1. This script is the narration for the video, “Teaching Social Media and
Electronic Communication, Instructor Edition.”
Slide 1
Today's instructors are facing larger class sizes, heavier advising loads,
and the need to prepare students for the ever-changing workplace.
However, most business communication textbooks have not kept up
with the times, which means instructors need to step in and do extra
prep work for their classes.
I plan to show you today how you can spend less time preparing for
class and more time helping students.
This presentation focuses specifically on tips and techniques, time-
saving shortcuts, and ways to be more effective in teaching electronic
communication and social media, topics of utmost importance for
business communication instructors today.
Slide 2
In this presentation, you’ll learn the answers to these questions:
 What’s the difference between social media and electronic
communication?
 How is social media changing how we communicate?
 How, specifically, might a new business use social media?
 What types of social media and electronic communication should
be taught in a business communication course today?
 What should instructors be teaching about social media and
electronic communication?
 What are the best ways to teach social media and electronic
communication effectively?
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2.  What additional resources are recommended for teaching social
media and electronic communication?
Slide 3
Electronic communication is any communication done electronically. All
social media are part of electronic communication, but not all
electronic communication is social media. For example, an Adobe PFD
document, a Word document, a PowerPoint presentation, or an RSS
newsfeed are all examples of electronic communication, but none are
considered part of social media, although there are many ways in which
you could use these tools in social media efforts.
Slide 4
Brian Solis, social media guru, answers the question in this chart: What I
is social media?
As you can see from this chart, there are many different types of social
media. For example, it can be sites where pictures are shared, such as
Flickr, or microblogging sites, such as Twitter, or social networking sites
such as Facebook, or wiki sites such as Twiki, or platforms for creating a
blog such as WordPress.
There are about two dozen different types of social media, and within
those types, there are hundreds of specific media.
Slide 5
In Bovee and Thill’s texts, this is how they` describe social media:
2

3. Social media are electronic media that transform passive audiences into
active participants in the communication process by allowing them to
share content, revise content, respond to content, or contribute new
content.
Slide 6
In short, social media is a conversation supported by online tools.
Slide 7
Tools like these:
Facebook
YouTube
Twitter
LinkedIn
Flickr
Digg, and
Delicious
Slide 8
Facebook, a social networking site, is the #1 website worldwide with
more page views than Google. If Facebook was a country, it would be
#3 – after China and India. Facebook is a site where users can build a
profile, add friends, send messages, become fans of pages, indicate
they “Like” something at the click of a button, find out about events,
and join groups.
Users can also interact with businesses. More than 30,000 retailers and
thousands of companies have Facebook pages. For example, people can
order tickets for Delta Airlines right on Facebook.
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4. Slide 9
On YouTube, the average user spends 15 minutes a day on the site.
36 hours of video is loaded onto YouTube every minute. More video is
uploaded to YouTube in 60 days than all 3 major U.S. networks created
in 60 years.
YouTube is translated into 51 languages by Google’s automatic speech
recognition technology.
Slide 10
A recent survey suggested that video company profiles on YouTube
have more measurable impact than company profiles on Facebook,
LinkedIn, and other prominent sites.
Slide 11
There are a number of microblogging tools. All require short messages.
The most popular microblog is Twitter.
On Twitter, messages must be 140 characters or less.
Twitter has over 100 million registered users.
It’s getting 300,000 new users a day.
Users submit 600,000 million search queries a day to Twitter search
engines.
37% of users update their status on a mobile phone.
Twitter has many business uses, including
research
collaboration
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5. company updates
coupons and notice of sales
tips on product usage
information from experts
backchannel in meetings and presentations, and
customer service with individuals
Slide 12
Social networking and blogging sites are now the 4th most popular
activity online, even ahead of personal e-mail.
Slide 13
75% of Americans and 66% of the global Internet population visit social
networks.
Slide 14
93% of Americans believe that a company should have a presence on
social media sites.
85% believe that these companies should use these services to interact
with consumers.
Slide 15
Social media is not a fad.
It’s a fundamental shift in the way all of us communicate.
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6. Companies are no longer in control of their messages and must adapt
to a world in which customers and other stakeholders demand to
participate in and influence the conversation.
Slide 16
The old communication model was a monologue.
“We talk. You listen.”
Slide 17
The average person is exposed to an average of 3,000 advertising
messages a day.
But consumers aren’t listening anymore. Interruptive marketing has
seen its day.
Slide 18
The new communication model is a dialogue.
It should be transparent, authentic, vibrant, and consumer-driven.
