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Twitter in Further Education

Contents

Executive Summary Page 2

o Key Findings

o Recommendations

Background Page 3

o Successful Accounts

o Identifying Need

o Accounts Analysed

Successful Account Principles Page 5

o Reaching the right groups

o Close unused accounts

o Factoring in time

o Involve various people & departments

o Focused &Targeted messages

o Exceptional content for your target audience

o “Network effects” and “Positive feedback loops”

o Encourage friendly rivalries

Building a Successful Online Community Page 11

Important Advice Page 15

o Online Manners

o Online Enquiries

o The Twitter Open Day

o Social Media Policy Documents

o Educating Our Young People on Social Media

Collaboration and Acknowledgement Page 17

Appendix 1 – Reticence to ask questions Page 20

Appendix 2 – A word from Other Countries Page 21

Appendix 3 – FE Week’s Guide to Twitter Page 24

Tables & Graphs Page 25

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Twitter in Further Education

Executive Summary

We have looked at the use of Twitter in Further Education and hope to highlight the similarities as well as

some key differences in how institutions use this new media platform. We have analysed all the Twitter

accounts that we could find in Further Education in the UK and the top 200 universities & colleges in the USA.

While the similarities are that academic institutions use twitter to keep prospective & existing students and

other stakeholders updated with news & events, there are significant differences in the results. For example,

while the UK FE College with the most followers, Cornwall College, has 3,600 followers*, this is just over 5% of

the US University with the largest following, which is Harvard with 63,000*.

*All UK data was analysed 30th

June 2011 and all USA data on 22nd

Aug 2011.

Key Findings

Successful FE Twitter accounts take time & commitment. Some colleges spend up to 6 hours per week

tweeting; others are the proud owners of over 50 different twitter accounts?!

Successful FE colleges put a great deal of thought and planning into their accounts. They structure

their activity from the outset to enable them to carry out some really targeted messages.

The quality and frequency of tweets provides data & trends that are worth considering and exploring.

Recommendations

As well as highlighting areas of best practice we have also taken some of the principles that seem to be at play

to suggest ways that colleges could use to develop their twitter accounts. These include;

Employing principles that helped establish websites like Amazon, E-bay, Google, Facebook & YouTube

Finding and encouraging “digital champions” to help to grow the college account.

Getting the real experts in social media involved – your students & young people.

Looking at what a college-wide Twitter account might look like and possible uses for students & staff.

A word from the Government – Former Education Minister "At a time when Twitter is being credited as a significant part of world events like the Arab Spring, it is timely to look at how it is being used as a communication tool by FE. The simplicity of Twitter makes it easy to innovate and this report's great strength is in capturing some of the innovative best practice. I think it is important for the sector to read it, but also those beyond FE who are thinking about how to use the interactivity of social media to the full." Lord Knight of Weymouth and former Minister of State for Education, Children, Schools and Families @jimpknight

A word from the Sector – CMN "College Marketing Network member colleges have adopted the use of Twitter

as one of the elements of their marketing mix and are using it to interact with a range of target audiences. As

with any medium or technique, there is always more to learn and good practice to be shared. Our members are

sure to find much in this report that is helpful to them in developing their use of Twitter."

Rachel Smith, CMN Director of Corporate Communications @cmnoffice

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Background

Up until the end of 2010 I did not have an account on any social media platforms. In early 2011, I found myself

back in the job market and when applying for jobs and detailing my experience, I was faced with comments

like “you claim to have done XYZ, but where is the evidence on LinkedIn, Twitter, You Tube & Facebook?”

Evidence in itself for educators to consider the role they play in ensuring students are digitally literate –

encouraging the constructive & responsible use of social media in a way that can aide progression.

Thus began my exploration into new media. Before opening any accounts I got a couple of books on Social

Media, one of which was “Social Nation” by Barry Libert, which proved to be a fantastic guide. I sent a tweet to

Barry letting him know how much I enjoyed the book which has led to us collaborating on this report.

With an understanding of what the underlying principles & rules of social media were, our next task was to

compile a list of all social media accounts in further education that we could find (Please find this data on the

accompanying “Twitter in Further Education” spread sheet). We looked at the stats from these accounts to

see if we could identify any trends from successful accounts that colleges could replicate when planning

campaigns to develop their presence and following on Twitter.

The kind of questions we wanted answers to included;

Who in FE is Tweeting?

Who is doing it well?

Who has the highest quality tweets?

What are they tweeting about?

Who has the most followers?

Is there an optimum # of tweets per wk

Upon completion of the report Barry made the following observation about Twitter in FE;

A word from the Author – Social Nation "Having assessed and cross referenced data from UK and US Colleges

& Universities and applying the concepts I outline in Social Nation, we are delighted to report that these social

media principles are just as applicable to education, as they are in other sectors" Barry Libert @barrylibert ,

author of Social Nation @socialnationbk

Successful Accounts

The question of a “successful account” throws up some interesting questions. For example I would be far

happier to have 500 followers if those followers included our core audience of those working in education – in

particular Further Education, rather than having 20,000 followers but only 30 of those being involved in

education.

I am sure that colleges would want the majority of their followers to be prospective and existing students, staff and local businesses, rather than any "random followers" – So having 500 followers from your feeder schools could be seen as more of a success than accounts with more followers but a less targeted following.

Equally, having 2,000 followers may appear to be an impressive and successful account, but if it has taken 50,000 tweets to get that following, given the time spent tweeting, could this have been time better spent in other areas? Alternatively some accounts may be meant for someone’s network of 10-20 friends and they don’t actually what any more followers, the key objective here is to share advice, jokes or gossip. This kind of account would need to be monitored by different metrics than the ones detailed in this report…maybe the # of laughs per tweet?! This document has been designed to provide college marketing/communications & SMT members with data demonstrating the kind of following a successful account could attract, and the kind of resources required to generate this kind of following comprising of your core demographic/audience.

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Identifying Need – It’s the way young people communicate

One of FE’s largest target audience is 16-24 year olds and Ofcom’s Communications Market Report highlights

that this group communicates differently to other demographics. Social networking and text communications

dominate any time they spend on line – whether on computers or on mobile devices. For example;

Text communications accounted for 30% of all activity among 16-24s - double the level for all adults.

Mobile Phones – Text messaging and social networking make up 63% of all mobile phone use among 16-24s.

Computer – over 50% of 16-24s time on computers is spent communicating with other people, this group are more likely to use social networking and instant messaging.

Given that such a high percentage of time is spent in these spaces by young people, it would make sense for anyone trying to reach this group to spend time exploring & developing strategies around these platforms. We hope that this report helps with the development of your social media strategy – Identifying elements of best practice and ideas that will help to develop your college account. A word from the Sector – FE Week “Twitter is a valuable tool for the FE sector. It is free and immediate, so is the most cost-effective way of getting your information ‘out there’ to the world. However, it is also important for interaction - encouraging debate, while also helping to provide an quick, easy answer to a simple or complex question. This report highlights those factors well. We at FE Week are great advocates of Twitter use in FE and have, through our own studies and publication of an FE Guide to Twitter, highlighted its use for the greater good. The sector should not be afraid of its application - nor its limitations - and embrace it.” Nick Linford @NickLinford, Managing Editor of FE Week @FEWeek Accounts Analysed We looked at 1,329 accounts which included;

573 accounts from 350 FE colleges (423 College accounts & 150 staff accounts)

194 accounts from 157 UK Universities

374 FE Associations & Commentator accounts

(115 Associations, 7 Citizenship, 16 Enterprise, 32 Learning, 57 News, 34 Suppliers, 113“others”)

179 US College & University accounts*

*We selected the top US institutions for academic achievement and the top “Social Media” colleges.

We found that many FE colleges were on twitter, but 80 do not appear to have opened a college account.

