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A February experiment: curtailing social media

Update: Minutes after posting this announcement for all the world to see, I receive word from the good folks at HighEdWeb Arkansas, where I presented last summer, that I won the coveted Red Stapler award. So, before the calendar page turns, I had to update with a bit of blatant self-congratulation. Now, see you in March, or, you know, on Words With Friends and maybe occasionally on Twitter. – AC

Beginning Feb. 1 and lasting throughout the month, I am planning to dramatically curtail my social media usage. I have already posted my plans for a Facebook-free February. This means no posting on my Facebook page, no wishing all you February babies a happy birthday (sorry), and very minimal posting on our university’s official Facebook site. Other admins can pick up the slack for me.

As for this blog, I also plan to not post here at all during the month of February. We’ll see how that goes.

The most challenging curtailment will likely be my use of Twitter. I may not completely stay away from that network, as it is the most gratifying (and, alas, addictive) social media tool in my toolkit. Which probably means I should try to avoid it at all costs.

Why this monthlong social media fast of sorts? Two primary reasons:

I want to see if I can do it. That’s really the main challenge of this contest with myself.
I recall, somewhat dimly, a life before social media. I want to re-experience what that is like. Sometimes I forget, in my hyperconnected world, that there are many people who don’t even use Facebook or Twitter, and they seem to get along just fine.

I am not giving up email. Which is too bad, because that’s the biggest drag of any connectivity in my life. Work-related email is the most life-sucking component of all online communications. But it’s a necessary evil in my work. I will do my best to curtail it, but I know I cannot avoid it altogether.

I’ll also be reading on my Kindle app for iPad, which may make access to social media just a little too tempting.

As for Facebook, Instagram, Google Plus — those are the easy ones to ignore. Avoiding this blog will also be a challenge. Avoiding Twitter will be impossible, I think.

See you on the other side, on March 1, if not before.

Facebook, the World Series and combined relevance

Since meeting Dan Zarrella at a social media workshop last June, where he presented his “Science of Social Media” talk, I’ve been experimenting with some of his principles for spreading ideas via social media. One of his principles — that of combined relevance — has been of particular interest to me, and during the World Series, I had a chance to put it into practice on behalf of our university.

I bet you thought I’d shut up about baseball by now, more than a week after my favorite team, the St. Louis Cardinals, won the World Series. But even if you aren’t a baseball fan, I think you’ll find that this topic has a bit of combined relevance for you as a higher ed marketer. So, please bear with me.

Zarrella explains combined relevance as the merging of “two seemingly distinct interests,” and it works in social media because it connects organizations with the interests of their audiences in unexpected ways. Combined relevance finds a connection with audiences that often have little to do with an organization’s brand or sales pitch.

“By combining two apparently unrelated niches,” Zarrella writes, “you can create a piece of content likely to go viral with people who just happen to be into both things.”

In Zarrella’s oft-cited case, the two unrelated niches were “gadgets and Victorian era intoxicants.” (You really need to read his post to fully appreciate where he’s coming from.) For me most recently, the two niches weren’t quite so exotic. I combined professional baseball with a graduate of our university.

After St. Louis’ comeback in Game 6 of this year’s World Series, in which hometown boy David Freese shone by tying the game in the ninth inning, then hitting the game-winning home run in extra innings, our department learned, via our alumni office, that Freese’s father was a graduate of our university. So we decided to test the theory of combined relevance on our Facebook site with the following post connecting our institution with a baseball hero.

Here’s a fun fact for all you St. Louis Cardinals fans out there. David Freese, the St. Louis hometown boy who hit the game-winning home run in last night’s Game 6 of the World Series, is the son of Rolla grad Guy Freese, CE’75. How cool is that?

This single post resulted in a significant spike in activity on our site. As of yesterday (Tuesday) afternoon, the post has garnered:

3,610 impressions
138 likes
10 comments (including one from us)

Here’s what the post looked like:

Using combined relevance -- in this case, the World Series and a Missouri S&T graduate's family connection -- on our Facebook site

That may not sound like much to some of you, but those numbers represent one of the most viewed postings on our Facebook site. And, according to Facebook’s algorithms, also one of the most viral. It’s virality score of above 11 percent was more than four times higher than the runner-up for the month of October.

Of course, we can’t always make combined-relevance connections to occasions as prominent as the World Series. But we can still find ways to connect our institutions to relevant topics being discussed in the social media sphere. The key is to be attuned to what our audiences are talking about. On one warm October day, quite a few of our Facebook fans were interested in baseball, and they apparently liked that we were interested in it, too.

Gaining traction with social media

At the university where I work, we’ve been involved in the social media channels of Facebook and Twitter since 2007. But it wasn’t until this past weekend, as freshmen were moving into their rooms and Greek housing, that the level of engagement with our audiences on social media started to reach a point that I would consider critical mass in the sociodynamic sense.

OK, that may be a bit hyperbolic. Maybe “critical mass” is the wrong term. But the levels and quality of social media activity between our university and our audiences seems to be increasing.

Maybe it’s just that normal activity has resumed on social networks following a summer lull. But when I look at the data, I see indicators of increased engagement.