Slide 19
In a social media environment, effective communication is no longer
about broadcasting a tightly controlled message but rather about
initiating conversations and participating in conversations started by
customers and other stakeholders.
Slide 20
This year Millenials/Gen Y-ers now outnumber Baby Boomers.
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7. Slide 21
Millenials spend 16 hours a week online.
96% have joined a social network.
They have an average of 53 online friends.
Slide 22
70% of them trust recommendations of consumers they don’t know.
90% of them trust recommendations by people they do know.
Slide 23
In short, they don’t care about ads or sales presentations.
They care about what their friends think.
Slide 24
Millenials/Gen Y-ers also expect to be able to use social media on the
job.
Slide 25
In applying what we’ve talked about so far, let’s take a look at the
Artisan Flavors Ice Cream Shop, a recently opened and independently
owned ice cream store with the ice cream made on the premises.
Here is an example of how a new business is using social media tools.
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8. Using YouTube and Vimeo, which are known as user-generated content
sites, the owner has posted videos of him making his unique flavors of
ice cream, including Cherry Pepper Chocolate Truffle, Mint Licorice
Delight, and Peach Mango Apricot.
Using iTunes, he’s posted podcasts describing how to make specialty
deserts with his ice cream, including using his peach/mango/apricot
layered with white cake and whipped cream.
Using PRNewswire to make announcements, such as the grand opening
of his store, the start of his new blog, and a donation of ice cream to
support a local charity.
Using Google Maps in conjunction with the store’s website, so people
can find their way to the store.
Using Flickr, another user-generated content site, to post photos of the
grand opening, including pictures of the store owner with local elected
city officials and many local residents.
Using Twitter to post status updates about events occurring in the
owner’s daily life that other people might find interesting, including
when a local grade school class made a field trip visit to see how ice
cream is made, when the mayor stopped by for a scoop, and when he
sold his 10,000th scoop of ice cream.
Using Facebook, on which he’s set up both a personal page and a page
for his business. More than 400 people have “Liked” his business page.
Numerous comments have been made on its wall, including requests
for new flavors. He’s also posted videos to his Facebook page taken in
the kitchen, and a list of upcoming events, such as a Summer
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9. Celebration Week for which people can download a coupon (buy one
scoop, get one free).
Using a blog, he’s listed it in major blog directories to get attention, got
a mention in his local online newspaper, and writes something in it at
least once a day that he thinks his readers will find interesting, such as
the workshop he attended at the National Ice Cream Association about
how to determine and cater to local tastes.
Using Yelp, his business is listed and he watches it regularly for
customer comments. Someone recently posted a negative comment
about his closing the store early one evening, and he responded by
explaining he needed some plumbing work done when the business
was closed, so he closed a little early one evening so the work could be
completed.
Slide 26
Other tools he’s considering using in the future include
 online presentations, such as SlideShare, where you can create a
PowerPoint presentation for anyone to see on how he makes his
ice cream;
 a customer service site, such as Crowdsound, where he could
easily gather customer feedback. Users can comment,
collaborate, and vote on his website;
 collaboration software, once he opens additional stores, he may
need a platform for capitalizing on his employees’ creativity, and
they could be part of a discussion. This could be especially helpful
in streamlining ideas from employees from how to improve store
operations to developing new flavors;
 for livecasting special events from his store, he could use
ustream.tv;
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10.  for store events, Zvents, which is an online service for promoting
local events;
 for communicating with employees and customers with texting,
instant messaging, and videoconferencing for free, there’s Yahoo
Messenger, Google Talk & Video Chat, or Skype.
Keep in mind that this owner has never spent any money on traditional
advertising, and has no plans to do so. He gets all of his business
through the use of social media, which is a demonstration of the power
of the new communication model we discussed earlier.
Slide 27
But not only is the communication model changing, what is being
taught in a typical business communication course should be changing,
too.
Slide 28
Memos and letters still have a role, to be sure, but they are being
replaced in many instances by a growing variety of electronic media.
Slide 29
These disruptive forces never stop, either. Some first-generation
electronic media are already be supplaned by new social media tools.
For example, in many instances microblogs, blogs, newsfeeds, and
social networking sites are replacing e-mail.
Slide 30
There are two fallacies about teaching social media and electronic
communication
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11. Slide 31
Fallacy #1: Instant messaging (IM), blogs, social networks, microblogs,
wikis, and other new media are social toys, not business tools.
Slide 32
A year or two ago, one might have asked, “Who is using these new
media?” Today, the question is more like, “Who isn’t.”
