Social media allows for content creation and sharing of interests online through tools requiring little technical knowledge like social networks, blogs, wikis, and photo and video sharing sites. Companies need to monitor social media for conversations about their organization to understand what people are saying and how to respond. Vanderbilt is exploring using social media like Facebook, Flickr, and blogs, but needs secure options that comply with privacy laws to allow online collaboration and sharing of information. Student blogs have been successful at telling their stories.

1. Social Media in the Workplace Melanie Moran Vanderbilt Webspiders May 23, 2008

2. What is social media / Web 2.0? Digital tools and services that allow content creation with little to no technical knowledge Consumer-created content Personal profiles Shared interests / online communities Mashing together peoples’ work Driven by RSS

3. Social networks Facebook MySpace YouTube Flickr Blogs LinkedIn Del.icio.us Twitter Friendster Wikis Second Life And on and on…

4. “Join the conversation” Dozens / hundreds / thousands of conversations taking place every day online about your organization Who is talking? Who is listening? What are they saying? What are you saying in response? Examples: Dell, Comcast, American Red Cross

5. Twitter Immediate, brief, global Social messaging Mobile Mini, constant blog Increasing news use Learn more from Common Craft Let’s look...

6. How is social media being used at Vanderbilt? Facebook Flickr RSS feeds Blogs YouTube What are you doing?

7. Group Discussion We need: Secure online collaboration options and infrastructure Protect proprietary info. Comply with HIPPA Easily offer version control Reduce e-mail attachments Possibilities: SharePoint (ITS offers, Microsoft only), Subversion, BaseCamp, Groove

8. Group Discussion (cont’d) Success with blogs on campus - students telling their stories: credible and authentic http://peabloggy.wordpress.com http://www.owenbloggers.com Don’t be afraid of negative comments - use these to improve Explore analytics to justify use of these tools

9. Group Discussion (cont’d) Changing public relations / communications paradigm: many-to-many rather than one-to-many Third party apps okay? Some using tools such as Feedburner with success; satisfied privacy issues are covered (for now!). Need for university privacy policy?