There are also updates & news from many FE Associations, commentators & partners; Ofsted, BIS, 157 Group,

LSIS, AoC, LSN, YPLA, NCFE, Becta, World Skills, JISC, NUS, QAA, TES, Times and Guardian Education. Please see

Table 1, Graph 1 & 2 – Results Summary The nature of Twitter i.e. 140 characters and the ability to follow

accounts that are of interest means you can check sector updates each day quickly and easily from your PC or

phone. Could Twitter even be beneficial to SMT members & college leaders?

Too busy to Tweet? Take the school leader “Hash tag” challenge http://tinyurl.com/4ylxjrb

A word from Tech Stories: “The collaboration of this report with Barry Libert was facilitated with a simple tweet” @Tech_Stories @mzinga Loving the advice in Social Nation...looking forward to using and passing on some of the advice and tips to our partners. 1

st March.

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@barrylibert @Tech_Stories - thank you for your kind comments regarding social nation - would you mind cross posting to amazon.com? Best regards, Barry. 1

st March

1) Planning & Commitment

It is worth thinking about which groups you are trying to reach from the outset. When people follow you, you

can send a message saying “thanks for following us…” and one of the best practical messages we found was;

@americanu Thank you for following #AmericanU on Twitter. To be added to our lists, @ reply with your status

as student, faculty, staff, or alumni.

This university can then go on to provide some really targeted messages in the future to students, staff and

alumni. Other “thanks for following” messages we liked included;

@BrainyBreak We hope you'll make Brainy Break part of your daily routine. We promise to expand your mind!

@leedsmet “Thanks for following us. Any questions or comments, please DM us, we'd love to hear from you.”

Observation 1 – When planning campaigns consider which groups you are trying to reach, and how you can

segment for more targeted comms across your core groups (Prospective, existing students, bus dev etc)

2) Dormant Accounts

Something that struck us was the level of dormant accounts that UK FE colleges had. Given the lack of activity

it would appear that someone had opened the account and then either forgot about it, or left the college

without informing anyone that the channel was open. For example amongst 423 UK FE college accounts;

147 (34%) had less than 50 Tweets

96 (22%) had not been updated in the last 3 months – including 61 that had not been updated for

12+ months

66 colleges have more than 1 account but only 16 of these seem active and have 100+ followers

Collectively these inactive accounts have 14,844 followers who are not getting any updates. If young people

today are indeed making decisions about the college they attend based on You Tube, Facebook & Twitter (as

some commentators suggest) then we need to make sure these spaces are as vibrant as possible. If your

college has a dormant account (highlighted in red text on accompanying spread sheet) you may want to take

the governments advice “If a channel is no longer being used then close it, don’t leave it open” (COI)

2) Dormant Accounts – Closing Unused Twitter Feeds

When closing these accounts you may want to display a message like the one below for a couple of weeks;

I'm the helpful 'guru' on Thames Valley University, but new name University of West London means I'm retiring

from Twitter. Follow my friend @westlondonguru

If you do have multiple accounts then it may be an idea to include this in your profile. This will let new

followers and other stakeholders know about other accounts;

“North Hertfordshire College is a medium sized further education college enrolling around 15,000 learners a

year. Also follow @NHCnews_Sarah for regular updates”

Observation 2 – Make sure any unused accounts are closed.

A word from Tech Stories: “It may be an idea to include in any College ‘Social Media Policies’ that if a new

media account is opened on behalf of the college that a central ‘socialmedia@college.ac.uk’ e-mail address is

used. This way if a member of staff changes post or leaves then others will be aware of all the channels that

are open.”

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3) It takes time to attract a following In terms of the colleges with the most followers, Cornwall College have 3,600 followers as well as a number of other additional accounts. The next closest college has 2,000 followers, and another 13 other accounts with just over 1,000. Please see Table 2 & Graph 2* – # of Tweets, Followers & tweets per week in UK Colleges When looking at the UK university accounts it appears that issues of identity plays a role, this is evidenced by the fact that 4 of the 7 universities with the most followers are “Red Brick” Unis. In addition to this these same “Red Brick” unis have a high “follower per tweet” ratio. Please see Table 3 & Graph 3 *– # of Tweets, Followers & tweets per week in UK Unis Looking at the “followers per tweet” for UK universities Oxford & Cambridge et al mirror the US Ivy League accounts in that they also get the most “followers per tweet.” This provides some interesting discussions about students, identity & affinity for their college/uni (more on that in a future report…I am looking forward to putting that one together). Please see Table 6 – Most followers “per tweet”

In the US a number of university accounts have over 10,000 followers, with 5 of the top 10 unis being

prestigious and/or “Ivy League” universities. Please see table 4 & graph 4* – # of Tweets, Followers & tweets

per week in US Unis/Colleges

Something that stood out with the top US accounts was the frequency of tweets. 14 of the Unis who have

10,000+ followers are among 39 US colleges who are tweeting 20 times+ per week.

If it takes 2-3 mins for each Tweet then Syracuse is spending 6 hours per week tweeting!! Please see table 5*

for a list of the most frequent tweeters

*All tables and graphs can be found at the end of the report

Observation 3 – Make sure that you factor in time each week to spend on growing your account

A word from the Expert – Teacher & Entrepreneur ”I've spent 10 years convincing education institutions that

a relatively narrow set of social media tools are a must-have: in 2005 it was the blog, in 2007 it was Facebook,

since 2009 it's been both Facebook and Twitter. Unfortunately, for many even this limited toolset is a step too

far away from what they feel is in their 'comfort zone' as an institution, unaware that their comfort blanket is

being removed - swiftly.

Too many educational institutions let their perception of what others say and do on social media affect their

ability to see the rich learning opportunity such media offers. Yet more communications and marketing

professionals working in these institutions are wary of being at the online conversations of the very community

that makes the university or college tick: students and educators.

This report should be a wake-up call to many that, in an ever-more competitive higher and further education market, they must invest more not just in the messaging around their institution, but the *conversations* with its current, and potential, students”. Ewan McIntosh, Founder & CEO of NoTosh @ewanmcintosh

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4) Who should contribute to the Colleges’ Tweets?

This brings us onto an interesting question; if the frequency of tweets have an impact in today’s “Always On”

digital society, just as HR is not solely responsible for staff morale;

Are marketing & communications departments solely responsible for the colleges’ brand?

o If not then how much access should other departments have?

o Should colleges be able to influence what’s said about the college from personal accounts?

o If so how can this be implemented?

In addition to this the data suggests that we perhaps should be asking who should be in charge of the colleges’

Twitter accounts, Marketing/communications or…IT?!

It would appear that it’s a close run thing. Of the top 10 staff Twitter accounts we found 4 are from

Marketing/communications and 3 are from IT departments (See also Table 7 & Graph 7 – Staff Accounts);

Name College & Department Tweets Followers

James Clay Gloucestershire College – IT & Library 22,575 2,587

Mark Dredge K College – Marcomms 10,360 2,446

Paul McKean Bolton Community College – IT 6,785 2,594

Chris Grant Alton College – IT 2,813 415

Annie Bowden Loughborough College – Marcomms 2,710 210

Michelle Louth Gloucestershire College – Marcomms 1,819 730

Lucy Thornton Cornwall College – Bus Dev 808 649

Fiona Priestley Carnegie College – Head Tech & Creative Arts 575 431

Dick Palmer Norwich City College – Principal 292 259

Michelle Walkes Havering FE College – Marcomms 67 652

Observation 4 – Should marketing & communications departments be the only people who contribute to the

college twitter account?