But large companies aren’t the only ones using social media. Here are
just a few examples of small companies using social media as well.
Slide 33
Chaz Day has a Facebook page for her company, Flame Promotions.
And Laurel Delaney is on Twitter promoting her global trade company,
GlobalTrade.com.
Slide 34
Fallacy #2: Students already know how to use all these new media, so
instructors don’t need to cover them in class.
Slide 35
Most students may know how to use these media, but only those with
significant work experience are likely to know how to use them in a
professional context. Students need to get practical advice on using all
of these media in ways that meet the expectations of the employers.
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12. Slide 36
Emphasizing the tools students will be expected to use on the job is
critical, but even that is only part of the story. Even more important
than the tools themselves is the profound shift that these tools have
enabled, which needs to be explained to students.
Slide 37
Businesses that stick with the old “we talk, you listen” mode of
unilateral communication increasingly find that nobody is willing to
listen anymore. So, to succeed in this new business environment,
business communicators must approach their tasks with a new
mindset, in addition to these new tools.
Slide 38
Echoing the shift from the Web’s 1.0’s unidirectional model to Web
2.0’s interactive, conversational model, Bovee & Thill call this new
approach Business Communication 2.0.
Slide 39
We encourage instructors to introduce students to this vitally
important way of thinking about communication, and instruct them in
the professional use of social media.
Slide 40
For the sake of instructors and students everywhere, we are pleased
that other textbooks are finally trying to catch up to the times with
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13. more coverage of the electronic media tools that have become central
to the practice of business communication.
However, many years of leading the market in presenting electronic
media usage have taught us that merely adding a chapter on electronic
media to a traditional textbook is not nearly enough. Electronic and
social media are pervasive in business today, so they need to be
thoroughly integrated in the business communication course. Just as
significantly, the fundamental changes wrought by new media need to
be integrated throughout the course as well, including the way social
media are changing the communication process, compositional modes,
relationships between senders and receivers, marketing strategies,
collaborative writing, oral presentations, job searches, and more.
For example, take the chapter on communicating in teams. For this
chapter to be current, it should be discussing social networking. It
should also be discussing wikis and having students develop their skills
with a wiki editor, which we provide on our website.
In the chapter on oral communication, we discuss using Twitter as a
backchannel during presentations. And in the chapter on resumes, we
discuss using Facebook and Twitter for finding a job.
We also teach students how to write a social media resume, which is
important for attracting hiring managers directly without the applicant
having to submit a resume to them blindly.
With a social media resume that includes various multimedia elements,
sharing options, integrated social networking feeds and the same
elements as in a traditional resume, the applicant is better equipped for
success.
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14. Social media is allowing job seekers to reverse the recruiting process.
Instead of submitting their resume, the resume becomes a billboard
that can be shared, distributed to hiring managers, searched and more.
It showcases applicants’ talents and what they’re looking for in a job,
and recruiters become attracted to it and will approach the job hunters
with the opportunities that they desire.
Slide 41
You students can succeed with written communication in social media
by using one of eight compositional modes when they write:
Conversations. IM in a great example of a written medium that mimics
spoken conversation. The ability to think, compose, and type relatively
quickly is important to maintaining the flow of an electronic
conversation.
Comments and critiques. One of the most powerful aspects of social
media is the opportunity for interested parties to express opinions and
provide feedback, whether it’s leaving comments on a blog post or
reviewing products on an e-commerce site. Sharing helpful tips and
insightful commentary is also a great way to build a personal brand. To
be an effective commenter, teach students to focus on short chunks of
information that a broad spectrum of other site visitors will find helpful.
Orientations. With vast amounts of information presented in so many
different formats, the Internet can be an extremely confusing place,
even for knowledgeable professionals. The ability to help people find
their way through an unfamiliar system or subject is a valuable writing
skill, and a talent that readers greatly appreciate. Unlike summaries,
orientations don’t give away the key points in the collection of
information but rather tell readers where to find those points. Writing
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15. effective orientations can be a delicate balancing act because you need
to know the material well enough to guide others through it while
being able to step back and view it from the inexperienced perspective
of a “newbie.”
Summaries. We teach students that summaries can serve several
purposes: At the beginning of an article or webpage, it serves as a
miniature version of the document. In other instances, the up-front
summary helps a reader decide whether to invest the time needed to
read the full document. At the end of an article or webpage, a summary
functions as a review.
