Presentation at the Adelaide social media forum by Ben Osborne from the University of Adelaide, titled 'Using social media for community building and engagement'

1. Ben Osborne, Digital Content Coordinator / @benosborne17
Let’s get engaged: building a community
adelaide.edu.au

2. Who are we?
• Australia’s 3rd oldest uni
• 25,000+ students
• 3,000+ staff
• 130,000 alumni worldwide
University of Adelaide 2

3. Ranked in top 20 of Oz non-profit social media
http://bit.ly/TfK7jV
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4. What environment do we operate in?
• Competitive environments for
– recruiting both local and international students
– research funding, critical for an institution like ours
• Technology driving change at a rapid rate
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5. Consider a typical 1st year…
Born in 1994…

6. ...

7. What are we ‘selling’?
• A university degree is NOT the same as walking into a
shop, buying something, and walking out again
• Takes years of effort – we want to support them along
the way
• Customer service principles still apply:
– Listen
– Be helpful
– Respond in a timely manner
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8. Admission Student
Marketing Faculties IT HR
s Services
Alumni Corporate Internatio
Legal Schools
Comms nal
Un-silo social from marketing and sales
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9. Organising for social
http://www.slideshare.net/jeremiah_owyang/altimeter-webinar-state-of-the-
social-media-management-system-industry
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10. Social media ‘centre of excellence’
• Hub and Spoke model
• Dedicated, cross-functional group
• Provides:
– High-level strategic advice
– Governance
– Training
– Research
– Measurement frameworks
– Vendor selection
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11. So what is ‘engagement’, anyway?
• Response
• Listening
– Be a good listener as well as a good ‘talker’
• Timeliness
– Don’t leave it until tomorrow

12. Where are you going to engage?
• Can you be ‘everywhere’?
– Facebook
– Twitter
– Google+
– Instagram
– Pinterest
– LinkedIn
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13. Facebook
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14. Twitter
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15. Who are you?
• What does your organisation stand for?
• What are its values? What does it think is
important?
• Why are you using social media?
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16. It’s not about the numbers
• ‘’Likes/Followers’ are an ‘easy’ metric – but what do
they mean?
• Better off engaging with small numbers than not
engaging with many
• Your numbers will grow organically – don’t get
hung up on them
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17. Know Your Audience
• ‘Everyone’ is not an audience
• Use social media to communicate with your ‘core’
audiences really well
• It takes time to know and understand your audience
– Currrent students
– Alumni
– Staff
– Prospective students
– Government / industry / media
– Fellow unis
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18. Be a human – not a body
• Tone of voice
• Be conversational – avoid jargon
• Don’t take yourself too seriously
• Humour is tricky; don’t overdo it
• Acknowledge mistakes
• Sign-offs and personalisation: ^BO
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19. How to be contented?
• News
• Engagement
• Photos
• Videos
• Share

20. News
• Achievements of staff, students and alumni
• Media appearances
• Key dates (enrolments, conferences etc)

21. Engagement
• Designed to generate comments/interactivity
• Keep short, and related to your core business
• Facebook Polls allow questions to have many answers

22. Photos
• Humans love to look at themselves
• Take photos of faces AND activity
• Fuels the notion of ‘What did I miss out on?’

23. Videos
• Keep related to core business
• Users prefer a short, well-made video to just about
anything else on the web
• Can be costly in time and resources

24. Share
• ‘Share’ on FB, ‘retweet’ on Twitter
• Gives originators justified credit
• Shows you can not only ‘push’, but can ‘pull’ content
from your audiences

25. Responding to negative comments
• Deal with it
• DON’T DELETE
• Opportunity to turn negative into positive
• Take it offline if you have to
• Have a clear, straightforward ‘Page Policy’ that
makes

26. Comment or Posting
Social Media Comment and Response Protocol
On organization own website/network or a post on another site.
Is it a positive posting? Monitor Only
Avoid responding to specific
Evaluate post and people; monitor the
YES NO
site for relevant information and
comments.
“Trolls”
Concurrence YES
Is this a site dedicated to degrading or
A factual and well cited
ridiculing others?
response or opinion, which may
or may not agree, yet the post is
not negative. NO Fix the Facts
Respond with factual
Organization can concur with “Web Rage” information directly in the
the post, let it stand, or provide Is the posting a rant, rage, joke, or ridicule in nature? comment space.
(See the five possible
a positive review.
responses below.)
NO YES
Does Organization respond?
“Misguided” Restoration
Are there erroneous facts or statements in the posting?
Rectify the situation, respond
and act upon a reasonable
NO YES
solution.
(See the five possible
“Unhappy Stakeholder” responses below.)
YES NO
Is the posting a result of a negative experience?
Share Success NO Final Evaluation
Proactively share the story Base response on present circumstances, site
and/or additional NO Let Post Stand NO influence, and stakeholder prominence.
information. No response given. Will Organization respond?
YES Response Options & Combinations YES YES
Transparency Sourcing Timeliness Tone Influence
Disclose information Provide citations, links, Take time to create Respond in a tone that Focus on the most
and any affiliation to etc to credible sources good responses from a reflects on the high influential sites related
Organization for accuracy good point of view standards/quality to the industry

27. Timing / length
• Bare minimum of 30 minutes a day
– 10 morning
– 10 lunch
– 10 end-of-day
• Listen and monitor / show that you are around
• 120 characters or less (not 140) – people don’t want to
read a whole story, no matter how well written. Link to it
instead.
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28. Reaching out to alumni
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29. Maltesers on trains
http://bit.ly/Sgk5fe
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30. www.facebook.com/uniofadelaide
www.twitter.com/uniofadelaide
Questions?