Facebook interactions and activity has been on the rise in terms of daily, weekly and monthly active users, likes and interactions (comments).

Twitter activity has also been on the uptick, with significant growth over the past three months (see chart below) and more interaction with followers, including retweets.

MissouriSandT Twitter Counter

I’m not sure what this means — yet. It could be that students, alumni and other target audiences are becoming more comfortable with the main social media tools as a means for interacting with colleges and universities. This rise in acceptance and activity would be consistent with the findings of the Pew Internet and American Life Project and others. (See Pew’s findings on social networking sites and our lives.)

It could also mean that the steady, persistent use of social media by campuses is starting to pay off. This would lend credibility to the argument that social media is not a quick fix, and that colleges and universities should not expect instant results from their efforts. This also suggests that consistent and persistent engagement in social media by an organization — university, business, non-profit, individual — will yield dividends over the long haul.

Whatever it means, it’s an exciting time to be involved in social media marketing/communication in higher ed.

As a new school year begins, what are you seeing with your social media efforts?

Saturday Six: #tlgsm takeaways

I’m a day too late to post the customary Friday Five, but I did want to share some key takeaways I gleaned from my recent trip to Minneapolis for The Art and Science of Social Media Marketing for Higher Education, a one-day workshop put on by The Lawlor Group.

Since I’m a day late, I’m going to make it up to you by providing an extra takeaway — a Saturday Six of bullet points. Also, if you hurry, you’ll find more about the conference via the Twitter hashtag for that event, #tlgsm. But hurry, because hashtags, like fruit flies, tend to have short life spans.

1. Brands can learn a lot from evolutionary biology. I’ve been thinking a bit about the evolution of brands and branding at least since the mid-2000s, when I read Al and Laura Ries’s book The Origin of Brands. Dan Zarrella has been thinking about this, too, and during his kickoff session at the workshop — titled “The Science of Social Media Marketing” — offered several great points to ponder about evolution, branding and marketing. Just as species evolve and thrive by their ability to adapt to the forces of nature, so brands most able to adapt to ever-changing cultural, social and economic pressures will do well. This is an important point for those of us in higher ed to keep in mind, especially these days.

You can hear much more from Dan about these and other issues by viewing his one-hour presentation on this topic. Yes, an hour is a long time to spend watching a video about social media, but you won’t be disappointed. You’ll also find that his conclusions about what works in social media is backed by research. (Thanks to Karine Joly, who first directed me to that presentation in this post a couple of months ago.)

2. Facebook: The Jersey Shore of social media. Facebook has become the most mainstream of social media. Brands wanting to connect with Facebook users should learn to “write for Snooki,” as Dan put it. But maybe without all the F-bombs. Just keep it simple and to the point.

3. It’s OK to tell (or ask) people what to do. In their presentation about listening and strategic planning, Jennifer Kane and Kary Delaria, both of Kane Consulting, made the point that people don’t mind being told what to do. It’s OK to tell (or ask) people to “like” an article on Facebook, for example. This correlates to what Dan Z. mentioned about retweeting. His research found that the phrase “please retweet” or “please RT” in a Twitter post were among the most retweetable words.

4. Size, frequency and timing matter. In the debate about quality vs. quantity, quantity wins. According to Dan Zarrella’s research, the larger the number of followers a brand has on Twitter, the more fans on Facebook, etc., the greater the chances are that the brand’s messages will be shared more broadly. Likewise, the more frequently a post is shared on Twitter, the greater the odds that it will be retweeted. But beware of over-sharing. Link fatigue could set in among your fans or followers.

In terms of timing, Dan’s research suggests that click-through rates for information posted on social media increases during the weekend, even though social media activity tends to slow down on the weekends.

5. Stay positive. Nobody likes a Debbie Downer. Not in real life. Not in social media. So if you want to build your brand in the social media sphere, avoid getting negative. Stay upbeat. Related: Don’t talk about yourself all the time, either. Just as no one likes to talk to the person at a cocktail party who only talks about himself, no one will pay much attention to your brand if you’re only talking about yourself. Dan Z. suggests finding “combined relevance” that connects your brand to the interests of others.

Here’s a real-world example of combined relevance in action: Earlier this week, a minor earthquake struck east of Rolla. I tweeted about the event and asked our followers if anyone felt it. The tweet had nothing to do with our brand, so to speak, but it was relevant on a few levels: geography, a shared experience, and the fact that we offer majors in geology, geophysics and geological engineering — disciplines that attract students interested in quakes. The result: half a dozen retweets and interactions with five followers.

6. Lougan Bishop rocked Twitter. I had the good fortune of co-presenting on a panel with Lougan and Dan Z. I talked about blogging, while Dan talked about Facebook and Lougan opined about Twitter. Lougan did a terrific job talking about Twitter and reinforcing what others had said earlier in the day. Check out his presentation (on Slideshare or below).

Twitter Channel Presentation

View more presentations from lougan

In all, I had a great time presenting, meeting new people, reconnecting with a few earlier acquaintances, and learning from my peers. I really appreciate the opportunity and thank John Lawlor of The Lawlor Group for putting on an exceptional workshop.

P.S. – I’ve also posted my presentation for your viewing pleasure.