As is often the case, my university jumped into the social media game before my position existed, before anyone was sure where it would all end up. There wasn’t time to consider things like strategy, goals, or measurables. This isn’t to say we entered in blindly. In 2009, my job was restructured to allow me to focus on our online community. We knew that social media were becoming invaluable communication channels. Over time, we have focused and evaluated our efforts. Today, the university’s social media presence is more intentional and constructive than ever before (at least that has been my goal).

The inescapable truth, however, is that we’ve done things out of order. If this isn’t your first visit to my blog, you’re likely familiar with the phrase strategy first. When I’m approached by someone looking to get started with social media, I always advise that any social media effort start with a clear strategy. “Define your goals,” I’ll say. “Identify your target audience and find out where they’re living in social media.” After all, how can we know what content to share or engagement opportunities to offer if we’re not sure who we’re talking to? Or if the people we’re talking to aren’t there to listen? Further, how can we hope to measure our success if we don’t know what our goals are?

Ideally, I believe a social media strategy should be an ongoing process that includes the following steps.

1. Goal-setting

What do you hope to accomplish through social media? What audience do you hope to reach? What kind of community do you hope to build? What results to you hope to achieve? How can these results be quantified? How will you know when you’ve been successful?

2. Choosing social media channels

Which social media channels will best help you reach your goal? Which is preferred or most-used among your target audience? Which channels or networks will best allow you to connect with your potential community?

3. Messaging and communication

How will you communicate through your chosen social media? What information is of interest to your audience? What content is most engaging? How can you best serve and be a part of your community? What messaging will help you accomplish your goals?

4. Evaluation

How are you doing? What metrics can you use to measure your success? Is your content reaching your audience? Is your messaging effective? Is your community engaged? Have your goals been reached?

5. Adaptation

How should your methods be changed to improve your results? (Note: changes to methods should take you back to Evaluation.)

If I had to identify where my own university lies in this cycle (and note that I refer to this as a cycle), I’d place us in the Evaluation stage. We have our social media channels, we communicate our message, and now we’re taking a good, hard look at how well we’re doing. One problem: What was our goal again? How do we know when we’re closer to reaching it? We talk about engagement and reach, but I’d like to know how much of our “engagement” is positive. I’d like to see what percentage of our community is being engaged, and what measures garner the most interaction.

There are so many things to think about and explore. It’s exciting! But the first step is to get back to basics. Even if we had set out into the social abyss with very clear-cut, concrete, measurable goals, I’d argue that every goal should be evaluated on some regular basis. By their very nature, our online communities are going to change and evolve—chances are we aren’t interacting with the same audience for very long.

And so I’m going to start at the beginning to find out where we are.

My intention is to move through the steps I’ve outlined above, and create new metrics and reporting structures. In the mean time, I’ll share my progress and findings along the way.

A condensed version of this post also appeared on the University of Michigan-Flint University Relations blog.

Only recently have I become involved with LinkedIn on my campus and—I must admit—I still have a lot to learn about its potential for my university. My newest discovery: Company Pages exist as “a company’s profile of record on LinkedIn.” Imagine my surprise when I stumbled upon my university’s Company Page yesterday. Who had created it? Where did the information come from? How could I edit it? I quickly realized two things:

1. By default, every LinkedIn user with a company email address had Admin rights to the Page.

2. It only took one click to exclude all other users as Admins.

These revelations were shocking and slightly horrifying to me. If I had never found this Page, who knows what it might have been edited to say, and by whom? I immediately adjusted the Page’s Admin settings and now I’ll sleep better at night.

Here’s how you can make sure your Company Page is being managed properly, too.

1. Find Your Company

Use the search box at the top right of your LinkedIn screen to find your Company Page. You can also find a link to your Page on any user’s profile who has connected to the company. For example, an alumnus or employee.

2. Check the Admin Settings

Once you’ve located and arrived at your Company Page, look for a button labeled “Admin tools” at the top right of your screen.

Select the “Edit” option.

(If you don’t see this button, someone else may have already deemed herself the sole Admin of your Company Page. To address this matter, contact LinkedIn directly.)

Now you should see the settings for your Company Page.

