This document summarizes key topics from a class on best practices in social media for communications professionals, including platforms like Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube. It discusses how social media can generate awareness, engagement, influence, and motivate action. Facebook is highlighted as the largest social network with over 1 billion users but notes it is constantly changing and that users are the product while advertisers are the customers. The challenges of measuring return on investment from social media are also addressed. Guest speakers for an upcoming class meeting are listed.

1. Instructor:
Erik Deutsch (@erikdeutsch)
#UCLAx425
Best Practices in Social Media
for the Communications
Professional
UCLA X425 Spring 2014
Meeting 2 (April 22):
Key Platforms
Nothing is “Off-the-Record”
Can Social Media Replace Traditional
Websites?
Overcoming Fear
ROI
The PR Pro’s “Social Media ToolKit”
Do You Need a Social Media Policy?
Guest speakers:
Corianda Dimes (@corianda)
Digital Manager, Golin Harris
Andy Sternberg (@andysternberg)
Multimedia Content Program Director

2. Social Media is:
• Easy to post
• Easy to share
• Easy to find
• Hard (if not impossible) to delete
UCLA X425 Spring 2014

3. 1. Personal Profiles
2. Groups
3. Brand Pages
UCLA X425 Spring 2014

4. Facebook “Customers”
vs. Facebook “Users”
Advertisers are Facebook’s
“customers”
Users are “the product”
UCLA X425 Spring 2014

5. UCLA X425 Spring 2014

6. • Easy set up and maintenance
• Quickly upload all types of information
• Inherently viral platform
• People login EVERY DAY!
• 1 BILLION strong (“fish where the fish are”)
UCLA X425 Spring 2014

7. • Facebook is always changing
• Ownership -- Facebook controls access and can
change the rules
• Provides limited SEO benefit
• Facebook doesn’t provide fan contact information
• Not everyone is on Facebook (though fan pages
are public)
UCLA X425 Spring 2014

8. • Newsfeed “improvements” (“sponsored” posts)
• Edgerank algorythm (affinity, weight and recency)
• Facebook insights (publisher analytics)
• Subscribe to brand pages
User experience vs. monetization... again, users are the product,
advertisers are the customer.
UCLA X425 Spring 2014

9. • Quality over quantity.
• Shorter posts (to generate more engagement).
• Provide a link (and hashtag)
• Ask questions (to ignite a dialogue).
• Use photos, links and videos (for higher edgegrank).
• Get creative.
UCLA X425 Spring 2014

10. UCLA X425 Spring 2014
1. General status updates (share info / links)
2. The Retweet (RT and MT)
3. The @Mention
4. The @Reply
5. Direct Messages (DM)
6. Hashtag tweet (#)

11. UCLA X425 Spring 2014
Tweet Structure
Dissecting the semantics of a tweet gives us a sense
of best practice, but keep in mind this isn't a
one-size-fits-all deal. Keep it real and get in
your own groove.
Start with:
- Headline or phrase
- Link
- Hashtag - using tags that influencers use to get
noticed in those niche circles

12. UCLA X425 Spring 2014
• Tweets with image links have 5 times the engagement rate
• More than 20 million fake Twitter users, and 44 percent of
users have never sent a single tweet
• The cost of a 24 hour promoted trend runs about $200
thousand
• Katy Perry is the queen of Twitter over 51 million followers
surpassing Justin
• 15. Ellen’s photo of Hollywood stars at Oscars with an
incredible 3.4 million retweets
Vai JeffBullas.com

13. UCLA X425 Spring 2014
• YouTube – Video Sharing/Storytelling
• Flickr and Instagram– Photo Sharing
• Pinterest – Scrapbooking
• LinkedIn – Professional Networking
• Foursquare – Geolocation
• Google+ - Facebook Competitor
(“Hangouts”)

14. FEAR!!!
What are companies afraid of:
1. Social media hurts employee productivity
2. Our customers don't use social media
3. People can say mean things about us
UCLA X425 Spring 2014

15. UCLA X425 Spring 2014
• Generate awareness
• Increase engagement
• Increase influence
• Motivate action
(purchases, leads, etc.)

16. UCLA X425 Spring 2014
• Awareness - Website visitors, page views,
fans/followers, etc. (tangible metrics)
• Engagement - Comments (blog, Facebook),
retweets, time spent on the website, etc.
• Influence - Third-party mentions, inbound links, etc.
• Action - Conversions, sign-ups, downloads,

17. UCLA X425 Spring 2014
Andy Sternberg (@andysternberg)
Social Media/Interactive Content Producer
Corianda Dimes (@corianda)
Digital Manager, Golin Harris
Meeting 2 (April 22) Guest Speakers: