Value and Impact of social media in Multi-disciplinary Cross-Border projects

http://www.web2llp.eu

Gary Shochat

1This project was financed with the support of the European Commission. This publication is the sole responsibility of the author and the Commission is not responsible for any use that may be made of the information contained therein.

www.paueducation.com

In Collaboration with: Katherina Zourou, Sally Reynolds, Sabine Schuman

What we’ll be looking at today

• Why Social Media (and WEB2LLP) are important for cross-boarder projects

• Key concepts and strategies for increasing project value and impact through social media

OUR HASHTAG #web2llp

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How many of you have social media accounts?

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How many of your acquaintances, friends and colleagues have social media accounts?

Here’s some ‘WOW’ statistics

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‘Facebook has nearly 50% of internet users worldwide as ACTIVE users’Source: GlobalWebindexStudy

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It’s no longer about ageThe fastest growing demographic on Twitter is the 55–64 year age bracket.This demographic has grown 79% since 2012.The 45–54 year age bracket is the fastest growing demographic on both Facebook and Google+.

Or about location11% of people on earth use facebook – nearly 690k posts every minuteFacebook members 1.4 billion worldwide

No European country in top 10 countries engaged in SM (1. Israel 2. Argentina 3.Russie 10.USA

Social networks and blogs account for 12% of UK internet time

And the stats go on and on…

58 million tweets a day, 100k every minute

Average amount of photos uploaded to Instagram per day 40M

Total amount of UNIQUE youtube users every month 490 million

Every second 2 new members join LinkedIn

Have you ever created and implemented a social media or web plan for your project?

Does your project / company / institution use social media?

Desktop research: 150 randomly selected LLP projects (2010 selection)• No website/no web presence at all: 7%

• SNS: 31% of the sample

• 15% with Twitter (2nd most popular SM after Facebook)

• 7% of LLP projects with a blog

• 6,25% with widgets enabling rapid sharing

• 5% with a social media feed (Twitter, Flickr or Picasa)

• 5% with a video sharing tool

• 3% with a picture sharing tool

• 0,6% with a social bookmarking tool

• 0% with a Presentation repository (e.g. Slideshare)

• 0% with a web 2.0 public library (e.g. Mendeley, Zotero)

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Why do LLP projects need a web and social media strategy ?

Social Media is a great way to publish information and use a ‘multiplier effect’ to disseminate it.

• Communicating project progress

• Engaging with stakeholders

• Reaching new targets/end users

An initial WEB2LLP assertion

a) Lack of skills and competences of LLP project teams regarding the effective use of Internet & social media (SM) tools

b)Loose embeddedness of SM in the communication strategy

c) Lack of visibility of good practice regarding what is achievable in an LLP context

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The Web2LLP reply to this need

Develop skills and resources on how to set up a coherent web strategy containing social media components, appropriate to each LLP project

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The methodology

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The training framework The training framework afterduring the project the lifetime of the project

Strong points of the project

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• Customized training based on well identified training needs

• A sound training methodology: a range of face-to-face, online and self-paced learning possibilities

• Impact on digital communication skills of LLP project teams

• Strong connections with NAs ensuring impact on country level

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The goal?

Dissemination

Exploitation

Valorisation

Sustainability

IMPACT!

key Social Media concepts and values to improve a projects impact:

- Community

- Flexibility

- Collaboration

- Engagement

CommunityA project is part of a community and its presence on social media should strive and create a community.

People’s main goal on social platforms is

to connect with other people— not with projects, companies or ideas.

The wolf pack

Understanding Context …context is who is around me…who is in my pack!

Achieving a goal togetherCommunity

• People want to connect with like minded people

• They want to connect with people who give real value and who have a good reputation.

• They want to build a reputation themselves.

Community

An audience watches, a community acts

• Establish presence – build a profile, connect with staff

• Listen…listen some more.• Follow, join and Collect • Curate• Publish• Promote• Communicate

Community

Case: elearningpapers.eu

www.openeducationeuropa.eu

Community

Re-launching and re-branding the main European

Portal for Life Long Learning

• Linkedin: an established community – TALK & DISCUSS

when to listen and when to talk:gaining credibility in my community

Community

• Twitter: ‘Follow-back campaign’

LISTEN & CURATE

• Facebook: Repositioning

LISTEN & TALK

Community

EngagementAlways ask yourself:

WHY? What is the benefit?• What are people interested in social media? there’s a

benefit to it

• It’s not about ‘my project’, it’s about what people want/need. The domain of discussion is more important than my personal content

• Why would people be interested in your project?• Why would people share your project and its results?

