NWACUHO Social Media Toolkit For Beginners

Transcription

1 NWACUHO Social Media Toolkit For Beginners Communications Taskforce

2 Purpose: The purpose of this toolkit is to explain how social media can add value to your work, introduce you to the various social media platforms predominantly used by our region, provide ideas and tips on how to make the most of your social media experience and connect with other members, and to explore social media etiquette. Why is Social Media a valuable tool? Social media allows us to connect with one another in an interactive format, while also sharing and being exposed to new resources that relates to both our work and personal interests. We can have open conversations with a colleague on the other side of the country, while also making information available to others who may be interested in the discussion. We can easily facilitate networking connections between colleagues thereby enhancing the communities in which we work.

3 Introduction to Platforms Twitter Twitter is a personal and/or professional networking and sharing platform that limits your posts to 140 characters. The character limit forces you to be succinct and to get your point across quickly. Twitter allows you to connect with other people, brands, organizations, or places. A tweet: a post Handle (@yourhandle): your username on twitter and a way for other users to link you in their tweets Followers: those who have subscribed to follow the tweets or retweets you post A retweet (RT): when someone re-posts or shares someone else s tweet with their followers A hashtag (#): a digital marker that makes keywords in your posts more search-friendly or connects your tweets with a greater conversation A direct message (DM): allows you to send someone a private message

4 Make the most out of your Twitter experience: Be active! Connect with other users, contribute to the discourse, and maintain an authentic presence. Develop your profile. Your profile is the starting point in creating your Twitter brand. Using a professional picture, linking a website, and composing a bio that speaks to both your professional and personal interests may be the difference between someone choosing to follow you or passing you by. Use hashtags. Hashtags help to connect you with larger conversations and draw other users to your account. They can be helpful in soliciting answers to questions you pose on your account and making you visible to more users. Respond and thank. If someone takes the time to share their thoughts, retweet something you ve posted, or ask you a question, be sure to respond and thank them for their assistance or interest. Ways to use it: For quick updates, questions, or resource To share resources related to your field or interests To respond to brief inquiries Supporting, connecting with, and referring students, department or campus partners, colleagues, organizations, and companies Connecting with other Housing programs and associations across North America

5 Facebook Facebook is the world s leading social media platform and as such, can be a useful resource to maintain and develop your network. With ever-expanding functions, Facebook offers a number of ways to connect with not only friends and family, but also colleagues and students. NWACUHO Definitions: Your status: a post. This is a way of sharing what s on your mind, updating friends on what s going on in your life, or sharing articles or resources. Your friends: your friends are the connections you make on Facebook. By friending another individual, or agreeing to be friends with someone on Facebook, you are allowing shared access to one anothers profile pages. Through privacy settings, you can control what parts of your profile and your posts each friend can see. Your newsfeed: statuses, shared articles, and other content that is updated by the number of likes (popularity) and time of posts on your Facebook home page Your timeline: a chronological history of your own statuses, shared articles or posts, and other activities on Facebook on your Facebook profile page. Like button: Facebook offers the option of favoring or showing approval/excitement for statuses, articles, posts or other activities that your friends share by clicking the like button. By liking the NWACUHO page, or any other page, you become a fan. In doing so, you are able to receive updates about the association. Share button: Similar to the like button, you can share articles or other posts from another user to your own profile, while still crediting the original source, by clicking the share button. Your inbox: Your inbox is where you can access any private messages other users send you, which is useful for conversations you may not want all your friends to have access to. Group-messaging is also enabled. Page: A page is similar to a profile but is intended for a business, organization or other entity that is not an individual. For example, NWACUHO has a page on Facebook ( on which we share updates and resources, and through which colleagues can connect with one another.

6 Make the most out of your Facebook experience: Be active! Connect with others, like pages of organizations or businesses you are part of or otherwise support, share articles you find interesting, and support other users. Develop your profile. Similar to Twitter, your profile is the starting point in creating your personal brand. Use a profile picture that is fun and appropriate, but also conveys a your authentic self; update your personal information, and posting information you think others may want to read because it genuinely interests you are all ways of developing your profile. If you work directly with students, consider developing a page or account for your department. This may first involve developing a Social Media Strategy for your department, but is a great tool to connect with students on a platform that they understand and actively use. Like NWACUHO page on Facebook to immediately connect with other members of our region! Ways to use it: Connect with people on both a personal and professional level. Friending colleagues on Facebook can help others understand who you are and what your interests are beyond your profession which can in turn help with developing your professional and social network. Recognizing that this platform is often used as a means to share more personal thoughts, photos, and information, not everyone may be comfortable adding colleagues or students as friends on Facebook. That s okay. You may want to consider developing a LinkedIn profile instead in order to connect with these individuals online.

