To Tweet or Not to Tweet:Using Social Media Well

Agenda– Policy– Our Strategy– Best Practices – Case Examples – Twitter 101– Measuring Success– Sticky Situations

How UNMC PR Does It― Typically post once or twice a day― Vary our posts w/ links, photos, video and Qs― Mix it up w/ different times of day/weekends― Put ourselves in their shoes

Social Media is a Lot like a Bar― Everybody knows your name― Administrators are the bartenders― Nobody really likes Cliff Clavin― People shouldn’t just walk in and start talking about themselves

There Are No Rules…Just the “Be’s”

― Be Transparent― Be Relevant― Be Timely― Be Brief

Dos and Don’ts― Don’t be a brand on a soapbox.― Do listen and respond to both positive and negative comments― Don’t censor people unless absolutely necessary― Do get to know your audience― Do ask for feedback― Don’t forget to update frequently― Do bring a personality and a voice

OK, So There is One Rule: 70/20/10― 70% of your content should not be about you at all – it should be about information that is of real value, interest or use to your audience. It could be articles from a magazine that are not about you, but are just important to your audience. ― 20% should just be interacting – back and forth conversation about anything. It’s showing that you are actually a human being behind your account.― About 10% can be hard-core promotional.

Twitter 101― Twitter handle: Your name and it is how people “tag” you. @unmc is our Twitter handle.― Tagging lets you identify and reference people in photos, videos and notes, by including their handle in a tweet.― @replies (also known as “mentions”) Use an “at sign” (@) in front of a Twitter handle to reply to someone, to refer to them, or direct a new message to somebody. ― Retweeting (RT) is the act of sharing someone else’s tweet with your followers – spreading the word wider. Include “RT” before you retweet a quoted tweet to indicate a retweet.

Twitter 102― Hashtags (#) are used to organize and categorize your information and group it with other people’s tweets. For example: new chapbook “skittling and fiddling” is available online today! #poetry. ― URL Shorteners (such as bit.ly or tinyurl) are used to overcome the 140 character limit of each tweet. To use a shortener, go to their site, paste your URL in a box, click “shorten”, and paste the shorter URL in your tweet.

Helpful Links― http://www.niemanlab.org/2011/03/tweet-late-and-e-mail-early-using-data-to-develop-strategy/ ― http://mashable.com/2011/02/07/strengthen-social-media-voice/?utm_source=iphoneapp ― http://www.socialmediaexaminer.com/how-to-run-a-successful-social-media-contest ― http://mashable.com/2009/05/27/facebook-page-vs-group/ ― http://veryofficialblog.com/2010/06/01/how-to-develop-a-social-media-strategy-a-roadmap-for-integration/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+ShannonPaulsVeryOfficialBlog+%28Shannon+Paul%27s+Very+Official+Blog%29

A Warning!―Social media is a process, not a project; once you start you will have to keep doing it, forever ―SM compliments your overall communication strategy – it’s just another channel― If you want to talk about yourself, use your website; if you want to talk to someone else, use social media!

Alex FlaggAssoc. Director - WebPublic Relationsaflagg@unmc.edu

Nicole LindquistSocial Media SpecialistPublic Relationsnlindquist@unmc.edu