New Communication Tools
Nick DeNardis
Associate Director of Web Communications
mac.wayne.edu
January, 15, 2009

Overview
• Not just about talking at consumers
• Give consumers a reason to participate
• Listening to and joining the conversation
• Resisting the temptation to sell, sell, sell
• Don't control, let it go
• Embrace experimentation
• Patience
mac.wayne.edu
January, 15, 2009

Don't just talk at consumers
• Work with them throughout the marketing
process
• Its about caring to know your current and
prospective students
• Its about wanting your current and
prospective students to know you
• Participation
mac.wayne.edu
January, 15, 2009

Degrees of Participation
• Observing
• Searching
3.Conversing
• Connecting
• Creating
6.Controlling
mac.wayne.edu
January, 15, 2009

Give consumers a reason to participate
• Putting up a splash page is not enough
• Pushing out news updates (or sports) is not
enough
• Every community takes nurturing
• Content must add value
mac.wayne.edu
January, 15, 2009

The conversation is not on your pages
• Facebook (600,000 new sign ups per day)
• Twitter (Growth Chart)
• LinkedIn
• Social Media Firehose (Link)
• Listen in, you might be surprised, people
don’t hold back. This is THEIR platform.
mac.wayne.edu
January, 15, 2009

Trust is what you are selling
• Transparency is key
• When asked who is the one behind the
mask, we tell them.
• Word spreads fast. Very Fast.
mac.wayne.edu
January, 15, 2009

Don’t control, let it go
The story of
http://twitter.com/waynestateuniv
mac.wayne.edu
January, 15, 2009

Embrace experimentation
• No “right” or “wrong” way
• If anyone claims to have figured it out they
are wrong
• It’s about keeping a head of the pack
• Every day there is a new tool
• Remember Facebook at one time had less
than 1000 users.
mac.wayne.edu
January, 15, 2009

Patience
• Not every effort is going to result in a huge
amount of success, you cannot expect it
• Every effort does build momentum
• Success will come in time
mac.wayne.edu
January, 15, 2009

What we learned
• Listen in
• Talk and respond to customers
• Content is king, always give value
• Let real users add real content
• Experiment
• Did I mention the only cost for all of this
has been time?
mac.wayne.edu
January, 15, 2009

Sites
• http://twitter.com/waynestate
• http://twitter.com/wordwarriors
• http://www.facebook.com/pages/Detroit-MI/Wayne-State-University/25794202967
• http://wcs.wayne.edu/blog/
• http://digg.com/
• http://www.youtube.com/user/WayneStateUniversity
• http://delicious.com/waynestate
• http://flickr.com/photos/waynestateuniversity
• http://friendfeed.com/waynestate
mac.wayne.edu
January, 15, 2009