“The Use of Social Media in Higher Education for Marketing and
Communications: A Guide for Professionals in Higher Education”
by Rachel Reuben

This guide is worthy of more than just a re-tweet this morning, so I’ve linked it here.

And for those not interested in reading the whole report (shame on you!) here are a couple of choice quotes from Rachel;

“What if we opened up courses for student reviews on our site? New students would be able to view reviews on classes when trying to make their selections, especially for general education courses. Courses with great reviews will likely receive higher enrollments, without any additional cost to market these classes. Administrators would likely worry about the classes that would receive poor reviews – but whether you enable this feature or not, these conversations are happening elsewhere, likely on sites you have no control over.”

“Social media comprises of activities that involve socializing and networking online through words, pictures and videos. Social media is redefining how we relate to each other as humans and how we as humans relate to the organizations that serve us. It is about dialog – two way discussions bringing people together to discover and share information.”

Admittedly the guide is slightly old now, written in 2008, it talks about “the two most popular social networking communities are Facebook and MySpace” which we know is not the case as it is Facebook or Twitter now (reports of 10 million users leaving MySpace a month have been seen recently) but it should not be discounted just because of it’s age. We may be better at thinking and using Social Media than we were three years ago, and the world of Social Media and Social Networks have changed with Smart Phones and Tablets allowing us to be more mobile with “when and where” activities, but we all have a responsibility to check and re-check our online activity, individually or as an organisation.

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Twitter is becoming an important tool for backchannel chat and information exchange in conferences, exhibitions, and classroom activities where perhaps email and/or discussion forums were used before. Twitter has also become a very useful way for those unable to attend to keep up with speeches, presentations and conversations that surround the ‘event’, and I have virtually ‘attended’ a few conferences this year already without having to book tickets or take time off work. It is not the same as being there, but it is still extremely useful.

Using a tool that can send a tweet from your presentation isn’t only useful for those unable to attend your session, it is also a good way for you to send notes into the backchannel for attendees information. I have started planning my next delivery of the Social Media & how (students) can survive online presentation to include sending tweets to the different examples I show as well as the YouTube videos and any other background information that could benefit the students in their follow-up activity (reflective blogging).

So, if you’re interested in this too, you’ll need the AutoTweet tool, which is free and easy to download from here:

• PowerPoint AutoTweet (SAP 2.0)

You don’t have to install any other of the SAP 2.0 tools to make this work, but they’re worth a look for other aspects of including Twitter in presentations.

You will also need an account with a service like www.supertweet.net to enable the tweets to be sent due to the ‘API Proxy Account’, or something – anyway, you’ll need it. You can always revoke the application access from Twitter settings afterwards if you want.

AutoTweet will run as an ‘add-in’ in PowerPoint, which so far I have had to re-configure each time I open it to use (which makes testing the presentation a pain) but at least one option is to disable auto-tweeting until I’m ready to publish and tweet. One option available is that you can also display when a tweet has been sent (the bottom check-box in the settings image below) but I have found this slightly disruptive to the presentation but I know from colleagues that the students like it as it gives them an indication that content has been made available in the backchannel:

Now all you do is enter the hashtag in the box, as above, that you want to use and the tool will add this to the end of any text you specify to tweet from the slides.

To set the tweet content you just add the text and links (or even another hashtag) between the [twitter] [/twitter] code that you place in the slide ‘notes’ section, like this:

with the above example coming out like this:

Social Media Statistics: http://is.gd/jNZ7L2 #ignorethis

February 22, 2011 4:24 pm via webReplyRetweetFavorite

@hopkinsdavid

David Hopkins

While it takes only minutes to set up it does take longer to plan the tweets for the slides and get the shortened URLs ready but it is worth it.

I’m looking forward to testing this with the students again in a couple of weeks, I’ll let you know how it goes – via Twitter of course (@hopkinsdavid)

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I have changed how I write and title my blog posts recently.

Those of you who have followed me for a while on Twitter, Facebook, or just on my blog (thank you for subscribing) will know that I used to write the post, put a Twitter hashtag in the title, publish the post then change the title so it read properly afterwards.

Now, however, I find I get more traffic and re-tweets if I leave the original title with hashtags in place.

Example in point – my last post on QR Codes has been retweeted a few times by some kind folks who have found it on my blog, and if the retweet button is pressed on my blog then the title, hashtag, and credit (@hopkinsdavid) is sent with the link.

RT @hopkinsdavid QR Codes: The nuts and bolts #QRCode #edtech #ukedchat http://is.gd/iw9qyx

February 10, 2011 11:50 am via webReplyRetweetFavorite

@youscanme

YouScan.me

Without the hashtags this would have been any other tweet – with the hashtag the profile of this post is raised to new searches in the hashtag. I have seen an increased traffic to me site for old (6 months and older) posts, along with comments and emails coming on the back of them.

So, while it may not ‘look’ nice on the blog, the funny #hashtag in the title has it’s purpose. Sorry!

PS. I used the Blackbird Pie WordPress plugin to put the tweet above in the post; it’s not an image but the actual live tweet!

