WEB AND SOCIAL MEDIA STRATEGYWhy and How… to be Awesome!

Max Spiegel

WEB AND SOCIAL MEDIA STRATEGY

WEB AND SOCIAL MEDIA STRATEGY

Max Spiegel

WHY THE WEB?

Premature question.

Who are we and why are we here?What is our organizational structure?What is our goal?What is our communication strategy?Who is our audience?What is our message?

WHAT IS OUR PURPOSE?

THE WEB AND SOCIAL MEDIA ARE ONLY DELIVERY MECHANISMS

MissionThe mission of Penn State’s College of Agricultural Sciences is to discover, integrate, translate, and disseminate knowledge to enhance the food and agricultural system, natural resources and environmental stewardship, and economic and social well-being, thereby improving the lives of people in Pennsylvania, the nation, and the world.

Strategic Initiatives• Entrepreneurship• Pest Prediction and

Response• Water• Energy• Food, Diet and Health

Goals• Increase Student

Enrollment, Enhance Student Success

• Enhance Knowledge Discovery and Translation

• Strengthen

Communication with and Education of Stakeholders

Strategic Challenges/Advantages• Identify Priorities• Enhance Collaboration

Within and Outside the College

• Network Development• Public Education

WHY THE WEB?

• Primary discovery platform• The Web is the first "campus" viewed (43%)• Cost effective delivery compared to traditional methods• Instant feedback• Two way street The Web should be integral to any communications strategy.

WHY SOCIAL MEDIA?• Primary discovery platform• Facebook Page is the first "campus" viewed (Growing Fast)• Cost effective delivery compared to traditional methods• Instant feedback• Two way street• A person is more likely to trust the word of a complete stranger

than the company selling the product.

• and…

600

15% bump

What can the Web do for you?

• Push your content (active, not passive)• Capture your audience• Increase enrollment• Engage your Alumni• Promote Ag Awareness• Communicate to your stakeholders• Promote your research• Highlight your faculty

1.Public Relations2.Marketing3.Customer Service4.Research

If You Build It Will They Come?• Do we place a yellow page ad then ask what we

can do to get people to look at it?

– People Must Be Looking For It.– Search Engine Optimization (SEO)– Pay Per Click Advertisement (Google)– Internal Ads (Facebook, LinkedIn)

– Diligence & Patience

SOCIAL MEDIA = WEB 2.0• What is it… really?• What do you use it for?• How does it work?

Web 1.0 vs. Web 2.0Web 1.0

Web as InformationBillboard or Postcard

Web 2.0 Web as Participation

CommunicationInformation SharingCollaborationNetworking

Web 2.0 Toolsets

Sharing

oas-ram 4/22/2008

1.Facebook2.???3.Profit

600

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3SuNx0UrnEo

QUESTIONS?

WHAT IS YOUR VALUE?

What sets you apart?What do others say about you?What are your successes?How have you helped customers?What do you do best?

SETTING YOUR GOALS

To inform?To build a community?To gain valuable market research?To reduce customer service costs?To reach a broad audience with a message?To increase student enrollment?To conduct e-commerce?To increase brand awareness?

To brand your company?To attract attention?To build trust?To reduce paperwork?To reduce printing and mailing costs?To pre-qualify leads?To recruit new employees?To decrease call volume?

ONLY 3 TRUE BUSINESS GOALS

Source: Social Media Metrics, Jim Sterne

Raise Revenue

Lower Costs

Increase Customer Satisfacti

on

WHO IS YOUR AUDIENCE?• Prospective students• Prospective faculty• Current students• Alumni & friends• Legislative contacts• Industry partners• General public

• Traffic Metrics• Google Analytics

• Transaction Metrics• Conversion Tracking

• Organizational Metrics• The Books

HOW WILL YOU MEASURE YOUR PERFORMANCE?

REPUTATION MANAGEMENT

How to Behave• Old rules still apply. • Know the room• Look Appropriate• Sound Smart• Observe and Adjust• Make a Connection• Brag Modestly• Be Interesting

Twitter Good Practices

Follow those who you want to follow you Cross link your efforts

Tweet about a YouTube video you uploaded or the Blog you posted

Be welcoming & friendly - say hello to your new followers or folks that you would like to get to know.

Engage people - ask questions and respond to queries that interest you.

Be humorous - funny Tweets really help to break up the timeline.

Inform - provide useful information and news items. Monitor self-promotion - it is fine to promote your projects

and work, but nobody likes to be spammed all day Promote others - “retweet” liberally and highlight good work. Listen - there’s no need to dominate the conversation all the

time, so spend some time just reading what others are saying/Tweeting.