A word from the Sector – SQA “As the national awarding and accreditation body of Scotland we welcome any

report that supports the development of learning - Social Software and twitter in particular have the capacity

to support learners and learning communities. It is good to see study that starts to benchmark twitter use

across the UK Further Education Sector" Joe Wilson, Head of New Ventures, SQA @joecar

A word from the Sector - NAMSS “Twitter usage in FE and in particular in Student Services is in its infancy and

is sometimes seen as a passing phase. This excellent report clearly shows that when it is used in a mature and

targeted way Twitter is a tool that FE cannot afford to ignore. NAMSS members should read this report and

consider whether their use of social media could be enhanced by adopting the use of Twitter when

communicating with their target audiences. As with the use of all social networking media, we advise that if

adopted then it should be used in line with an established set of college procedures or policy”

Barry Hansford, Chair National Association for Managers of Student Services (NAMSS)

A word from Tech Stories: ”When assessing the US College accounts for this study we only looked at the

colleges’ main Twitter account. However US colleges do have multiple accounts and NAMSS members may

want to check out some of their Healthy College twitter feeds. Some examples include @HealthyUBC

@UASafeCats @UACampusHealth @hallhealth @UGAhealthcenter - we like UGA’s “Health Dawg”

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5) Quality tweets

We were curious to see if there were any trends when we looked at the accounts with the highest ratio of

“followers per Tweet”. Given the number of followers & tweets from the FE Associations & News accounts this

provided the richest dataset, so these are the accounts we analysed.

Through “The Wisdom of the Crowds” we felt that some of the very best commentary based around the art of

teaching was showcased, if you are not aware of any of the organisations below you may want to check them

out as they are fantastic resources. (See also Table 8 & Graph 8 – FE Associations & Commentators);

Account # Tweets # Followers Followers Per Tweet

# tweets/wk

TEDchris 2,333 1,246,070 534.11 14.29

changemakers 5,430 354,202 65.23 33.05

SirKenRobinson 606 58,026 95.75 4.88

TeachForAmerica 903 35,535 39.35 7.2

khanacademy 143 28,211 197.28 1.01

TEDchris Chris Anderson TED = Ideas worth spreading! Change makers Follow us for the latest in innovation, social entrepreneurship & how you can make a difference. Why? Everyone Can Be a Changemaker. Teach For America Teach For America is the national corps of outstanding recent college graduates who commit to teach for two years in urban and rural public schools. Khan Academy Trying to make a world-class education available to anyone, anywhere. By looking at these extremely successful accounts the commonality here seems to be that these accounts are very targeted and focused – if you are not interested in education you probably would not follow these accounts, as they include;

Tailored, targeted & focused information for educators

News and new ideas to bring into the classroom

The very best practice in teaching,

Regular new content

There is no marketing or selling in these accounts. Observation 5 – The most successful accounts from education commentators are those who focus on one topic – Teaching, and highlight exceptional content for educators by providing regular updates for their followers in the sector.

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6) How do we apply this same kind of content to our FE audience? Based on the above information & trends it is useful to consider the similarity between the top FE accounts (Ted Talks, Khan Academy etc), IT and general college accounts and ask why the personal IT accounts are on a par with Marketing? We have not looked at the content of the individual accounts but, if we did, we expect that the IT accounts would resemble the FE Commentators more than general college accounts. For example;

1) IT are early adopters, they will have been tweeting and experimenting with the medium for longer

2) Technology can sometimes be a preferred way for techies to communicate – and this platform may

require different rules to other forms of marketing i.e. printed material, press releases etc

3) Their accounts are more homogenous – they follow, and are followed by, techies. If you’re not into

technology and/or education you may not be interested in what they have to say so won’t “follow”.

4) The techies will be talking about things that interest them…there is no selling, no shop window…if

they mention any services/products/functionality it’s because they like them…not because they have

been tasked with flogging anything.

Ultimately the reason may be because these accounts and the content is more focused and relevant to both

the medium and their followers.

A word from the Expert – Psychologist “Twitter is a conversational tool. People need to remember

that it is just a chat, that's all. If Twitter is treated as a student recruitment device or some kind of

marketing system, it will not work unless such efforts are treated as one-to-one conversations”

Graham Jones, Internet Psychologist & AoC Comms Conference Plenary Speaker @grahamjones

College marketing & communications departments need to engage with a broad audience, which can include -

prospective & existing students, parents, services to businesses, members of the public, venue hire etc.

This can mean that providing very focused & targeted messages can prove challenging using one main college

account i.e. how much content would appeal to both a business and prospective student? One option to make

things more targeted to your followers might be to do something like @americanu, when someone follows

you have a message like:

“Thank you for following #AmericanU on Twitter. To be added to our lists, @ reply with your status as student,

faculty, staff, or alumni.”

@BrainyBreak

Although this is not an education account it is worth mentioning as it is exceptional and has some high quality

tweeting. Check out the stats;

70 Tweets - 3,375Followers (50 followers per tweet)

Take one look at the account and you’ll see precisely why they have got such a huge following with so few

tweets…they sure do raise your curiosity levels. Take a look at these tweets;

Can drug addicts make good CEOs? http://bit.ly/BB0029

Government sponsored alcoholism? http://nyti.ms/BB0018

We hope to be able to tweet like this one day!!

Observation 6 – Provide Exceptional content by finding ways to separate core groups to enable focused &

targeted tweets.

“Finding followers isn’t difficult. Much harder is keeping them. That’s only going to happen if you create the

sort of content that people actually want to read… Thinking of Twitter as a low cost way to advertise is not

going to bring results…it’s just going to cost you time” Joel Comm, Author Twitter Power 2.0 @joelcomm

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7) Network Effects & Positive Feedback Loops

When looking to build a successful online community, regardless of the platform, there are 2 things that are

vital;

Network effects – Communication platforms are of more value when they have reached critical mass;

telephones, e-mail, mobile phones, social media etc have less value when there are only 100 people

subscribing to the service than when there are 1 million. The more people from your

friends/group/network subscribing to a service the greater value it will have to you.

Positive Feedback Loops - The more positive the experience for users the better the network

becomes. If you like a site you will invite others to join you, the more people from your network who

join, the more relevant the conversation becomes to you – the more time you spend in this space.

These are principles that have assisted google, facebook, you tube, Amazon & ebay etc but there is potential

for colleges to apply these principles as well.

Observation 7 – Apply the principles of “network effects” and “positive feedback loops” to develop your

account.

8) Build Rivalries

In our search for good examples of colleges in Social Media and who had the most fans, we came across a

great example involving Texas A&M and The University of Texas.

The longstanding rivalry between the two universities never fails to cause a stir amongst students & fans. In

the modern age of Facebook and Twitter, the competition extends beyond the playing field and onto the

Internet. These two rival universities compete with one another to have the most followers and fans. At the

time of writing this currently stands at;

Texas A&M = 16,000 followers Vs Texas Uni = 13,000

Observation 8 – Encourage friendly rivalry

Summary

1) Consider which groups you are trying to reach

2) Make sure any unused accounts are closed.

3) Make sure that you factor in time each week to spend on growing your account

4) Make sure that various people & department contribute to the account, not just marketing/comms

5) Provide focused &Targeted messages

6) Provide Exceptional content to your target audience

7) Apply the principles of “network effects” and “positive feedback loops”

8) Encourage friendly rivalry

Having looked at some of the principles at work in FE Twitter feeds, we now turn our attention to providing

some practical ideas to consider that could help you to attract more followers from your target audience(s).

A word for the sector – E-Marketing Manager "I've been very fortunate at Havering College F & HE with the

use of social media which has not been met with any resistance from senior management. Twitter is open for

all to use across college and although it hasn't always been that way, the college has responded to the

demands of the digital world in which we now operate in. We can quantify our social media by reach,

impressions, re-tweets, mentions, shares, followers, likes, conversions and of course engagement. Social media

is not something that can be ignored as part of the marketing mix, so even as new things come on board like

the new Google Plus, if it's viable and we can see a need, we'll capitalise on that too for student recruitment

and retention." Michelle Walkes, E-Marketing Manager, Havering College of F & HE @MichelleWalkes

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Building a Successful Online Community If you were to apply some of these principles to your account what would it look like? How might you go

about;

Planning your activity & reaching your target group(s).

Ensuring that the right people are contributing to the account?

Finding exceptional content for your target group(s).

Applying the principles of “network effects” and “positive feedback loops” to develop your

account.

Encouraging friendly rivalry

Ensure that you are factoring in enough time each week to grow your account

Before looking at these areas there is something that is always worth bearing in mind, which is;

Try to think of your online activity as an off line event.

Poor Event - The host is not there to greet guests, there’s no entertainment, no food, not many people turn up

and no one knows anyone else…people will probably not be staying for long. This is what an undersubscribed

account might look like.

