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!
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.