Reference materials. One of the greatest benefits of the Internet is the
access is can provide to vast quantities of reference materials—
numerical or textual information that people typically don’t read in a
linear sense but rather search through to find particular data points,
trends, or other specific elements. One of the challenges of writing
reference material is you can’t always know how readers will want to
access it. Making the information accessible via search engine is an
important step. However, readers don’t always know which search
terms will yield the best results, so we teach students to include an
orientation and organize the material in logical ways with clear
headings that promote skimming.
Narratives. The storytelling techniques we cover can be effective in a
wide variety of situations, from company histories to product reviews
and demonstrations. We teach students that narratives work best when
they have an intriguing beginning that piques a reader’s curiosity, a
middle section that moves quickly through the challenges that an
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16. individual or company faced, and an inspiring or instructive ending that
gives readers information they can apply in their own lives and jobs.
Teasers. Teasers intentionally withhold key pieces of information as a
way to pull readers or listeners into a story or other document. Teasers
are widely used in marketing and sales messages, such as a bit of copy
on the outside of an envelope that promises important information on
the inside. In electronic media, the space limitations and URL linking
capabilities of Twitter and other microblogging systems make them a
natural tool for the teaser approach. While they can certainly be
effective, teasers need to be used sparely and with respect for readers’
time and intelligence. We teach students that the payoff, the
information a teaser links to, should be valuable and legitimate and
that they’ll quickly lose credibility if readers think they are being tricked
into clicking through to information they don’t really want.
Status updates and announcements. If a person uses social media
frequently, much of the writing will involve status updates and
announcements. We tell students that being mindful of a criticism
frequently leveled at personal users of social media will help them be a
more effective business user of these media—namely, don’t post trivial
information that only they are likely to find interesting. Post only those
updates that readers will find useful, and include only the information
they need.
Tutorials. Given the community nature of social media, the purpose of
many messages is to share how-to advice. One of the biggest challenges
with tutorials is gauging the level of understanding the target readers
have about the subject so the writing can be at the appropriate level.
Are the readers beginners, experts, or somewhere in between? In
addition, the writer needs to make assumptions clear so readers can
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17. tell if the information is right for them. A good place to do this is in the
titles, using phrases such as “getting started with” or “advanced
techniques for” to alert readers about the level of the tutorial.
Whatever level of information is provided, the advice needs to be clear,
complete, and logically organized.
Slide 42
Students need more than just brief descriptions of social media tools.
They need detailed illustrations with annotations so that they feel a
familiarity and a connection to the tools they’ll be using on the job.
Slide 43
An example of a social networking site is Biznik. It has a number of
photos of people, attention-getting headings, and brief description
statements. This is an example of interactive web content.
Keep in mind that businesses don’t invest time and money in social
networking simply to gain fans, of course. The ultimate goal is
profitable, sustainable relationships with customers, and attracting new
customers is one of the primary reasons businesses use networks and
other social media. However, the traditional notions of marketing and
selling need to be adapted to the social networking environment
because customers and potential customers don’t join a network
merely to be passive recipients of advertising messages. They want to
participate, to connect with fellow enthusiasts, to share knowledge
about products, to communicate with company insiders, and to
influence the decisions that affect the products they value. This notion
of interactive participation is the driving force behind conversation
marketing, in which companies initiate and facilitate conversations in a
networked community of customers and other interested parties.
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18. Slide 44
Active learning is important, and correlating with the textual material
and illustrations should be exercises and cases. In this case, the student
is asked to write brief statements including an introduction, to give a
short description of educational background, and to list the types of
connections he or she would like to make on a social network.
Slide 45
This example of a blog provides annotations on each side of the blog
page that explains to students the typical elements and structure of a
business blog.
Slide 46
The caption for this figure showing a blog explains how blogs
sometimes replace the traditional news release so a company can
control and distribute such messages themselves. The strategically
placed annotations provide advice for how to write blog posts.
Slide 47
As the caption explains, with the addition of video, blogging becomes a
true multimedia experience that gives bloggers an easy way to share
insights and sounds with their audiences.
Slide 48
Moblogs are blogs adapted for display on mobile devices such as
phones.
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19. Slide 49
Students should be provided with a wide variety of opportunities to
write blog posts through both cases and exercises. Here are just two
examples.
Slide 50
The caption for this figure showing a business instant message gives
sound advice to readers about not using an informal style that students
might use for family and friends. The annotations analyze the elements
of the instant messaging window as well as the content.
Slide 51
And here is an exercise that is an exchange by way of instant messaging
in which the student is asked to explain how the customer service agent
could have handled a situation more effectively.
Slide 52
And here is an instant messaging case that asks students to rewrite an
IM in a more businesslike style and tone.