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Here are two excellent reports on the (Institutional) use of Twitter and Facebook by the Russell Group Universities;

• Institutional Use of Twitter by Russell Group Universities
• Use of Facebook by Russell Group Universities

What I take from these two posts and the lists/stats that have been collected is that there does not seem to be a uniform approach to the way the social media are being used. Are Universities using these tools because they think they ‘have’ to in order to be seen as progressive, modern, interested, social, etc, or is there a well-defined and implemented strategy behind the decision? I fear  it is more likely to be the former than the latter.

What do you think? Do you run/maintain an ‘official’ channel?

Many thanks to Brian Kelly (@briankelly) for the posts and analysis of results.

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With statistics like “28% of iPhone users check/update Twitter before they get out of bed” it makes me feel better … I’m ba,d but not that bad! Mind you, I am among the 23% of iPhone users who rely on Twitter for my news.

Infographic from Social News Watch.

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As we’ve all said before … Twitter is the biggest, best staffroom you can find, and share! Watch this and share with anyone who doesn’t believe you …

Well, nice and simple, eh? Love it!

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Note: In this series I’ll delve into some of the better plugins available for WordPress that I am already using, or about to start using. I’m aiming to highlight 30 of the better plugins.

Can WordPress get any better, whether it’s for a simple blog of a full corporate platform for the website and much more … yup, it can!

Just announced is the new Blackbird Pie pluginfor WordPress, which will automatically display the tweet, it’s author, and appropriate links in your WordPress page or post. They say it …

“… is a method of displaying tweets as rich full content rather than as just simple URLs or images. With Blackbird Pie Twitter, hashtags link to search pages and usernames link to twitter profiles. An individual tweet, or pie, includes all the details, design, and information that a single tweet page would include. As a blogger, Blackbird Pie offers a great way to engage Twitter on your site and bring discussion to your blog.”

What do you need to do … other than install the plugin? Easy, just like the YouTube plugin to embed YouTube videos by simply pasting the URL, all you do it paste the URL of the tweet and the plugin does the rest (don’t forget to remove the link on the text!). Here it is in action (I thought I’d use one of my old tweets as an example);

Blogged: What is a Learning Technologist (part 2)? http://is.gd/gcwCs

October 22, 2010 10:32 am via WordTwit PluginReplyRetweetFavorite

@hopkinsdavid

David Hopkins

Great, isn’t it!

Since the upgrade I downloaded this morning (November 16th) there’s now a lovely little blackbird button that’s been added to the toolbar, and from here you can insert a tweet based on full URL, the ID of the tweet, or search for a username and select the tweet from the list;

The options are …

[View as Slideshow]

Which gives you the tweet like this;

This Robin Hood Airport thing is being blown up out of all proportion #twitterjoketrial

November 12, 2010 11:29 am via webReplyRetweetFavorite

@GeneHunt

Gene Hunt

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You can’t deny that if you’re involved in the Internet you ought to have tried Twitter by now. As I’ve said in previous posts, and presentations, it’s not about how others use it, it’s about how YOU use it … and it isn’t something you’ll master overnight but rather something that will grow as you find your feet and find a purpose for it.

Well, here is a great presentation from Steve Wheeler on ‘The Art of Twitter‘ as he thinks that;

“… the time has now come to introduce a set of guidelines for Twitter – ‘Twettiquette’ if you like”

Using simple terminology that we can all understand, this guide is another great way to introduce newbies to Twitter, and for those of us who consider ourselves proficient (or semi-proficient) in it’s use it’s an amusing recap on what we already do.

[Full credit to Steve for coining the phrase 'Twettiquette']

All I need to know about Twitter I learned at Kindergarten
View more presentations from Steve Wheeler.

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I was pointed to TweetBook by Jane Hart; if you have an account on Twitter, you’ll absolutely love Tweetbook.

Tweetbook is a free service that will create a PDF ‘book’ of all your own tweets. The beauty is that links are still clickable, but not to profiles. It also seems that, I don’t know if this is dependent on volume of tweets or not, it only does the previous calendar year of tweets. it could just be I’ve said too much and decided anything older just wasn’t worth it LOL

Tweetbook: ‘hopkinsdavid’ Book of Tweets (September 2009 to September 2010)

You can also take a backup of your Favourites and, if like me you’ve saved a whole heap of tweets, this could be really useful;

Twitter: ‘hopkinsdavid’ Book of Favourites (March 2009 to September 2010)

Other than creating PDFs, you can also use Tweetbook to save all your Tweets offline, in one XML file. I haven’t used this, but I’ve been assured it’s proved useful.

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As a follow-up to my (successful?) presentation ‘Twitter in Education” this one looks into the uses of Twitter, rather than the tool.

Twitter in Education: what next? | View more from David Hopkins

It is also worth keeping in mind the kind of resource that I haven’t been able to include in the presentation, but have provided links to for those who are interested, such as;

• Online Colleges: 25 Twitter Projects for the College Classroom
• Social Media for Working & Learning: Twitter in the classroom, 10 useful resources
• Mashable: How Twitter in the Classroom is Boosting Student Engagement
• Emerging Ed Tech: 6 Examples of Using Twitter in the Classroom
• Olivia Mitchell: How to present with Twitter (and other backchannels)

There we go; any and all comments welcome, and please feel free to link to or embed the presentation using the SlideShare code.

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