3. Manage Admins

By default, a Company Page is set so that “all employees with a valid email registered to the company domain” can serve as an administrator. This means that any of these people can edit the company information, see the Page analytics, etc. If this is not your preference, you can change this setting to “designated users only.”

Once you’ve updated your settings, you can manage who has Admin rights. You can add yourself to the Admin list as well as any of your first-level LinkedIn connections. (Update: As Davina points out in the comments below, adding yourself as an Admin is very important!)

4. Go Forth and Manage!

You should now be set to manage your company’s official LinkedIn Page. Exciting, right? Take a look around and get comfortable. And if you run across any additional notes for the LinkedIn newbies like me, please share them here so that we can all benefit from our collective trial and error.

We’ve long been hearing and espousing ourselves the importance of a user’s social graph.  Now Google is directly infusing the social graph (specifically the one found in Google+) into search results. This video from Google shows how, starting today, search results will include information shared by a user’s online connections.

After the HighEdWeb conference in October, I started reflecting and putting notes together. I realized I had been looking for a magic-bullet answer that doesn’t exist. It was this that led me to my proposal for the Web Conference at Penn State. And with the acceptance of this proposal, I can officially say that I’ll be road-tripping it to Pennsylvania this summer. Maybe I’ll see you there!

Measure Before, During, and After: Using Data to Inform Your Social Media Strategy

When you work with social media, you hear a lot of talk about measurement. How do we measure our efforts? Which efforts do we measure? Which things can we assign numbers to? What do the numbers mean? What action do we take as a result of the numbers?

In some cases, numbers present themselves to us in a pretty little package like Facebook Insights. Sometimes, numbers exist without an obvious value. What does a Klout score really mean in the grand scheme of things? And then there are things that have no number assigned to them at all. After all, how is good customer service reflected in percentages or stats?

At the most basic level, the quest for social media measurement should be about finding data to inform our work and help us build better online communities. This idea of “measurement” is something that should be employed from the get-go. We cannot wait to measure or evaluate our social media business until after it’s been conducted.

In my presentation, I’ll explore ways data can inform a social media strategy: setting goals, choosing social media channels, messaging and communication, evaluation, and adaptation.

Below are my notes from today’s episode of HigherEd Live. UPDATE: Video now included! Thanks to HigherEd Live for linking my blog post.

What is EdgeRank?

It determines what users see in their Facebook Newsfeeds.

EdgeRank Algorithm =  Affinity x Weight x Time Decay.

Affinity. Relationship with the object that’s created. What is the relationship between the user and your Page? Facebook tracks everything about an interaction: clicking links, visiting a Page, anything a user can do to create something tangible in the Facebook universe. Affinity applies to relationships between users, Groups, and Pages.

Weight. Measurement of the value placed on pieces of content like photos, links, videos, or posts.

Time Decay. As content gets older, Facebook views it as less important. So, newer content is more likely to be seen in a user’s Newsfeed.

Why is understanding EdgeRank so important?

1. There is a threshold to pass in order to appear on a user’s Newsfeed.
2. If you can capitalize on EdgeRank, you can get prominent placement on a Newsfeed.

How do we increase EdgeRank?

• Create relationships with users and get them to connect with you more frequently. Engagement will increase EdgeRank and EdgeRank will increase exposure. Pages should engage users and include calls for action. Facebook wants you to create great content, and you will be rewarded if you do so.
• Understand your audience and know what they want. For example, a higher number of mobile users might be more likely to engage with photo content than with video content.
• What to do when mandated content is less than exciting? Get creative. A link that must be posted might get more clicks if you share a photo or video with it.
• Consider the best time of day to post content. Do users typically engage with you in the morning? In the evening?
• To best engage a huge audience, you might be best served by breaking Pages down for audience types. Should you create a separate Alumni page? Departmental pages? Student Life? EdgeRank may change the “one page to rule them all” perspective.
• Tell your audience how you’d like them to respond. “If you like this, please share it.”

Additional Findings

• EdgeRank Checker has concluded that comments carry more weight than likes. The more time it takes to engage with content, the more weight the interaction will have.
• Polls: anyone who answers a poll is considered a “story-teller.” Unfortunately, poll data as related to EdgeRank is not readily available.
• After recent reports that Facebook was penalizing content posted through third-party applications, Facebook acknowledged that this was a known “bug.” It’s been reported that the bug has been fixed. So far, early data shows that the bug may have, in fact, been fixed.
• As more applications are integrated into the Newsfeed and Ticker, the space will become more competitive.
• Wittman believes that EdgeRank may very well be the next SEO.
• Facebook’s new initiatives are always pushed up higher to increase exposure. Now, stories from Storify and other applications are highly visible.
• EdgeRank is determined per person and per object. Each interaction makes a difference.