7 LinkedIn LinkedIn is a networking website that provides an easy way to keep up with professional contacts (and their contact info) without maintaining a huge contact database. It provides an alternative to friending students or colleagues on Facebook, keeping your professional network professional. Higher Education is the 3rd largest industry on LinkedIn with 1.95 million users (out of 200 million in January 2013) It has been enhanced with plug-ins to meet the needs of higher education and industry professionals alike, so you can upload presentations, PDFs, link your Twitter or Facebook account, and link to other professionals you ve worked with on committees or projects. Definitions: Newsfeed - updates, articles, or other content that is updated chronologically on your home page on LinkedIn Connections - your contacts that you know and connect with on LinkedIn. LinkedIn will also suggest new contacts based on who your contacts are connected with, so you can be connected with those in your field or interest area (think 6 degrees of Kevin Bacon) Network - your total connections on LinkedIn Suggestions - LinkedIn will suggest jobs (based on your profile details), groups (based on your profile and network details), and new members to connect with (from your current and past schools or jobs)

8 Make the most out of your Linked In experience: Use a professional photo for your profile. Add any websites you maintain with descriptions Add Honors, Awards, Projects, and other items that don t always make it to your paper resume due to length restrictions o Honors & Awards allow you to list how you were selected - application vs. nomination can matter o Add a link to any work that you can, and link any team members who are on LinkedIn Use SlideShare to upload any presentations you give that you want your network to see. Give recommendations for your connections. Be authentic and generous with these recommendations, but be cautious if you don t know the person well, or if your profile starts to look like you only recommend others to receive recommendations. Add LinkedIn to your business card or signature, especially for conferences, presentations, or working with others in your campus or field. Ways to use it: Use it as your online resume, adding your experiences, committees, projects, education, and accomplishments. Reflect on the way you wish others to see and interact with you, and develop your profile accordingly. Include a picture so that others not only have faith that they are connecting with a real person, but also feel more comfortable interacting with you. To reconnect or form new connections with any current or past companies, schools, associations, organizations, or colleagues with which you have been affiliated To connect with those that you wouldn t friend on Facebook or other more personal sites Network with those in similar fields or positions within LinkedIn groups or alumni associations. Add the Publications section on your profile, and depending on your position, consider placing this section above education and experience. Link to the publisher to allow downloads, and use the article summary from the publisher Include coauthors who are on LinkedIn with a link, but they cannot be listed in publication order

9 Social Media Use & Etiquette Be honest, transparent, and authentic. Share views that are your own and present yourself in a way that reflects who you are - both professionally and personally. It would be difficult to maintain a facade of yourself, and why would you want to? Your online profile should reflect who you are offline so that when colleagues choose to friend you on Facebook, for example, there isn t a significant disconnect between your Facebook persona and the person with which they are familiar. Be active and consistent. In order to solicit and maintain interest in your profiles, you need to use them! If you are committing to create a Twitter account for yourself, for example, your last tweet shouldn t be from three months ago. This sends the message to prospective followers that you do not update your account frequently (which would seem to be an accurate assumption) and that you may not be worth a follow if you aren t contributing useful information to their newsfeed. Instead, dedicate a consistent time to read a few articles and share them along with a brief reflection or personal thought. Consider sharing a picture of a creative new program that you re involved in or take time each week to respond to discussions happening through hashtags such as #SAChat or #reslife. This way, you are contributing consistent content that people are interested in interacting with. Be supportive. Share content, while crediting the original source. Encourage interesting and unique initiatives others are taking on. Comment, like, favourite, and respond to others posts. These are all ways to maintain connections within your network and to keep them current.

10 Resources For a more detailed How To guide to facebook, including event and page development, branding, and other functions, take a look at this round up: Weekly tutorials and webinars from the basics of how to use LinkedIn to enhancing your presence on this platform: Since brevity is often important on social media, using a site such as Tinyurl can help to shorten the character length of website links you wish to share: Statistics from