Enjoyable Event – The entertainment is excellent, the food is good, all your friends are there…there is a real

vibrant atmosphere. People will probably want to hang around and will be regulars at the event.

Planning your Activity – The enjoyable event was probably well planned. You might want to think of your

“digital champions” as the hosts, organisers and entertainment – they’ll create the atmosphere. “Digital

champions” will encourage people to hang around and become “regulars”. These people will be found in

various departments which is good as your account will have varied and (hopefully) interesting content which

will appeal to a broader audience.

The great thing about social media is that you can find out quickly and easily who is doing it well. Ask

members of staff who have healthy accounts (strong following/engaging content etc) if they would like to help

develop the college account to help establish a buzz about the college on twitter.

There are different characteristics that are required at various stages of developing your account. Mzinga’s

“Social Quotient Profiler” can help you to identify your “digital champions”; http://socialskills.mzinga.com/

Network Effects & Positive Feedback Loops – With your “digital champions” in place when people now check

out the account it will be alive and vibrant with constantly changing content. Therefore it will be a positive

experience for the new follower. A key reason it is healthy is because it has been populated by your “digital

champions” before others get there…it can be hard to get people visit a ghost town.

If your digital savvy people arrive first to “set the party up” then, as others open accounts they are pleasantly

surprised (“Oh I see so-and-so-is tweeting, he/she is no more tech savvy than me”) and they join in the

discussion and tell others about it which, in turn, provides even more users and even more vibrancy to make it

a positive experience. This then becomes a nice cycle. Your account is a hub of news, information & banter.

NB We are aware of 2 colleges who appear to have tried to establish staff only twitter accounts but these

seem to have infrequent posts which, in turn leads to few visitors. Something that might make a real

difference is if the college started off with a locked account which the “digital champions” got the account

going before opening it up to other members of staff.

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Build Rivalries?

Perhaps you could use building your twitter account as a bit of inter-departmental fun?

To build the account up you could have some departmental competition to see which department can;

Get the most people involved

Get the most tweets in a day/week

Have a best tweet of the week contest etc

We can also apply rivalries to encourage students to sign up to your accounts. What would happen if Liverpool

& Manchester College, or Edinburgh & Glasgow colleges had a running total of the number of followers that

“the opposition/rival” college had? Look at what it’s done for Texas A&M = 16,000 followers; Texas = 13,000

followers…the rivalry has helped to develop the accounts.

Would this assist with learner voice, student engagement & building the college identity?

It’s not doing A&M and Texas any harm! And here’s the thing…having looked at the content of these accounts

and the nature of the tweets they are no different from other college accounts…they have just done things a

little differently.

What happens if you don’t have “traditional rivals?” make them up…have some fun with it. SMT vs staff, IT vs

Marketing, Academics vs non acc, Cleaners & catering staff vs everyone…you will find some exceptional digital

champions in all departments.

Factoring in enough time, involve the right people & exceptional content – Involve Staff

Find out which of members of staff are tweeting...(some accounts are on the spread sheet attached)

1) Find out who are good at it…number of followers, content etc

2) Ask if they would be interested in developing the college account

3) Get the “Digital Champions” tweeting amongst themselves to start with by “locking” the account

4) Involve teaching staff. This could be along the lines of @BrainyBreak, where departments take turns

asking an intriguing “question of the day.” The New Scientist also do this well by providing answers to

questions like “Why is snot green?” or “Do fish dream?” etc.

As well as providing more followers, doing something like this would have the additional benefit of

taking the user to the course departments’ website for the answers, thereby promoting specific

courses & departments in an interactive & fun way.

5) Once you have enough varied and engaging content open the list up, other members of staff will

hopefully say “Oh I didn’t realise so many people were tweeting” and “hey this content is good…there

is humour, industry info, I can find out about colleagues interests etc…Oh and there’s most of the

SMT team…cool”

A word from the Expert – Psychologist “There is another way in which Twitter can be used in education - and

that is for lecturers to encourage questioning. Some students are reticent to ask questions in lectures but are

much more willing to ask them via Twitter. If lecturers had live Twitter streams they could monitor them for

questions from the room and deal with them as they arise.” Graham Jones, Internet @grahamjones

*Please also see appendix 1 to see research and the rationale why colleges should consider this.

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Factoring in enough Time, involve the right people & exceptional content – Involve Students

It’s young people who spread the word about google, facebook, twitter, you tube etc. There is no reason your

students cannot be the driving force behind the college brand. You may be aware that Facebook started off in

colleges, and only those with a “.edu” email address could open an account. Word spread fast amongst

students (with the help of exceptional use of “Network Effects” & “Positive Feedback Loops”), before going on

to become ubiquitous.

To involve students in developing your account you may also want to consider;

1) During inductions, have a social media questionnaire asking students;

Are you on social media?

If so which platforms?

How many followers etc do you have?

2) Ask the students with the largest networks if they would like to help develop the colleges’ account

A good example of involving young people is The RNLI who were rewarded with 1 million views, 250

videos produced, voted best video campaign by You Tube for 2 months.

The cost of the campaign? 12 stamps!!!

See the following link for more details http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n-8L8zIcGp8

3) These students could get added to the staff account, joining the conversation with guidance and

monitoring from members of staff to get the discussion going. Once at a level where the content is

really buzzing and “cool” enough that lots of existing and prospective students will engage with;

4) Open it up to all students

Once you have reached this stage then there are all kinds of things that you can do. For example, once you

have a strong following you can consider splitting the account up (prospective students, existing, bus dev

etc) without fear of leaving any of the accounts a ghost town. The University of Florida have 50 Twitter

accounts; http://twitter.com/#!/UFlorida/following

http://www.urel.ufl.edu/marketingCommunications/socialMedia/list.html

The Suggestion of splitting accounts up is something that people may want to debate because of the

potential to dilute the college brand or message and/or add more work with another account to maintain,

which is understandable. However, to be effective the content needs to be targeted. The messages that

will engage business dev and existing students vary so much that you could run the risk of appealing to

neither group by using the same account.

Obviously your account will need to be well populated before separating your followers into different

twitter accounts.

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Benefits

If you consider the best campaigns that we have highlighted, what are the potential implications that a

successful Twitter account might have on;

Learner voice – what would happen if you were to pull up pages and pages of tweets as self-

assessment evidence for Ofsted…”You Tweeted, we tweeted back”

Print costs – less printed material?

Staff morale – If you used developing your account as a team building exercise?

Enrichment events - Increased attendance?

Improved Retention?

Attracting new students?

Blended/self learning - which we have not even spoke about… but lots of good accounts like

http://twitter.com/#!/GetTheMath

You can lock accounts down so that you have an internal channel for students and staff. You may find you get

more student and staff comments through this platform that you would not have gotten elsewhere – i.e. paper

surveys for students or staff comment boxes.

If you wanted to be completely radical you could even have a day when students are allowed to tweet in class

with comments about the lesson running on the whiteboard…this may be a controversial idea for some, but it

could give you instant feedback on what students think of the lectures…

Here is a great example of an innovative use of Twitter – an auction that Norwich held and ran across all their

digital platforms;

@dickpalmerccn Charity auction for City College Norwich students raised over £20K! Fantastic people of

Norfolk - thank you!

Not only was this a bit different, but it will have engaged existing followers whether students, parents or

businesses and attracted new followers who were interested in the various auction items. These new followers

could then be followed up at a later date with relevant information – prospectuses, training and business

development opportunities etc.

Is there any correlation between successful Twitter Accounts & other Social Media channels? If someone likes your Twitter feed they may well check your Facebook page etc. However the media can be very, very different...and time consuming so having a very healthy twitter account does not automatically mean a healthy Facebook page. Please see Table 9 & Graph 9 - Total # of Social Media Followers & Fans This data throws up more questions - for example should LinkedIn be included as it is more applicable to business development than students, is a Facebook fan worth more than a You Tube subscriber? How do we best measure You Tube – subscribers, downloads, channel views? What about frequency of visits and posts? So what commonality do we have? All these colleges have their social media feeds on their homepage and I am sure there will also be commonality amongst colleges who have "New media" specialists when compared to those who don't. Ultimately, the more we look at the data the more I am convinced that the reason colleges will have a healthy social media program will be an issue of SMT buy in. If SMT see good results from a trial campaign with one media they are more likely to allow the time to develop others; put the SM feeds on the home page and, eventually, employ new media leads. But here is the thing, as I hope the report highlights, without the commitment it is unlikely to work which will only fulfil a sceptical SMT's viewpoint in that "it doesn't work" and "is a waste of time" It’s a catch 22 situation.

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Very Important Advice – Treat Online like Offline

Manners

My favourite advice on social media though is from Social Nation; Treat your online interactions exactly the

same way as you would your real life ones…remember your manners, say please and thank you, play nice with

all the other boys and girls, keep your hands to yourself, don’t pick your nose and if you’ve nothing nice to say

don’t say anything at all!

I think that having the mindset of treating online like offline has important implications, for example;

Enquiries

If someone came into reception with an enquiry about a course how long would you leave them unattended

for? How long would you leave the phone for new admissions ringing before picking it up? How long do you

leave it to respond to an enquiry posted on social media?

Open Days

Would you ever have an open day where;

There was no promotion of the event

You had an empty room with one person waiting for everyone to turn up

This person would have to deal with all the enquiries by themselves, to encourage people to enrol at

the college.

Is this your twitter account at the moment?

Welcome to the Twitter Open Day

1) Make sure that someone from every department is there

2) Make sure you’ve got some students to give their perspectives of college life

3) Marketing & Promotion…follow the accounts where students are making career choices…your local schools,

youth accounts, bands, training providers

4) Talk about things that are of interest to them…if Lady Gaga is playing, then tweet “want to be the next Lady

Gaga?…we do performing arts courses”

5) Do not promote business development etc…this is your prospective student channel

6) Watch your followers grow

7) Track people who follow you to see if it leads to prospectuses, open days and bums on seats?

8) Assess ROI, how many admissions? Whats been the total cost?

Social Media Policy Documents

For those looking to develop social media policies please find some useful links below;

COI - Engaging through social media http://coi.gov.uk/documents/Engaging_through_social_media.pdf

DoH - Digital Engagement April 2010 http://digitalhealth.dh.gov.uk/digital-engagement-strategy/

As these are government docs you could simply copy and paste some of these sections and drop them into

your own documents.

Alternatively for “college specific” guidance we think that Norte Dame’s Social media policy is well thought out

Notre Dame Uni– Social Media Policy http://opac.nd.edu/policies/

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Educating Our Young People on Social Media

The recent riots provide an opportunity to inform learners of all ages about the consequences of their use of

social media and the implications for how they may be viewed by others – though thankfully most social

network use will happen in less extreme times.

While we look to social media as one of the root causes of the way looters organised themselves, it’s

important to highlight how many more people used Twitter to check friends were OK and this same medium

was the way the “Big Clean Up” was organised. Let’s avoid going down the route of the some tabloid press by

demonising our young people…or the ways they communicate just because of a handful of irresponsible

individuals. UK Riots: Social Media as a ”Force for Good” http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-14931010

Eric Sheninger @NMHS_Principal is a principal with one of the largest followings on twitter and made a

valid commented in a USA Today article; “Being literate in 2011 means being digitally literate”.

http://usat.ly/nAYdNZ

A Word From The Expert – Educational Technologists “While the riots have left some people paying the price

for the consequences of inciting violence – both the victims and the perpetrators – they have also encouraged

debates amongst educators and others in authority of the roles they can play in influencing young peoples’

activity and behaviour online. The arguments for development of digital literacy are well established with, for

example, Balint Magyar, former Minister of Education for Hungary, suggesting that it should be regarded as a

human right" Gavin Dykes @gavindk, Director, Cellcove @NMCorg

What’s the value of digital literacy? Just ask Andrea Wallace and Matthew Epstien about the impact their

respective online activity has had on their current career opportunities;

Andrea Wallace http://chronicle.com/blogs/wiredcampus/ucla-administration-turned-to-

youtube-to-respond-to-controversial-student-video/30444

Matthew Epstein http://techcrunch.com/2011/08/03/google-please-hire-matthew-epstein/

Thanks for your Time…and happy tweeting

While social media has been around for a few years now, it remains a divisive topic in education – with some

colleges embracing the medium and other reluctant to engage with it. There are benefits & dangers in both

viewpoints. Social media does not appear to be easy, it certainly seems to require time and commitment and –

In some cases – a change in viewpoint from senior managers as they, quite understandably “just don’t get it”.

It should not be long before we have data on the impact that social media & digital comms policies is having on

college admissions. There is one thing for sure, social media cannot be ignored and we hope that this

document provides you with some points for discussion as well as some ideas to consider & experiment with.

In the event that the college still has no intention of tweeting you may still want open an account to prevent

others from using the college name. You can then use this placeholder and to highlight to people looking to

connect with you which channels you do currently have open, here’s Seth Godin’s;

@sethgodin Seth is not active on Twitter. This is a placeholder. BUT! You can follow my blog by

following @thisissethsblog. Anyone who says they're me on Twitter is lying.

We really hope that you have found this useful and informative…not least because it has taken ages to pull

together in my spare time. We would welcome any thoughts comments or queries that you may have about

this report. We look forward to seeing you in the Twitter-o-sphere…

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Collaboration and Acknowledgement

After reading Social Nation I wrote to Barry Libert, to let him know about some of the reports that we would

be working on if we could identify trends & best practice etc in Further Education in the UK.

Barry said that he would be interested to see our findings and has been invaluable source of information with

his contribution to this report. We are grateful for his time and expertise –he has provided tremendous insight,

feedback and guidance. This report was produced while employed at Solus.

About Social Nation

Speaking from experience I would highly recommend Social Nation for anyone who is just

starting out on their Social Media strategy, but am sure that it will have just as much value for

those with more experience. More information about this book can be found on the following

link; http://www.amazon.co.uk/Social-Nation-Customers-Motivate-

Employees/dp/047059926X/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1315995071&sr=8-1

About Open Matters

Open Matters is a technology consulting and investing firm helping leaders embrace

social, mobile and cloud technologies to prosper.

Connect & Contact

Other reports on new media in education are currently being compiled. To receive these and to keep up to

date with social media & digital communications in education you can connect with us on;

Platform Contact:

Barry Libert www.barrylibert.com

William Jenkins william.jenkins@tech-stories.co.uk

LinkedIn: http://www.linkedin.com/in/barrylibert http://uk.linkedin.com/pub/william-jenkins/27/555/169

Shelfari: http://www.shelfari.com/william_jenkins

@Tech_Stories William Jenkins

William Jenkins is a digital immigrant who is passionate about Further

Education and EdTech. Having spent 10 years using tired, unwelcome outbound

sales methods, he is exploring the world of social media and inbound marketing

@barrylibert Barry Libert

Founder, Open Matters. Strategic advisor and investor in social media, cloud and mobile technologies in order to help leaders and organizations prosper.

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With huge thanks to the following Tweeters who have kindly offered their input

@ewanmcintosh

We build & invest in tech/web startups (http://www.notosh.com) then export the way they work to schools & universities all over the world (edu.blogs.com) http://edu.blogs.com

@grahamjones

Internet Psychologist (Cyberpsychologist) who helps businesses understand how customers behave online with consultancy, workshops, seminars and keynote speeches http://grahamjones.co.uk

@jimpknight

Lord Knight of Weymouth, Shadow Defra Minister in the Lords; consultant on

education, technology & welfare

@NMCorg

Organization devoted to exploring use of new media for teaching, learning, & creative expression. Founder of the Horizon Reports (#NMChz).