I think my favorite piece of advice from the episode was this:

If you don’t have anything awesome to say, wait to post until tomorrow when you do have something awesome to say.

I’ve never been one for New Year’s Resolutions, but as 2011 draws to a close I find myself perpetually adding to a “next year” to-do list. I need to start writing this stuff down or: a) I’ll go crazy; and/or b) I’ll forget.

1. Care about Google+
2. Dive into LinkedIn for alumni
3. Initiate Social Media Ambassador program on my campus
4. Implement Foursquare “101 Things” project with Student Life
5. Start monthly social media reports over from scratch
6. Present at a conference
7. Write more
8. Craft more
9. Learn more about my camera and take more pictures

These are in no particular order and I will likely be adding more before 2012 arrives. If and when I start checking things off this list, I’ll share. You’re all going to hold me accountable. Right?

Image source: Judgmental Observer

It’s true! Check it.

Phew.

Along with a very impressive list of higher ed music junkies, I’ve been asked to help compile a list of 2011′s best albums for the blog Higher Ed Music Critics. While I cannot reveal my personal list of top albums just yet (I’ve been sworn to secrecy, and also I haven’t exactly finished), I have compiled a list of three reasons this project is awesome.

1. I’m catching up on music I’ve missed.

Until Spotify came into my life, it wasn’t often that I listened to new albums in their entirety. Aside from artists I’ve been following for years, I only invested in new albums when they came highly recommended by others. Thankfully, there’s been no shortage of recommendations from my higher ed friends.

2. New (to me) music is on the way.

Take a look at the list of contributors to the Higher Ed Music Critics. If these names aren’t familiar to you, allow me to tell you that we’re going to get really good insight from this group. A few of these folks have introduced me to artists that I now count as my favorites. I’m excited to see where they’ll guide me, and you should be excited, too!

3. I get to talk music with some awesome people.

If you’re a regular reader of my blog, you know that I consider myself incredibly lucky to have been adopted by the higher ed web family. I’ve learned so much about my work and myself since connecting with these people that are so passionate and inspired. Every opportunity to build deeper relationships within this community is something I’m so thankful for.

Aside from some formatting tweaks in the details section, you may have also noticed that the RSVP options available to users have changed. No longer is one prompted to accept or decline an invitation. Instead, potential guests are presented with this.

On the heels of Facebook’s Subscribe feature, this new Join button presents a confusing option. This button, by default, is shaded blue with a check mark, appearing to indicate that a user has already “joined” an event. Does this not look like something to un-check if you don’t wish to “join” the event? Turns out, though, that clicking this button tells Facebook that you’ll be attending said event.

Your Event options will now appear as follows.

To change your RSVP, you’ll need to click on that little gear icon to access the Event settings.

And where is the option to share an event? I find the update to the RSVP process slightly annoying, but nothing I can’t live with. What I simply cannot live with, however, is the inability to Share a Facebook event. I need to be able to share events on behalf of my institution, and I absolutely need users to share my events among themselves. Isn’t sharing the entire point of Facebook? I am hoping this is just a temporary glitch that will be fixed shortly. I am not alone.

Let’s all keep our collective eye on this one, and cross our fingers that the option to Share an Event is not gone for good.

UPDATE: I’ve updated this post to include the following graphic shared on Twitter by @citylifematt. This is a great road map to to Facebook’s Event updates.

Also featured in this video is the Hangout, which I once upon a time categorized as the only stand-out feature with potential for use in higher ed. I will say that my interest is piqued. I think it will take careful planning and building of communities on Google+ before Hangouts or brand pages make sense for institutions, but I’m definitely curious to see where this goes.

You can find a few more details at SimplyZesty, which is where I heard the news. There’s also good coverage on Inside AdWords. Worth noting is the ability for users to search with the plus symbol (+) to receive Google+ results. Once again, I guess we’ll see where it all goes.