Presentation for The Association of Boarding Schools.

1. SOCIAL MEDIA
STRATEGY
Pre-Conference Workshop
December 1, 2011
TABS Conference Boston

2. Social Media Audit
• Content Audit
• What are you sharing? Why are you sharing it? When are you
sharing it?
• Branding Audit
• Are my profiles complete? Well branded? Consistent?
• Integration Audit
• Are you integrating social media profiles? Are you thinking about
online to offline content?
• Measurement Audit
• What do you measure? How do you share success?
• Overall Management
• How much time to you put in? What are the results?

3. Simple Audit Review of TABS sites
• Homepages
• Did the school‟s homepage have social links?
• Did I immediately understand what the links were for?
• Were the links up to date and functional? Did they display well?

4. Facebook
• Where did the Homepage link take me?
• Are there multiple pages for different school components?
• Has the school “claimed” the business page?
• Is the “info” tab up to date?
• Are there tabs with no content?
• What kind of community is happening there?
• What has the page „liked‟?
• What kind of FBML pages are there?

5. Poll: which email contact is best?
a) admissions@farragut.org
b) info@ashbury.ca
c) No email address
d) webmaster@fuma.org
e) communications@fvs.edu
f) alumni@mxschool.edu

6. Twitter
• Does the brand/icon look like other brands/icons?
• Are the tweets primarily a feed from Facebook?
• Is there an unusual balance of followers/following?
• Are there quiet periods with no tweets? Long updates?
• Does the school have multiple accounts with limited
traction?
• Are there retweets, replies, favorited tweets?

7. Two Twitter Examples
All updates over 140 characters or
“long updates” Over a year lapse in tweeting

8. LinkedIn
• Who is the community for?
• Who manages the community? Staff? Alumni?
• Is there any activity or communication?
• Has the “company” page been “claimed?”
• Who is following the school?

9. One LinkedIn Example

10. Foursquare
• Did you know people were checking in to your school?
• Have you “claimed” the location?
• Are there any suggestions or tips?
• Is this the mayor of your school?

11. Sloppy Mistakes in Social Media
• Not having social media links from your home page.
• Not managing your brand well.
• Failing to use accounts you set up.
• Not “claiming” your accounts. (including Google+)
• Noticeable gaps in content delivery.
• Updates without content context (links, photographs).
• Failing to engage the community
(asking for comments, retweets, likes, etc.)

12. Planning & Strategy
Christine Tempesta

13. Define Your Goals
• How does social media fit with your other
communications?
• How will the content complement or differ from the content
on your web site?
• Do you want to engage? Or just broadcast?

14. Listen to your Audience
• Who is your audience? What do they find compelling?
• Are they active in existing social media communities?
“Listen” to others conversations.
• What tone are you using? Your tone should reflect the
expectations of your audience. Content contributors will
have their own tone. It‟s ok to be less formal.
• BUT, remember what you say will represent your
school and its brand.

15. Plan
• How frequently will you publish? You‟ll need to define a
plan for maintaining your Twitter feed, Facebook page or
blog, especially if your staff resources are limited.
• How will you distribute the work among colleagues or
volunteers?
• What kind of tools will you use to schedule updates, track
results, and create metrics?

16. Best Times/days to Post
Here are a few key takeaways from Dan
Zarrella, HubSpot's Social Media Scientist:
• The best time to tweet is 5PM ET
• 1 to 4 tweets per hour is ideal
• The best days to tweet are midweek and on the
weekends
• The best day to share on Facebook is Saturday
• The best time to share on Facebook is Noon ET

17. A Shared Delivery Approach
• Consider having multiple administrators of
pages/accounts
• Divide responsibility by area expertise, by date, or by community
• Train the administrators and give them clear expectations of what
to do (and what not to do)
• Utilize unusual suspects – students may be excellent
bloggers, support staff might enjoy tweeting.
• Explain how you expect personal accounts to be used, before you
encourage cross promotion.
• Be willing to give up a little control, but monitor and reward
regularly.

18. Promote
• Cross-promote: “like” and “follow” other school pages and
accounts.
• Include links/buttons/icons on email communications, web
site and print materials.
• Add “share” buttons to encourage people to share your
content.
• Use feeds from your Twitter or Facebook pages to
populate content areas on your site.
• Create trackbacks by commenting, retweeting.
• Consider Facebook Ads.
• Use and promote hashtags.

19. Measure
• Review your goals and focus on measurements most
meaningful to you.
• Number of followers/likes (careful, may not represent engagement)
• Number and quality of interactions with followers including
likes, comments, tweets
• Number of posts per week
• Use tools provided to help you aggregate and analyze
your data
• Evaluate regularly (audit quarterly) and make adjustments

20. Stay Current
• As you gain new insights, determine how to incorporate
them in to your strategy.
• Learn to be agile. Don‟t invest all into one technology.
Consider how new products/approaches fit into your
overall strategy.
• You don‟t always have to be an early adopter. It is
sometimes wise to watch others and learn.
• Don‟t make assumptions that products other schools have
used will automatically address your needs.

21. Resources
• TABS School Facing and Family Facing Media Guides
These guides illustrate how you can use the TABS social media
presence to enhance your own.
• How to Position your Social Content from Peter Baron
http://www.slideshare.net/edsocialmedia/how-to-position-your-social-
content
• CASE Social Media White Papers
http://case.org/Publications_and_Products/White_Papers_and_Repo
rts/WP_SocialMedia.html
• Mashable Social Media
http://mashable.com/social-media/

22. Resources
• EdSocial Media
http://www.edsocialmedia.com/
• Two links with blog and article resources:
http://www.delicious.com/stacks/view/Q0vzzI
http://www.delicious.com/stacks/view/T3IkA9

23. Questions?
Christine L. Tempesta
Director, Strategic Initiatives
MIT Alumni Association
Phone: 617-253-8222
Email: tempesta@mit.edu
Twitter: http://twitter.com/ctempesta
Linked In:
http://www.linkedin.com/in/christinetempesta1

24. SOCIAL MEDIA
STRATEGY
Pre-Conference Workshop
December 1, 2011
TABS Conference Boston