Using Social Media to Effectively Market your Wake Forest Event

Using Social Media to Effectively Market your

Wake Forest Event

Gretchen Edwards (’10), Alumni Office Stephanie Skordas, WF News Center

Warm-up

•  What’s your favorite ice cream? •  Vanilla

•  Chocolate

•  Strawberry

Let’s get to know each other

•  Who’s already using social media for work?

•  What social media channels do you use?

•  Are you considering starting your own channel? •  Have you thought about the reason “why”?

Today we’ll learn how to…

•  Identify & reach your event’s target audience

•  Utilize existing Wake Forest social media channels and communities

•  Track results

•  and…what is a # ?

•  and…how do I say something in 140 characters or less?

Social Media Dos & Don’ts

Do •  Represent yourself and

your department well •  Consider your social

channels as important as phone, email

•  Create a content strategy and calendar

•  Remember customer service best practices

•  Be honest and transparent

•  Show your personality •  Develop your voice

Social Media Dos & Don’ts

Do

Social Media Dos & Don’ts

Don’t •  Mindlessly connect your

accounts to each other •  Ignore negative

comments •  Use others’ content

without attribution •  Be afraid to take a

chance

Social Media Dos & Don’ts

Don’t

Reach your target audience

•  Identify your audience •  Students?

•  Faculty/staff/parents?

•  Piedmont?

•  What is your goal? •  Attendance?

•  Awareness?

•  Which social media channel is right for you?

Use existing channels

•  How long will your event last?

•  Not every event, entity, subject matter needs its own social channel

•  Take advantage of strong communities •  Let others know about your event, ask them to talk

about it

•  Create a #hashtag

•  Create content for others to share

Use existing channels

Pre-write content

•  Compose messages that can be shared by multiple accounts •  #WordsAwake examples:

“Desperate Housewives” or “Law & Order” fan? WFU alum and screenwriter Paul Bullock will be at #WordsAwake Register now http://tinyurl.com/7wdtxv2 [tweeted by wfumagazine 03.20.12]

Pre-write content

•  Pre-writing content allows you to: •  Create higher quality material than if you wait until the last

minute #obviously

•  Disseminate content to other social media managers

•  Amplify your message

Pre-write content

•  Consider new ways to present your message: •  Don’t say when and

where, post a picture of the event sign

Create shareable content

•  Tweets •  Why are 120 characters better than 140?

•  Facebook •  Photo + link

•  Short videos

•  Storify •  Use this to create an easily shared story with social

media or web elements

Track results

•  Set aside a reasonable, regular amount of time to figure out if what you are doing, is working

•  Decide how to measure your goals – correlate efforts spent on social initiatives to tangible results •  Increased event attendance

•  Increased campus awareness about an office

•  Higher level of customer service

Track results

•  What to count? •  Friend/follower numbers •  Link clickthroughs (use bit.ly, tinyurl)

•  How to view engagement •  Use analytics to measure sharing •  Be sure to make your channel a two-way conversation, not

just a broadcast

•  How to prove it works to your supervisor •  Take screenshots of valuable interactions •  Share the good and the bad – this makes the good that much

more credible

Track results

•  Share the good

•  And the bad

Track results

Review

•  Target •  Tweet •  Track

Thanks for coming!

Gretchen Edwards

edwardee@wfu.edu

x4607

@gretchEdwards

@WakeForest1834

Stephanie Skordas

skordas@wfu.edu

x3826

@stephskordas

@WFNewsCenter