Slide 53
In this case, students are asked to compose a message (which must be
160 characters or less, since it’s a text message) to colleagues at a trade
show.
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20. Slide 54
Students can learn from this example of the Public Relations Wiki the
features typically used to create and edit wiki pages.
Slide 55
But just showing a webpage of a wiki is not nearly enough. Students
should experience using a wiki. That’s why we offer on our website a
wiki simulator to give students hands-on experience using a real, live
wiki editor.
Slide 56
We suggest you should show the podcasting process, but then go a step
further by having your students listen to podcasts on our books’
websites so they can analyze and critique them for more in-depth
learning of the podcasting process.
Slide 57
We encourage instructors to assign students podcasting cases. In this
example, students are asked to revise the introduction of a podcast
script based on what they’ve learned in the electronic communication
chapter that includes a section on podcasting.
Slide 58
As I mentioned earlier, Twitter is the most popular microblogging tool,
but there are a number of others, including microblogging tools
specifically for business enterprises.
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21. Slide 59
Teach microblogging skills with cases, such as this example in which
students are asked to write an update to JebBlue’s Twitter fans about
fare auctions on eBay.
Slide 60
Students can expect to participate in many online meetings during their
careers. Web-based meeting systems offer powerful tools for
communication, and students need to be proficient at using these tools
to be effective during an online meeting.
Slide 61
Students should know that many companies are now using Second Life
as a virtual meeting place. This is an example of Cranial Tap, whose
online headquarters is shown here.
Slide 62
Teach students that videoconferencing provides many of the same
benefits as in-person meetings at a fraction of the cost. Advanced
systems feature telepresence, in which the video images are life-sized
and extremely realistic.
Slide 63
Today it’s common practice for students to prepare e-portfolios to tell
potential employers about their qualifications and skills.
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22. Slide 64
The cases you have your students complete should also be useful as
portfolio builders, an with this e-mail case, which is a potential example
for a student’s portfolio.
Slide 65
Students should be taught that shared workspaces, such as this
example from Microsoft’s Office Live Workspace system will give virtual
teams instant access to the documents, calendars, and other files and
information needed for successful collaboration.
Slide 66
Community Q&A sites, such as Yahoo Answers, are sites on which
visitors answer questions posted by other visitors, and they’re a
contemporary twist on the early stages of computer networking, which
was people helping each other. Community Q&A sites include
dedicated customer support communities such as those hosted on Get
Satisfaction, public sites such as Yahoo! Answers, and member-only
sites such as LinkedIn Answers.
Responding to questions on Q&A sites can be a great way for people to
build their personal brand, to demonstrate their company’s
commitment to customer service, and to counter misinformation about
their company and its products. Keep in mind that when a person
responds to an individual query on a community Q&A site, the
individual is also “responding in advance” to every person in the future
who comes to the site with the same question. In other words, the
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23. writer is writing a type of reference material in addition to
corresponding with the original questioner, so the writer should keep
the long timeframe and wider audience in mind.
Slide 67
Aggregators, sometimes called newsreaders, automatically collect
information that can be automatically published as blog posts.
Businesses are also now sending some messages to both internal and
external audiences via RSS newsfeeds instead of e-mail.
Slide 68
Audiences get involved in the communication process when they find
and recommend online content through tagging and bookmarking sites
such as Digg and Delicious.
Slide 69
Internets and blogs are now commonly used to distribute meeting
minutes.
Slide 70
In teaching your business communication course, show social media
and electronic communication by using online video, PowerPoints, and
podcasts to demonstrate these tools In action.
We have a feature we call “Learn More” that appears more than 50
times throughout Business Communication Today and Excellence in
Business Communication, and it will appear in the 5th edition of
Business Communication Essentials. Here are just two examples:
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24. Slide 71
All examples and illustrations of social media and electronic tools as
well as the exercises and cases shown in this presentation were taken
directly from Bovee & Thill’s business communication textbooks.
Slide 72
For a rich array of resources for teaching social media and electronic
communication, go to Business Communication Headline News, look
under “Categories” in the left-hand column, and select the topics in
which you’re interested.
www.businesscommunicationheadlinenews.com
Slide 73
For teaching tips and techniques, often about social media and
electronic communication, go to Bovee & Thill’s blog:
www.boveeandthillbusinesscommunication.com.
Slide 74
For more than 175 PowerPoint programs, many dealing with social
media and electronic communication, go to Real-Time Updates and
select “Instructor Media.” www.real-timeupdates.com
Slide 75
If you want to reach me, you can e-mail me at
cbovee@businesscommunicationblog.com.
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