Be human - not always obvious but most important, being a “real” person is probably the most important trait of any effective Twitter user.

Search – search.twitter.com has all the answers. What hashtag do aerospace engineers use?

Starting a Blog

Writing a Blog– Make your opinion known– Link like crazy– Write less– 250 Words is enough– Make headlines snappy– Write with passion– Include bullet point lists– Edit your post– Make your posts easy to scan– Be consistent with your style– Litter the post with keywords

Managing a Blog• Bloggers Code of Conduct

– Take responsibility not just for your own words, but for the comments you allow on your blog.

– Label your tolerance level for abusive comments.– Consider eliminating anonymous comments.– Ignore the trolls.– Take the conversation offline, and talk directly, or find an

intermediary who can do so.– If you know someone who is behaving badly, tell them so.– Don't say anything online that you wouldn't say in person.

Measuring Blogs

RSS click-throughs # of subscribers # of comments

Use Feedburner for RSS – integrates automatically with Google Analytics.

Feedburner Stats

oas-ram 4/22/2008

All together now.

• Web• Blog• Facebook• Twitter• YouTube• Sharing• Peer Pressure• RSS Feed• Email

http://agsci.psu.edu/thinkagain/blog/2010/cellar-market

If You Build It Will They Come?• Do we place a yellow page ad then ask what we

can do to get people to look at it?

– People Must Be Looking For It.– Cross promotion (don’t be afraid to take it offline)– Search Engine Optimization (SEO)– Pay Per Click Advertisement (Google)– Internal Ads (Facebook, YouTube)

– Diligence & Patience

• Traffic Metrics• Google Analytics

• Transaction Metrics• Conversion Tracking

• Organizational Metrics• The Books

HOW WILL YOU MEASURE YOUR PERFORMANCE?

• How many people are visiting your site? • Where are they coming from? • What sites are linking and bringing traffic to your

website? • What keywords do visitors use in the search

engines to find your site? • How long are they staying in your site?

TRAFFIC METRICS

Pageviews From Social Media

MANY WAYS TO MEASURE SOCIAL MEDIA

Fans Followers Friends Growth rate Rate of virality Change of virality rates over

time Embeds/installs Downloads Uploads User-initiated views (videos) Ratio of embeds to views Likes/favorites Comments

Ratings Social bookmarks Subscriptions Pageviews % of videos viewed Polls taken/votes received Brand association Exposures of virtual gifts

given Relative popularity of content Tags added Content shared # of user-generated

submissions Source: Social Media Metrics, Jim Sterne

A silver bullet doesn't exist.

There is no one metric, one tool, one awesome, ridiculous app that we can use.

It doesn't exist.

Most social media analytics is manual.

MANY WAYS TO MEASURE SOCIAL MEDIA

Social Media Performance Indicators

Increase brand awareness: # of brand mentions (# of positive brand

mentions) # of “likes” of school/unit Facebook page/new

followers # of new traffic to website from social media

sources

Increase student enrollment New click-throughs from social media sources % conversions from social media referrers % increase in student enrollment

Decrease helpdesk call volume # subscribers % volume decrease % tickets resolved using social media

Monitoring - Sentiment

TRANSACTION METRICSOnline Food Safety Class Google Ad• 1,508 clicks on 168,581 views for a cost-per-click

of $0.27 and a total expense of $398.28. • The ads directly caused a 668% increase in web

visits• 79% of the Web traffic was from the ads. • 44 people clicked the "Register Now" button• 400% increase in enrollment.

ORGANIZATIONAL METRICS

• Increase in prospects• Increase in average consumer satisfaction• Decreased support calls• More enrollment• Increased newsletter subscriptions or completed

surveys

MAX SPIEGEL

MaxSpiegel@psu.eduhttp://agsci.psu.edu/directory/mds118Twitter.com/MaxSpiegelLinkedIn.com/in/MaxSpiegelFacebook.com/MaxSpiegel

Helpful ResourcesPenn State Ag Sciences Web Best Practices and Web Strategyhttp://agsci.psu.edu/communications/web/best-practices http://agsci.psu.edu/communications/web/strategy

Writing for the Webhttp://www.useit.com/papers/webwriting/

Quickstart Guide to Social Mediahttp://www.b2bento.com/infographic-quickstart-guide-to-social-media-for-business/

Web and Social Media Industry News and Tipshttp://mashable.com/