Community Engagement

2 degrees of impact

Awareness VS. Engagement

Like VS. share

View VS Act

Community Engagement

People ‘engage’ when they care!

Don’t be afraid to inspire:

Inspiration creates involvement.

Involvement creates engagement.

Engagement creates advocacy.

Advocacy creates change.

Edgerank• Time (time decay) – freshness – Relevant• Affinity – Relationship – Important• Weight – Importance based on interaction) – CRUCIAL!

Community Engagement

Make the ‘why’ evidentMake participation easy

Always strive for more reach

• Contests are fun, and they have a clear objective: WINNING!

• Social issues are important and they have a clear objective: Showing your friends that you care

• Innovation and collaboration are interesting and have a clear objective: making our life better

Community Engagement

Case: Youth on the Move contest

AWARENESS

• Facebook App• Development cost 800 euros• 4700 ‘likes’ in 22 contests

over 6 monthshttp://ec.europa.eu/youthonthemove/

Community Engagement

Case: European Road Safety Charter

AWARENESS

• Online Pledge • Using casues.com tool• 1,647 pledges

http://www.erscharter.eu/

Community Engagement

Case: Charity: Water (NGO)

ENGAGEMENT• Instagram Campaign• Sharing• Emotionally captivating• Easy to implement• 150k followers

http://instagram.com/charitywater#

Community Engagement

Case: European Public Service Information Platform

https://twitter.com/epsiplatform

ENGAGEMENT• Online platform• Advocacy & Technology• 300 twitter followers• @epsiplatform

Community Engagement

Collaborationsocial media IS a way of harnessing our ‘wolf-pack’ to enhance Project IMPACT

• Twitter• Photo based networks (instagram,

tumblr, facebook, pinterest )

Community Engagement Collaboration

CROWDSOURCING

Photos are highly collaborative, leading to new ways of dissemination.

Crowdsourcing, beyond kickstarter, airb&b, covoiturage (France) etc.

Using a ‘beneficial activity’ to draw on collective strength

Community Engagement Collaboration

Mole Hunt, ‘Re-Captcha’

Duolingo

Digitization

Articles being translated by language learners

Community Engagement Collaboration

Case: Emptyplate Instagram(collaborative photography)

• Instagram Campaign• Donating money through sharing photos• Highly rewarding• Easy implementation/international• More than 10K worldwide

#donatuplato

Collaboration

לתת#Community Engagement Collaboration

Collaborative tagging

Collaborative dissemination and public consultation through social media

Defining and re-defining tags/folksonomy for ‘new’ purposes

Community Engagement Collaboration

Case: Digital Agenda for Europe

• Collaborative dissemination and public consultation through social

media sharing photos.• Using key stakeholders

Collaboration

#DAE2012Community Engagement Collaboration

FlexibilityAll of this will not work without being

VERY Flexible

Community Engagement Collaboration Flexibility

Shake, Stir & be flexible

• BLEND (online-OFFLINE)

• Mix

• Combine

• Look for synergies EVERYWHERE!

Community Engagement Collaboration Flexibility

Experiment

• Search topics / trends

• Join / Follow

• Don’t market, tell a story/capture attention

• Maintain and expand Hashtags

• Use specific tools– Hootsuite / sprout – change, schedule, measure

impact

– SocialBro

– Tweetreach

Community Engagement Collaboration Flexibility

How did these values and concepts relate to WEB2LLP?

Conviction, strategies, flexibility, inspiration, changing ‘users’ to advocates.

EVALUATION80% satisfaction level for the course

Evaluation 3 months later• The tools and services offered both during and after the course have been very

helpful and have left a significant mark on our work

• I have developed web and social media strategies for two projects I am working with

• For our next projects to be planned I could raise the attention to plan SM from the beginning - instead of just adding it at the end for dissemination only.

Community Engagement Collaboration Flexibility

Who we are

• University of Luxembourg (Luxembourg)

• Web2Learn (Greece)

• ATiT (Belgium)

• Coventry University Enterprises Ltd (UK)

• Pixel (Italy)

• P.A.U Education, S.L (Spain)