How to Use Social Media to Engage Students

 How to Use Social Media to Engage Students A project for the UCSB Library By: Kelsey Gagliardi The easiest way to communicate with students is via social media because it surrounds students’ lives. Social media marketing needs to be interactive. It cannot just be one sided by the company/business, you need to engage the audience. Students mainly communicate via texting and Facebook. These are two mediums in which students take value to the content they receive. Email is a current source, but from experience, a large number of students tend to disregard emails and use it primarily for professional contacts. Students pay the most attention to visual media, whether it is photos or videos. Facebook is the most used social media platform by college students. Other popular ones include: YouTube, Twitter, Flickr, wordpress/blogs, and foursquare. Reaching Out to Freshmen Gaining the freshman audience is key as they are very moldable as they embark on this new part of their life called college. The Visitor Center, Spring Insight, and Freshman Orientation are all great opportunities to place brochures highlighting the library along with links to “Connect with us on Facebook” so students get in contact early and learn that the Library is social and provides a great benefit as a resource to students. Around May/June, the freshman population will start to create “Class of 2015” Groups on Facebook. You will want to join this group yourself so that you can post to their wall regarding general posts to “like” the library as well as any news or info you need to post over summer as this group is checked frequently by students prior to starting at UCSB, though there is not a huge following after the year starts. Facebook Places Davidson Library, UCSB: is one of the most popular places for students to “check-­‐in” to via Facebook Places on their iPhone or other smartphone. I would suggest viewing that page and claim it “as your business”. This will integrate everyone who checks-­‐in to your official UCSB Library Page, thus increasing traffic and content. Fan/Business Page Vs. Groups A page is more for businesses to keep long-­‐term relations with followers. You are able to message people via updates. You are also able to see stats on your page and there are many apps you can add to better communicate with fans. Events are created by the page, not an individual person, and you cannot message people attending the event. A group allows open communication between people who are members of the group and members must join to be included. Posts on the wall are stated under name (John Doe) instead of page (UCSB Library). Messages are sent under your personal account and you can message all people attending the events. Fan/Business Pages Audience Interaction: To “like” a fan page (UCSB Library) means that updates by that page show up in your personal news feed. Administrator Privileges: As an admin of a fan page, posts that you put on the page will show from UCSB Library, not your personal name. There was a recent update to Facebook pages, which enable an admin to “Use Facebook as Page” so that if you are browsing other pages, you can “like” them from your page account instead of your personal account. This can be useful for sharing links on other pages, you can now be consistent from your page rather than your name. Etiquette to Admin-­ing a Facebook page: You need to check and monitor the page at least once a day. Facebook spam is very popular and you want to make sure any content on the page is relevant to you. It is also nice to have a lively page, if there is less than one post per month the page is boring and people will unlike the page for lack of content. I think a key to admin-­‐ing a good page is a positive and enthusiastic tone. Also, this is not the place for acronyms or abbreviations ie. lol, haha, n, k, etc. A page should be a professional environment. When users use profanity, my preference is to delete the comment or post. If someone is angry or voices a concern, it is good to address their issue, thank them for letting you know, and be sorry for whatever they mentioned. If a reply turns worse, it is good to make note of the conversation, but probably delete the negative vibe off the page. You want the page to be interactive and facilitate feedback from users, but again the key is positivity with all types of content you produce. Features Photos: Photos are a great addition to add life to posts. Also photo tagging is huge on Facebook, so to allow students to “tag themselves” is great. If you host an event or just take photos of students studying (make sure to have them sign a UCSB photo release) hand them a flyer saying “Tag Yourself” photos will be up on UCSB Library Facebook Page. Videos: Youtube-­‐ videos can be used to portray information in a fun way. Maybe you shot a video to notify students of some general upcoming news. From your page, you can upload a video from your drive or use a link to a video hosted on youtube. Videos are good for students as they are media focused, easy to watch, entertaining, as well as give a break away from school. Links: When you make a post with a link to another webpage, it is important to click "share a link" and input the link url, then there is an option to give a small blurb/text about the link, this way the url link is not showing in the text part of the status. This also gives a good-­‐looking thumbnail of the link when a photo can be pulled from the linked site. Questions/Polls: Questions can be used to ask a specific question of the community to obtain an answer based on options for users to vote on. Users can also fill in their own answer. There was a recent revamp to the Questions section, which now allows the question to post on your wall as well as the News Feed of users who have “liked” your Page. I think this is a good new untapped resource as it is quite social to see what your friends have voted on and encourages you to share your opinion. Analytics/Insights: Facebook Pages provides Insights to page admins regarding users and interactions with the page. It is important to look through this info as you can see what topics are being viewed/clicked more as well as approximately how many users see specific posts. You can export the stats of a page for any span of dates as an excel file so you can view progress over time. I would suggest pulling the relevant info from the insights to use as personal benchmarks of successful increases in users or views. I track the number of people who like us and weekly input that number into a spreadsheet to easily see it grow over time and not be overwhelmed with the rest of the info the analytics provide. Events: Creation—A Facebook event should be created about 1-­‐2 months prior to the event and not closer than 1 week. Creating an event only days before the event greatly decreases marketing ability and is received as sloppy. Make sure you have all the relevant info before you sit down to create the event including: name, date, time frame/all day, event photo, and description text (around 5-­‐6 quick informational sentences, not more than 2 paragraphs as you don’t want too much text that no one reads it). Inviting—Inviting guests can be a touchy topic as the goal is not to spam all your friends and followers. If you host 1 event per month or less, it is okay to invite all friends to whom the event is relevant, ie. “attend UCSB, or part of UCSB network, etc”. Maintenance—It is crucial to check the event page regularly just as you would monitor a page. Events bring about questions and responses so it is good to give a quick reply as an admin. Marketing—After an event is made, it will be published to the Page’s wall and this will be the first instance of marketing. Below is a sample outline of ways to market the event in advance. Most of these posts should be made from the page itself not individuals to seem professional though I do encourage supplemental posts from individuals about events to share with friends who might not be connected to the page. 3 weeks prior-­‐ one wall post (link to event and small blurp) & Update fans of the page as a “save the date” message 2 weeks prior-­‐ one wall post (link to event and small blurp) 1-­‐week prior-­‐ message fans of page, one wall post (link to event and small blurp) Week of-­‐ 2 posts (link to event and small blurp) For example, here is a reverse timeline that was used for Fun & Fitness Festival 2010: 1-2 months+
 Create Facebook event and send invites to all friends
5 weeks
 Facebook- update Fans via message (you do this from the event page at the top right)
4 weeks
 Facebook- post about the event on your page
3 weeks
 Facebook- post event on other page’s walls
o Tues: UCSB Official Network, UCSB Class of 2013 (Official Group), Surf Club at UCSB, The
Official Gauchos Locos, Gaucho Tour Association
o Thurs: UCSB Adventure Programs, UCSB Department of Recreation, UCSB Housing &
Residential Services, AS Program Board Presents, UCSB Arts & Lectures
2 weeks
 Facebook- update Fans about event
o Update twice
o Mon: UCSB Career Services, UC Santa Barbara, UC Santa Barbara News & Research, Daily
Nexus, UCSB Bookstore, Isla Vista Bookstore
o Wed: Silvergreens, Woodstock’s Pizza Isla Vista, Dogtown, UCSB Athletics, UCSB Kappa
Kappa Gamma, Sigma Chi Omega, UCSB Lacrosse
1 week
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5 days