@joecar

Head of New Ventures, National Qualifications Body ,education, consultancy, lecturer, teacher, manager , Community Education, Colleges, Vocational Learning http://www.joewilsons.net

@NickJonesCOI Head of Digital, Number 10. Director, Interactive Services, COI, UK Government. Conversations of Interest. Conversing on Interactivity. Making digital deliver. http://www.number10.gov.uk

@NickLinford

Managing Director of www.lsect.com, Managing Editor of www.feweek.co.uk. & author of both the post-16 www.fundingguide.co.uk & www.dataguide.co.uk. #FurtherEd http://www.lsect.com

@AoC_info

Authoritative voice of Further Education Colleges – we represent and promote

Colleges and provide guidance, advice, support and services to our members.

http://www.aoc.co.uk/en/about_us/

@Chelle_PR Comms & Events Manager for @Gloscol & CIPR Regional Co-ordinator for Gloucestershire. Heart Cheltenham, cashew nuts, PR & interiors. Views my own.

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@MichelleWalkes

Social Media Marketer; Internet Marketer, SEO & PPC, Online Marketing Strategies; Graphic Designer; Entrepreneur. http://www.facebook.com/mwalkes

@FEWeek

Follow and read @FEweek newspaper for hot news, analysis and jobs from across the Further Education sector http://www.feweek.co.uk

@fenickr

Deputy Editor / Chief Reporter for FE Week, covering news and analysis from the Further Education sector. Email: nick.reinis@feweek.co.uk Tel: 020 3582 6416 http://www.feweek.co.uk

@gavindk London

supporting learning through technology by working with governments, agencies,

charities and corporations

@chri5grant Technology explorer, enjoying my adventure. http://www.chrisgrant.me.uk

@157Group

The 157 Group represents 27 of the most influential colleges in the FE sector. For

more information visit www.157group.co.uk

@aosec

Regional organisation representing and serving FE Colleges in South East England

@cmnoffice

Networking and support organisation for college marketers http://www.m-network.org

@Sarah_Dodwell Director of Marketing and Communications in Further Education, acapella singer

in Surrey Harmony Chorus, mother of twins, and avid reader.

@TBC

Chair of National Association of Managers of Student Services…not yet on Twitter

but thinking about it after reading this excellent report ;) www.namss.ac.uk

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Appendix 1 – Reticence to ask questions in lectures but willing ask questions via Twitter?

I can imagine that the idea of tweeting questions to lecturers could be dismissed out of hand by many as they

may feel that “Social media has no place in the classroom.” However, what if this idea had research and

rationale behind the concept? Or the suggestion that it could assist the college with its e-learning strategy?

Clifford Nass, author of “The Man Who Lied to his Computer” was working with a design team on making an

SAT tutoring system. They were trying to decide whether the teaching portions of the software should appear

as a one-on-one session with a personal tutor avatar or as a classroom setting with avatars not only for the

teacher but for the other students;

“Some designers said that a solo tutor would encourage students to pay more attention and learn

more. Others argued that being part of a class might make students feel less pressured because they

would be just “another student” in the class and not the sole focus of the teacher. So Nass turned to

the social science literature on how the presence of other people affects learning. As established in the

paper on “social facilitation” by Robert Zajonc and much subsequent research, the effect of other

students depends on how confident the student is. When you feel confident, having other people

present improves how well you learn and perform. However, when you feel insecure, having other

people around makes you nervous and pressured so you don’t learn as well. As a result, we decided to

have the teaching environment be a virtual classroom but with a variable number of students. When

users were doing well on the practice tests, more students would appear at the desks, but when their

practice tests scores were low, there would be fewer students and more empty desks.

Clifford Nass, “The Man Who Lied to His Computer” @CliffNass

I am sure that those involved with some of the MoleNet projects were aware of this study as they seem to

have been utilised and had an impact, for example;

Lakes College: Improved exam results and student independence through iPod quizzes for revision

Many of their students have LDD, and so, have always struggled with the revision process leading up to

exams. Whilst many of the students have eventually gone on to pass their exams, engaging them in revision

to prepare them has been problematic, largely due to a combination of lack of interest, and difficulty with the

process of reading and writing needed for paper-based revision.

Using iPods to get the Construction students interested in doing revision has impacted positively upon exam

performance. The hard work that Jackie had previously put into trying to engage the students in paper-based

revision sessions typically led to around 85% of a cohort passing the exam, whereas the iPod pilot cohort

has achieved a 100% pass rate - every student passed! It is also interesting to note that, just before they

started using the iPods, the cohort did a paper-based mock exam, which none of them passed.

I am sure many would like to have seen MoleNet continue, and applying these concepts in new, initiative ways

may enable us to preserve and develop some of the teaching methods employed in a cost effective way.

Examples of e-learning Twitter accounts jfenderboa: 3D Virtual Technologies Researcher, Presenter, Educator, Designer, Programmer - Immersive learning environments. tomwhitby: Prof of Education. Founder: #Edchat, The EDU PLN Ning, timbuckteeth: author of Digital Classroom, Associate Prof. of learning technology, disruptive activist. suewaters: Helping others with Web 2.0 technology and blogs in the classroom! Writes support material for BuddyPress, WordPress MU / Multisite for Edublogs.org & WPMU DEV. josiefraser: I'm a social and educational technologist. Interested in digital literacy, identity & citizenship, GreenICT, general mischief :)

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Appendix 2 – A word from Other Countries

@agossen

Anthropologist-turned-social media strategist working with Big Red alumni at the

intersection of technology, communication, and community.

@JohnWedderburn Web management, editor, Malmö University. Brit living in Sweden. Analytics.

Barefoot running. Horse riding. Tree climbing. Stuff.

We sent this report to a few colleges & universities in other countries and, given that some have been using social media

for longer and/or in different ways we asked if they could address a couple of key questions that might assist their UK

counterparts

We received comprehensive responses from Andrew Gossen at Cornell University and John Wedderburn at

Malmo University. Given their detailed response and insight we have included their responses in full;

Andrew Gossen – Senior Director for Social Media Strategy Office of Alumni Affairs, Cornell University

I enjoyed this report a lot. I think you’ve done a nice job of looking at some key tactical dimensions of establishing a healthy Twitter presence and then abstracting up to talk about some of the strategic considerations. Since I think the comments you’ve included are strong, I’ll invest most of my time answering the questions below. However, before getting to that, I did have three thoughts:

You seem to be focused on a marcomms approach to Twitter, with a particular focus on student recruitment. From the U.S. perspective, it’s jarring that there’s no mention of using these tools to work with alumni. Most likely, that’s reflective of the fact that FE in the UK hasn’t had to really think about private philanthropy and alumni until fairly recently. But given that the UK trend seems to moving in the direction of North American-style institutional advancement offices, it’s probably worth highlighting this as an area that would reward further exploration.

On a related point, most of the studies I’ve seen of Twitter usage suggest that older teens are one of the demographic groups that uses Twitter the least. They text, but they don’t tweet a whole lot. Often, FE marcomms professionals get so swept up in enthusiasm for a new tool that they don’t ask if their target audience uses that tool or wants to engage with the institution using that tool, as was clear in a recent post from the New York Times: http://thechoice.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/09/26/technology-in-admiss. Prospective applicants are the last audience that I’d be targeting using Twitter, since I just don’t think that there’s the combination of critical mass and desire to engage that you find on Facebook or Foursquare, for instance. But it could be that usage patterns in the UK are enough different that it makes sense. For work with alumni, however, Twitter makes perfect sense, since the sweet spot seems to be 25-45 yr.-old professionals.

Re: the staffing issue. The most lethal misunderstanding is thinking that because you access Twitter from a computer or mobile device, it’s an IT function. It’s not. It’s a front-line engagement function that requires the skill set that you’d find in public affairs, marcomms, fundraising, and alumni affairs positions that engage directly with the public on behalf of the institution. Some IT folks have this skill set and do a marvellous job, but that’s not a skill set that has been included in the hiring criteria for IT staff in the past. Don’t let the medium of the interaction distract you from the fact that you’re trying to achieve the same sorts of things that your engagement people have been pursuing for years. That’s why I think your “online activity as an offline event” model is so strong. This is a framework that needs to be taken into account as your staffing structure evolves. See http://adaptivateblog.com/2011/03/31/social-media-staffing for a thoughtful take on this.

