1. Using Social Media to Support Press
and PR
Jamie Brown, Press and PR Manager

2. What we do at the moment?
• Twitter (salforduni) 1700+ followers
• Flickr (over 12,000 views)
• Eventful, Conference Alerts, Upcoming

3. Why use social media for PR?
- the push factor
“Manchester Evening News to cut 78 journalists' jobs”
Press Gazette, March 2009
“Twitter Has A Big Month, Grows To Over 8 Million U.S.
Users”
Social Times, March 2009

4. Why use social media for PR?
- the pull factors
• Enables a conversation
– ‘Please send me more details about this course’
– ‘Interesting event, but I’m not sure what it’s all about’
– ‘Why the f**k won’t anyone answer the phone @salforduni
• Reach a large audience
– ChapelStreetBG
@SalfordUni you're welcome: worth RTing again: All of
our Arts Unit events are now on the website. Have a look.
http://twurl.nl/qz5z2g

5. Why use social media for PR?
- the pull factors
• Reputation
– People are
talking about us
– We can join in,
influence, and
put our side

6. Set a tone – in pictures

7. Set a tone – in words
• For £4 you can see a pianist praised by the NY Times here on
26 January. http://twurl.nl/atnlts
• The end of major employer engagement project marked by
event 02/12. Find out how unis and business work together
• New year's resolution to learn more about human prehistory?
Start with this January lecture http://twurl.nl/ylscoq

8. Results?
• Created buzz around courses – and applications
• Filled events
• Got journalists interested in stories
• Delivered better customer service
• Reached large audiences which couldn’t be reached through
conventional media.

9. Drawbacks and considerations
• The conventional media is still more important for most people
• Social media should complement other forms of
communication
• We need to be more agile in our practices
• It’s not appropriate for all of our audiences

10. Next?
• Increased use across the University
– 34 Twitter accounts
– 21 blogs
• Collect all accounts and blogs on the main website
• Live Tweeting from University events
• Guidelines to be made available to all staff
• Keep an eye on what’s new!

11. Finally
• I’m making this up as I go along!
So:
– What are we doing well?
– Where are we going wrong?