Social media – more than just a quick fix

I recently attended a social media course organised by the Higher Education Academy.
The course gave a really useful overview of the main social media platforms, as well as providing some more general guidance on how to build your business case and measure impact. Below are a few key reflections from the course. I hope you find them useful!

Photo by loeschg via Flickr Creative Commons

Building your business case and measuring impact

Social media activities should not be carried out on the assumption that they add value. There should be a proper business case for everything you do, informed by user feedback wherever possible. You could even consider doing a SWOT (strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, threats) analysis.

Key questions to ask yourself include:

Who is your audience?

Are you meeting their expectations?

Are they engaging with your chosen social media platforms?

Are the platforms utilised fit for purpose?

What if any evaluation is taking place?

Twitter

Think about your audience when you tweet

Be interesting and engaging

Be timely/tweet in real-time

Tweet frequently (and don’t just re-tweet)

Typing ‘re-tweet’ works better than ‘RT’

General

Think about the accessibility of social media platforms and applications. Check out the Web Accessibility Initiative for details of what makes an accessible website (http://www.w3.org/WAI/intro/wcag.php).

Facebook and Google+ are all about creating a sense of community and engaging students outside of the classroom.

Check out Google Apps (including Apps for Education) – there is a lot of functionality available for free.