This document provides guidance on effectively using social media by establishing goals, determining an active posting schedule, setting up social media integration and automated posting, creating engaging content like pictures and videos to share, interacting with other groups by commenting and sharing their posts, and analyzing social media metrics and demographics to improve outreach. Key recommendations include posting consistently several times a week, responding promptly to questions, targeting specific groups during campaigns, and using tools to track followers, reach, and popular content over time.

1. Effective Usage of Social Media

2. • Goals: • Active Days:
– Awareness – For Announcements:
– Understanding Tues. to Thur. (Not Mon.
– Participation – 1st workday) (Not Fri. –
start of weekend)
– Sharing
– For Articles: Weekends
– Action (people more likely to
take time to read)

3. • To Do (Setup):
– Integrate official website with social network(s).
– Make the website “Social-Media-Friendly”—allow “sharing”
capabilities
– If few people available to run, connect sites for automated posting
– If possible, have multiple people run multiple sites for better coverage
• To Do (Posts):
– Post consistently, but with time gaps to avoid subscribers seeing it as
“spamming”
– Post interesting, relevant, and/or recent/breaking news, articles,
videos, pictures, and websites
– “Pretty Pictures” and recent/breaking news get the most attention

4. • To Do (Interactions):
– Plural Posts—speak using “we” to give a team presence rather
than personal
– Connect with similar groups—tag them, like them, share them,
and they will reciprocate
– Respond to questions/comments promptly, thoroughly, and
nicely
– Reach out to specific locations/groups—Ex. After Japanese
Earthquake tragedy GaN observations continued to come in
from Japan. We recognized them and Facebook users shared
support.
– Expect greater reach/interaction during “campaign” periods—
post and respond accordingly

5. Finding Posts:
• Vimeo & YouTube (exciting videos!) - vimeo.com & www.youtube.com
• Google Alerts - www.google.com/alerts
Google Alerts
Advantages –
• Easy to setup
• Check each day
• Organization meant
for a quick look
• Time-saver
• Google does the
work for you!
Disadvantages –
• Can fill up inbox
• “Junk” news

6. Twitter – Wordle (Most words used) – www.wordle.net
Data source: @GLOBEatNight twitter August 2012

7. Facebook Insights Total Facebook Likes
2500
• View statistics quickly
and easily
• Determine what 2000
posts are
popular/unpopular
• Download data to 1500
perform studies on
the site’s success
• Simply click “Export
1000
Data” and load it into
an excel (or preferred
program) to analyze
500
Data Source: GLOBE at
0
Night facebook account 1/1/12 2/1/12 3/1/12 4/1/12 5/1/12 6/1/12 7/1/12
August 2012

8. www.twittercounter.com - Increase of twitter followers from Feb – Jul 2012
Data source: @GLOBEatNight twitter August 2012

9. Facebook – Demographics and Location Twitter – www.peoplebrowsr.com
Data Source: GLOBE at Night facebook account August 2012 Data source: @GLOBEatNight twitter August 2012

10. Facebook Insights
Data Source: GLOBE at Night facebook account August 2012
300000
Reach – 797,203 friends of fans,
up from 500,000 at time of abstract
250000
200000
Total Reach
150000
Total Impressions
Total Impressions of your posts
100000
50000
0
1/1/12 2/1/12 3/1/12 4/1/12 5/1/12 6/1/12 7/1/12

11. Image Credit: William Boyd Watterson, Calvin & Hobbes Comic strip
Take 1, 30 June 2012! GLOBE at Night facebook: 598 Shares, 333 Likes, 12 Comments
Take 2, 23 July 2012! IDA facebook: 286 Shares, 329 Likes, 25 Comments