4 days

3 days
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2 days

1 day

Facebook- post twice
Facebook- tag the event
Facebook- direct fans to additional website for more info
Facebook- update Fans
Facebook- post event on wall
Facebook- update Fans
General News/Information: To post general news to followers, do so in a fun and encouraging way. Links are popular for extended information on a topic, but also photos work well to grab students’ attention on a particular matter. For a long period of news updates regarding construction, maybe you start a daily update or number each thing so it is something that students can follow what is new each post. You can also add an additional section to wall, info, events, photos, etc completely devoted to Instructional Content on how to use the library. This would be a great venue for youtube video how-­‐to, which is more relevant to student rather than reading text. Contests/Promotions: Promotions are a great incentive for students to participate in campaigns. By offering something for free, they are more likely to do something. I suggest using promotions once you have sustained a following. A promo will fail if the population is only 100 and only a small percentage will participate. Make sure there are enough users you are reaching and have a purpose to your promotion. You can raffle things off to followers once you reach a certain benchmark. Examples: Promoting giveaways via social media only…“Gauchos! Intramural Sports sign-­‐ups are almost here! Sign-­‐up during the first 3 days (Sept 13-­‐15) and you will receive a “Where Gauchos Play” wristband. Wear your wristband to the Fun & Fitness Festival, and you’ll win an exclusive UCSB Rec Sports Tank.” Reaching an attending benchmark…“Gather your fellow Gauchos! Once we reach 1500 people who are attending, Rec Sports will give out exclusive Rec Sports tanks to some lucky attendees." Incentive to collect likes…“Hey Gauchos, once we reach 2500 people who “like” UCSB Rec Sports, the first 6 people to post why you love UCSB Rec Sports on our wall will each win an exclusive UCSB Rec Sports water bottle.” Raffling items off for doing the following on Facebook… • Share our video link on your profile and tag us •
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o Place the video url in your status and tag @ucsb recreational sports Get 10 of your friends to like us on Facebook o Suggest the UCSB Recreational Sports page to your friends o On each of your friends than like us, tag @ucsb recreational sports on their wall or in your status update. Post on our wall about your intramural or sport club team o Make a post on our wall about your next IM or sport club game and we will try to be there and get you on film to be featured in our next video Check out our photos and tag yourself o Go through our photo albums and tag yourself in the photos you are in If you comment on 3 of our posts o If we make a post that you really like, give us a comment about it If you like us on Facebook and we get 2222 people that like us as well o Go to our page and “like” us Analysis of Other Student Orgs that Use Social Media Well Career Services— is a very social media oriented org • They hold a lot of events throughout the year for which they create Facebook events • For most of their Facebook posts, they upload a picture, which is very eye catching and is more inviting for students to click/read the information. • Most links are shortened to ow.ly, which avoid a lengthy and messy url • They use the hashtag #UCSB for Facebook posts that relate to UCSB • They integrate an active Twitter account and repost to Facebook via Hootsuite Building a Brand: Brand name recognition is the easiest way to get and keep the attention of followers. Whether you have a name, logo, photo, or slogan, the key is to keep it consistent and use it on all types of media and marketing. Facebook Ads: Facebook Ads don’t seem to reap enough benefits to cover the costs in my opinion, though I have never done them. I don’t know of many students that click on them, though they might view them. I have heard from other students that the strong ability to be targeted for a product/service that relates to them comes across as an invasion of privacy and students will avoid potential spamming that a click can lead to. It doesn’t seem that students are willing to spend their Facebook time looking at Ads so my current recommendation would be to pass. Flickr Use: I find Flickr useful if a main component of your business or organization is sharing photos. If there will be photos you intend to share, I believe Facebook Photos will cover basic needs and allow for easy student access. With just starting a social media campaign, I think it is better not to spread too thin into lots of social sites, just build a strong following in a reliable social arena before connecting all sites. I think Flickr has some nice features, but for social media marketing/communication to students, I don’t think using Flickr is a tool commonly used by students. Twitter Use: I have and currently use a twitter account for UCSB Rec Sports and I have not seen a large following from it. It seems as most students are not catching on to the Twitter phenomenon yet, and the ones that use Twitter are already quite engaged in other social media, such as Facebook. Additional Resources: Mashable: The Social Media Guide— www.mashable.com Mari Smith’s Website/Blog— http://www.marismith.com/mari-­smith-­blog I recently found this site and have liked the content so far as it is mostly Facebook and social media focused with tips and tools relevant to admin-­‐ing a page.