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Q: What kind of resistance there was initially A: It varies, depending on the local context and where individuals are positioned within that context. Non-users tend to dismiss social media as either a fad or a medium for people to tell each other what they had for breakfast. Some alumni affairs people respond that SM is a young person’s game, and that they can’t leave the older folks, who presumably are non-users, behind. Fundraisers will point specifically to the average age of large donors and say that these tools aren’t relevant to that audience. IT folks can get huffy because they don’t like the fact that the tools are so easy to use that they don’t really require IT support, thereby cutting IT out of the equation. Marcomms people tend to worry about loss of control over messaging, the “What if someone says something negative?” scenario, and workload if they suddenly have to respond back to people. Admissions professionals worry about being held legally accountable for something that a staff member says on a social channel, on the off chance that a prospective student will interpret an interaction as an implied promise of admission. Everybody feels understaffed and undertrained. Let me be clear that these are general trends, not anything specific to Cornell. Q: How this was overcome A: You can’t always overcome it. But here’s the general approach I like to take: 1. Cite #s to illustrate the staggering size and growth rate of the social web 2. Address the “I don’t care about your breakfast” skeptics by making the point that social tools are changing the world in ways ranging from the Arab Spring to the demise of print journalism. Then cite instances of the private sector adapting itself to the social web in ways ranging from viral marketing to customer service and ask if we’re really so naïve that we think we’ll be immune to the pressures caused by this societal shift. 3. Provide data on demographics to address the “It’s only the kids” skeptics. But also highlight that the kids of today are the alumni of tomorrow. 4. Provide data on the number of people from your institution that are already using the platform to make the case that your population is already there. (This is much easier with LinkedIn and Facebook than Twitter.) 5. Show some examples of unofficial social web conversations about your institution to address the “But we’ll lose control!” skeptics. The point is that you’ve already lost control, whether you know it or not. The real choice is whether you’ll accede to reality and figure out how to position yourself in a world where you don’t have control, or if you’ll just pretend it’s not happening. 6. Highlight a peer institution that is using social tools and suggest that you’ll be at a competitive disadvantage over time on every front if yours doesn’t adapt and your competition does. Why should a parent entrust you with their child or a donor trust you with their dollars if you’re clearly lagging behind or refusing to acknowledge where society is going? 7. Then highlight some instances of success on the social web to get people thinking about where the institution could go with the right resources and attitude. Obviously, you want to customize this for your audience. But it’s a compelling argument, and it gives you a chance to present information that can help decision makers think about the role that social media could play in the institution in a way that’s informed by data. Q: What your marketing department now looks like - amount of time and/or # of people involved with new media traditional marketing A: I have a team of three people, myself included, working on using social media and online communities to further alumni affairs and development goals. There are also staff in central University Communications working with social tools, although that’s not 100% of their jobs, as well as people in almost all of our 19 colleges and units that spend part of their time on new media. Seehttp://www.mstonerblog.com/index.php/blog/comments/843/social_media_advancement_survey_2011_changes_but_not_big_ones/ for detailed information on staffing patterns and social media usage in higher ed.

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Q: How you quantify your new media activity, do you have ways of measuring ROI with these areas. A: This is a challenge for us, just like it is for everyone else. We hope to have a framework in place by the end of this fiscal year. The trick will be going beyond simple metrics (followers, “likes”, etc.) and not getting side tracked by focusing exclusively on dollar goals, which is tempting if you’re doing this in a fundraising context. The ROI question is going to be solved by tying your social media efforts to your broader organizational goals, which you already know how to quantify. The goal will be to figure out how to take what you can measure about your activity on the social web and relate it quantitatively to the metrics you’re using for those higher-level goals. This won’t be easy, but it’s much easier than trying to persuade a skeptic that there’s an inherent, quantifiable value in a Twitter follower. John Wedderburn – English Information Officer, Malmo University Malmö University have been investing in social media, in a strategic sense, for the last year. This has been almost totally in the context of international student recruitment - something which has become a priority area in Sweden with the introduction of tuition fees for Non-EU students. Q: What kind of resistance there was initially A: Our primary tool is our Facebook page, which we are using to provide a service to prospective students. There was some initial resistance – although we were already active on Facebook, in Swedish, there was no concerted effort to actively use it to talk to people interested in our brand. There was some skepticism and bizarrely, from a marketing consultant we use. The page is www.facebook.com/malmouniversity. We are also using Twitter; both answering students and sending out information. @malmouniversity Q: How this was overcome A: We achieved buy-in by showing the growth of the page and the character of the comments – they were almost entirely left by students interested in studying with us; it was therefore relatively easy to show their value. I benchmark our pages growth against other universities to give an indication of success. I not only look at the number of friends but also the number of comments which are left (you can see the results of this here: http://universityusability.wordpress.com/). Q: How you quantify your new media activity, do you have ways of measuring ROI with these areas. A: Our page consistently has some of the highest levels of activity, when compared to other Swedish university Facebook pages. We’re also monitoring the levels of traffic which our main website acquires, from Facebook and Twitter. For twitter we are using Klout.com to provide some kind of reference. I am also analysing the type of tweets we receive, and send, compared with other university accounts in Sweden. Is this measuring ROI? Not in a direct quantifiable way – but we continually get good feedback from our students and our Twitter account has been invaluable in dealing with comments on Twitter. However, we don’t measure the ROI of our brochures or website so I’m not so concerned about demonstrating it thoroughly for our social media activities. I can understand this being more of interest if we ever recruit a community manager. Q: What your marketing department now looks like - amount of time and/or # of people involved with new media traditional marketing A: Our central information is talking more about social media, and we monitor what people say about us

(particularly in English). The most recent domestic campaign utilized both Spotify and Facebook, for example.

Most work hours, however, are still devoted to more traditional methods of recruitment e.g. the static

website, brochure production etc

The big change, in term of our Facebook page, has been involving staff from across the campus – this means

we have a group of administrators who are experts in student related questions. The page is thus a vital part of

our service to inbound students.

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Appendix 3 – FE Week’s Guide to Twitter

The concept of Twitter sounds ridiculous. Millions of people, businesses and organisations who choose to

document their daily lives through short messages of 140 characters or less. To many, it looks like another social

networking fad similar to MySpace – and let’s be honest, keeping on top of your e-mails is bad enough, right?

Wrong. This particular social networking site has exploded in the last few years, revolutionising the way millions

of people discuss, organise and market themselves. If you’re a college, Sixth Form or any other kind of FE

professional, now is the perfect time to jump in and take advantage of the service. Or, if you’re already an active

user, it’s always worth picking up a few extra tips to see where you could improve.

Twitter is a great way to boost the influence of your marketing strategy. The messages you ‘tweet’ are immediate

and have the potential to reach more than 200 million people at any one time. It provides an opportunity for

other users to give you instant feedback on what they think of your ideas, projects and offers. With such a small

character limit it’s a quick and simple tool to keep on top of, attracting the prying eyes of potential readers with a

single scan. No long press releases, no group e-mails and no long-winded phone calls to worry about.

Creating an online debate has never been easier thanks to Twitter. Are you considering whether or not to scrap a

particular subject? Or do you want to know what everyone else thinks of the latest fee policy? A quick tweet and

you could have a large selection of people telling you what they think. With the right use of hash-tags, it’s the

perfect way to take a quick reading of public opinion, or even join in with the latest discussions trending

worldwide.

It’s also personal. Anyone can ‘mention’ you with a quick question or comment, allowing instant communication

and rapport with your audience. For students and professionals alike, it breaks down the first wall of contact to

make conversations quick and simple. Networking with important figures and organisations has never been

easier.

Best of all, it’s free. The only resource it uses is time – and even that, I’d argue, is a small price to pay considering

the business and public service opportunities that it offers.

