • One provider • Multiple providers • Less commitment? • More commitment? • Good for alerting • Good for analysis • Confusing threads • Threaded comments • Hard to build • Good for communities community • PC friendly • Mobile friendly • Destination • Signpost M De Saulles Web2 2010 2

Twitter in HE • Answering question from potential applicants • Monitoring what students are saying • Responding to student/applicant concerns • Distance learning • Messaging to students – timetable changes, assignments etc • Keeping in touch with alumni • Research updates/announcements M De Saulles Web2 2010 3

M De Saulles Web2 2010 4

Jet Blue Source: http://www.jeffbullas.com M De Saulles Web2 2010 7

Teusner Wines Source: http://www.jeffbullas.com M De Saulles Web2 2010 8

Etsy M De Saulles Web2 2010 9

Promote it M De Saulles Web2 2010 10

Lessons Learned M De Saulles Web2 2010 11

Lessons Learned – Sussex Careers “Our Twitter is a mixture of automated feeds (jobs, news from our blog, slideshare presentations etc), retweets from people we follow and our own tweets. At the moment we engage with people when they mention us, or ask us something directly, but not as much as I'd like.” “That's one of the things I've learned most from using Twitter. Engagement is good! But how to do it/having the time to do it is the tricky bit.” “Jumping in or starting a conversation with someone you don't know is quite hard sometimes. Originally, we envisaged it simply as a tool to broadcast information about events, adviser times etc. but it soon became clear that we'd get more out of it by talking to people. So we started following any students & graduates who followed us, even though most of their tweets are personal.” “Another thing I've learned is that most of your followers will not be the people you are aiming at. Well, for us anyway. We have 700-odd followers and if 10% are students/graduates I'd be quite surprised. I don't think that necessarily negates its usefulness, though. We do have a widget on our homepage, so people might look there.” M De Saulles Web2 2010 12

Lessons Learned – Sussex Careers “Also, it's been really useful for forging relationships with other careers services and professional organisations. For example, we've had conversations with the Guardian's Careers people on Twitter, which has led them to invite us to comment and take part in some of their activities. So, it's very good for profile-raising within your professional community.” “It's also really useful as a kind of RSS reader. I've picked up so much information from following interesting people/groups, and can share this by retweeting or bookmarking it for students and/or staff. It could be jobs, news, events, reports etc.” “On the downside, it can be really time-sapping and addictive. I do find myself peeking in quite regularly to see what's going on with the people we are following. Because it's quite temporal there's always the feeling that you might miss something important.” “I would also recommend using a social media client (like Hootsuite, Tweetdeck, Seesmic), too, as they often give you the chance to schedule posts in advance for set times/dates. They are also useful for viewing multiple accounts and for groups, where more than (Thanks to Darren Jones) one person might post to an organisational account.” M De Saulles Web2 2010 13

Lessons Learned – Katie Piatt “I am the only one of me in the institution, but there are lots of people in similar roles to me internationally on twitter so I can always find relevant colleagues to run ideas past.” “I try and balance posting and replying, only putting in the odd personal tweet and only asking for help rarely. I can't expect people to respond to my tweets if I never respond to theirs.” “You absolutely can't predict which of your tweets will get replies and RTs. It's never the ones you think.” “I believe personal accounts are more effective than corporate, a real, named person representing a service/brand is able to participate in a conversation in a way a brand is not (eg brightonstudent makes it clear that Scott is responding, whereas uniofbrighton is faceless and only broadcasts not replies).” “It is a commitment, like email. If you ignore it and just dip in every few weeks you won't develop trust and rapport with people you don’t know. Unlike email, you don't have to read every single tweet, it's very much of the now. An hour is a long time in twitter.” “Tools like tweetdeck are worth setting up to manage multiple accounts, view your personal groups etc.” “Use hashtags, especially for conferences. That's how you get relevant followers that you've never heard of.” M De Saulles Web2 2010 14

How not to use Twitter M De Saulles Web2 2010 15

How not to use Twitter Iranian election protesters Source: http://www.marketingpilgrim.com M De Saulles Web2 2010 16

Twitter – Top Tips • What do you want to achieve? • Is Twitter the best tool? • Are you prepared to engage in conversations? • Do you have the time? • What value will you offer to readers? • Who is responsible for Tweeting, checking, responding? • Start off slow – follow others, join in conversations • Let people know about your Twitter page • Automate posts • Review progress/success M De Saulles Web2 2010 18

Blogging M De Saulles Web2 2010 19

Blogs that work - $$ •9.2 million unique visitors and 30 million page views / month •Sold to AOL in September 2010 for c.$25 million M De Saulles Web2 2010 21

Blogs that work - $$ •2.5 million unique visitors a month •Sold to AOL in 2005 M De Saulles Web2 2010 22

Blogs that work - community •20,000 unique visitors a month M De Saulles Web2 2010 23

Blogs that work - business M De Saulles Web2 2010 24

Blogs that work - academic M De Saulles Web2 2010 25

Blogging – Top Tips • Why are you blogging? • You need a focus/voice • Give it a human touch • Keep it updated • Promote it – commenting elsewhere etc • Use images • Integrate with other social media – Twitter, YouTube M De Saulles Web2 2010 28

Facebook M De Saulles Web2 2010 29

Creating loyalty M De Saulles Web2 2010 30

Creating loyalty M De Saulles Web2 2010 31

Developing Active Community M De Saulles Web2 2010 32

Creating Discussion http://www.facebook.com/video/video.php?v=619833736063&ref=mf M De Saulles Web2 2010 33

Facebook – Top Tips • Offer exclusive content – not just reposts of other people’s content • Use video and images – instructional screencasts/videos • Respond to comments • Have a focus • Run polls • Link from other sites M De Saulles Web2 2010 34

And finally.... M De Saulles Web2 2010 35

Integrate social media M De Saulles Web2 2010 36

Allow people to Tweet it M De Saulles Web2 2010 37

Ditto Facebook M De Saulles Web2 2010 38

And the rest M De Saulles Web2 2010 39

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Blogs and Twitter

by Martin De Saulles on Nov 21, 2010

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Blogs and Twitter — Presentation Transcript