Web and Social Media Strategies -- Penn State Master Gardeners Coordinators Conference

Web and Social Media Strategies

Chris More – Associate DirectorMax Spiegel – Web and Social Media Strategist

October 2010

Agenda• Web Strategy• Social Media Strategy• Team Collaboration• Questions

Web Vision

“A unified college Web presence that provides useful and rich content to our audiences while ensuring high quality-control standards.”

We are… Penn StateWe are… Cooperative Extension

Plone Content Management System (CMS)• Open-source (free to use)• Always improving from world-wide network• Most popular CMS at Penn State• Central University group of Plone experts• Easy to use interface• Minimal training• Search engine and people friendly content• No software needed to manage website• Coming to your county in the near future!

Plone Features• Blogging features• Aggregate external blogs and RSS feeds• Photo galleries• Pages / folders• Variety of homepage layouts• Social media integration

You can do all of this without ever seeing code or knowing how to build websites!

Before and After – Food Science

Before and After - Entomology

Before and After – Turf Grass

Why be on single system?• Efficiency• Authentication• Evolution of features• Share content• Disaster recovery• Easy to focus on content• Consistent branding

General Web Behaviors• 60-70% of visitors come from search engines• Visitors scan text for keywords• Visitors view on average 2-3 pages per visit• Visitors quickly develop impressions• Visitors are looking for answers to their questions

Point: Whatever you do on the web, you do not have much time to capture the audience. First impressions matter.

Best Practices for Web Success• Understand your audience and their needs• Generate fresh and rich content• Focus on content instead of design elements• Perfect is the enemy of good• Define ownership• Never stop improving!

Social Media

The Why & How(To Be Awesome)

Web 1.0 vs. Web 2.0• Web 1.0• Web as information• Billboard or postcard

• Web 2.0• Web as participation• Communication• Information sharing• Collaboration• Networking

Web 2.0 Toolsets

Web 2.0 Toolsets Categories

How to Behave• Old rules still apply!• Know the room• Look appropriate• Sound smart• Observe and adjust• Make a connection• Brag modestly

Twitter Good Practices• Follow those who you want to follow you• Cross link your efforts

• Tweet about a YouTube video you uploaded• Be welcoming & friendly - say hello to your new followers or folks that

you would like to get to know.• Engage people - ask questions and respond to queries that interest you.• Be humorous - funny Tweets really help to break up the timeline.• Inform - provide useful information and news items.• Monitor self-promotion - it is fine to promote your projects and work,

but nobody likes to be spammed all day• Promote others - “retweet” liberally and highlight good work.• Listen - there’s no need to dominate the conversation all the time, so

spend some time just reading what others are saying/Tweeting.• Be human - not always obvious but most important, being a “real”

person is probably the most important trait of any effective Twitter user.

If you build it, will they come?• Do we place a yellow page ad, and then ask what

we can do to get people to look at it?

• People must be looking for it• Search engine optimization techniques• Pay per click/impression advertisements (Google,

Facebook, YouTube)

• Diligence & patience

What’s the point?

Demographics

Market Share• Would you start a business at the end of an empty

dead-end road?

• Go where the party is at!• Facebook• Twitter• Youtube

Practice• Facilitating• What’s already going on?• Searching• Listening• Linking

• Think about them, not us• What can we add to their social network?• Steal this content!• Share on social networks• “Like” or “Recommend” buttons

Share and Connect

What’s RSS?

“Push” your content

“Distribute” your content

Impact on Facebook• Geographic and

demographic information• Number of

comments, interactions, “post quality” and more.

Impact on Twitter

Impact on YouTube• Demographics• How are people

watching?• “Hot spots”

Feedburner Stats

Google Analytics and Campaigns

Social Media Recap• Talk about others• Go where the party is at• Allow your content to be shared• Be interesting!

Team Collaboration with Teambox• Communication and collaboration tool for teams and

projects.• Move the conversation from inbox to a real collaborative

environment.• Available to anyone with a Penn State or friends of Penn

State account. Anyone can create a project!• Similar to Facebook groups and Twitter, but on an

internal and secure server.• Get started: Visit http://agsci.psu.edu and search for

“teambox”

Questions?

Chris More [email protected] (@chrismore)Max Spiegel [email protected] (@maxspiegel)