Download your copy of the FE Week Twitter Supplement from here:

http://www.feweek.co.uk/twitterguide.pdf

Watch a twitter video tutorial created by FE Week: http://youtu.be/iFn4Q61OsJk

25

Tables & Graphs – UK College Data for Twitter Accounts with Most Followers

Table 1 – Results Summary: Differences by Account Type

Account Type (# Accounts Analysed) Tweets Followers

Followers per Tweet # tweets/wk

FE News & Commentator (304) 477,287 3,866,709 7.43 16.67

US College/Uni (179) 373,761 1,023,725 3.55 14.85

UK University (170) 142,908 507,599 4.45 7.71

Dormant Accounts* (319) 18,977 182,465 1.95 1.20

College Accounts (267) 82,350 108,385 1.90 3.91

FE staff (81) 90,668 23,392 0.63 12.57

*Dormant Accounts = 156 College, 70 FE Commentators, 84 FE Staff & 9 UK Uni Accts

The criteria was that no new tweets for 3+ months and/or less than 50 Tweets

Graph 1 – Results Summary: # Tweets & Followers by Account Type

Graph 2 – Results Summary : Tweets/wk & # Followers per Tweet by Account Type

0 500,000

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Table 2 - # of Tweets, Followers & tweets per week in UK Colleges

Account Tweets Followers # tweets/wk

Cornwall College 915 3,604 7.37

Deeside College 1,027 2,174 6.68

South Essex College 689 1,322 6.13

Gloucestershire College 1,353 1,208 12.48

Weston College 358 1,185 2.87

City of Bath College 339 1,171 2.73

Truro and Penwith College 84 1,149 0.69

Stockport College 240 1,141 2.20

Warwickshire College 340 1,089 2.81

Brighton City College 622 1,044 5.56

Graph 2 - # of Tweets & Followers in UK Colleges

# of Tweets per week in UK Colleges

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Followers

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Tables & Graphs – UK Uni Data for Twitter Accounts with Most Followers

Table 3 - # of Tweets, Followers & tweets per week in UK Unis

Account Tweets Followers # tweets/wk

University of Oxford 507 20,238 4.78

University of Cambridge 1,301 18,361 11.38

Open University 3,129 13,611 17.97

University of the Arts London 1,040 13,188 8.54

University of London 640 9,281 4.84

University of Glasgow 924 8,835 7.34

Cardiff University 1,148 8,817 6.35

Graph 3 – # of Tweets & Followers in UK Unis

# of Tweets per week in UK Unis

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Tables & Graphs – US Colleges/Unis Data for Twitter Accounts with Most Followers

Table 4 - # of Tweets, Followers & tweets per week in US Colleges/Unis

College # of Tweets # of Followers # tweets/wk

Harvard University 7559 63087 63.60

Stanford University 3285 43460 23.37

University of California—Berkeley 5907 25986 41.06

Indiana University—Bloomington 2887 25813 20.92

Arizona State University 2116 22639 15.54

Yale University 1360 21689 6.06

Auburn University 1642 16597 9.12

Ohio State University—Columbus 2387 16169 17.51

Texas A&M University--College Station 3916 16071 26.93

University of Miami 973 14985 5.90

Graph 4 - # of Tweets & Followers in US Colls/Unis

# of Tweets per week in US Colls/Unis

0 10000 20000 30000 40000 50000 60000 70000

# of Tweets

# of Followers

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Tables & Graphs – US Colleges/Unis Data for Most Frequent Tweeters & Followers Per Tweet

Table 5 - Most Frequent Tweeters

College # of Tweets # of Followers # tweets/wk

Harvard University 7559 63087 63.6

Marquette University 11622 11790 78.07

Syracuse University 9238 9646 125.08

University of California--Davis 9264 3678 59.38

Graph 5 - Most Frequent Tweeters # of Tweets per/wk for frequent tweeters

Table 6 - Most followers “per tweet”

Account Tweets Followers Followers Per Tweet

Princeton University 914 14,915 16.32

Yale University 1,360 21,689 15.95

University of Miami 973 14,985 15.40

University of Oregon 531 7,493 14.11

Virginia Tech 161 2,134 13.25

Stanford University 3,285 43,460 13.23

University of Texas—Austin 1,048 13,844 13.21

Appalachian State University 334 4,195 12.56

United States Military Academy 106 1,143 10.78

Arizona State University 2,116 22,639 10.70

Auburn University 1,642 16,597 10.11

0 10000 20000 30000 40000 50000 60000 70000

# of Tweets

# of Followers

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Table 7 – # of Tweets, Followers & tweets per week by UK staff in FE Colleges

Name Tweets Followers Following Followers Per Tweet

Paul McKean (IT) 6785 2594 1839 0.38

James Clay (ILT/Library) 22575 2587 457 0.11

Mark Dredge (Marcomms) 10360 2446 979 0.24

Michelle Louth (Marcomms) 1819 730 627 0.4

Michelle Walkes (Marcomms) 67 652 615 9.73

Lucy Thornton (Marcomms) 808 649 616 0.8

Fiona Priestley 575 431 262 0.75

Chris Grant (IT) 2813 415 409 0.15

Dick Palmer (Principal) 292 259 37 0.89

Annie Bowden (Marcomms) 2710 210 401 0.08

Graph 7 – # of Tweets & Followers by UK staff in FE Colleges

# of followers per Tweet by UK Staff

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Table 8 – # of Tweets, Followers & tweets per week by FE Associations & Commentators

Account # Tweets # Followers Followers Per Tweet

# tweets/wk

TEDchris 2,333 1,246,070 534.11 14.29

changemakers 5,430 354,202 65.23 33.05

SirKenRobinson 606 58,026 95.75 4.88

TeachForAmerica 903 35,535 39.35 7.2

khanacademy 143 28,211 197.28 1.01

Graph 8– # of Tweets & Followers FE Associations & Commentators

# of followers per Tweet by FE Associations

0

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Table 9 – Total # of Social Media Followers & Fans

Account # Linkedin Facebook Twitter You Tube* Total # Overall

(Rating) (Rating) (Rating) Subscribers: Followers SM Rating

Deeside College 3 (10) 2,012 (2) 2,174 (2) 43 (2) 4,232 1

Cornwall College 250 (1) 239 (9) 3604 (1) 14 (6) 4,107 2

Brighton City College 129 (4) 2,324 (1) 1044 (11) 15 (5) 3,512 3

Warwickshire College 198 (2) 1,862 (3) 1089 (10) 61 (1) 3,210 4

Weston College 64 (6) 1,572 (4) 1185 (6) 16 (4) 2,837 5

Stockport College 164 (3) 1,352 (5) 1141 (9) 21 (3) 2,678 6

South Essex College 48 (9) 1,232 (7) 1322 (4) 13 (7) 2,615 7

Gloucestershire College

73 (5) 1,307 (6) 1208 (5)

9 (8) 2,597 8

City of Bath College 57 (7) 832 (8) 1171 (7) No Channel? 2,060 9

Truro and Penwith 51 (8) 266 (10) 1149 (8) No Channel? 1,466 10 Data from LinkedIn 12/7/11; Facebook 21/9/11 ; Twitter 30/6/11; You Tube 30/8/11

*You Tube has a number of analytics and subscribers may not be the best metric, as you can see the college

rankings change depending on the criteria used when comparing this channel across colleges

You Tube Upload Channel # Videos Subscribers:

Account Views Views: Uploaded

Warwickshire College 23,182 (4) 7,283 (1) 116 (2) 61 (1)

Deeside College 43,355 (1) 6,106 (2) 161 (1) 43 (2)

Stockport College 28,660 (3) 5,694 (3) 25 (6) 21 (3)

Weston College 3,523 (6) 2,523 (4) 10 (8) 16 (4)

Brighton City College 12,961 (5) 1,949 (5) 34 (3) 15 (5)

Cornwall College 30,438 (2) 1,900 (6) 26 (5) 14 (6)

South Essex College 1,836 (8) 787 (7) 17 (7) 13 (7)

Gloucestershire College 3,073 (7) 749 (8) 32 (4) 9 (8)

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