Social media take home messages from NETC 2012

Social Media Evaluation

We need to determine methods of social media evaluation to determine:

o   Who are we attracting?

o   Are they engaging with us?  How do we define engagement?

o   How are we reaching them?  Which platform?  What type of interaction?

o   What are we trying to do and are we doing it?  Need to establish goals, preferably before beginning to be sure you are using the right platform/approach

Levels of evaluation and evaluation methods – run weekly since twitter only archives 7-8 days

o   Sentiment – content analysis tools –

§  CTI

§  Excel Analytics for Twitter – provides a tone score.  Can search on hashtag, free download

§   Invivo – very challenging and labor intensive.  Required 10 hours of analysis for an hour on-line chat session. 

o   Attitudes, Perceptions & Behavior – Survey research tools

§  Survey Monkey

§  Instant Survey

o   Reach, Engagement & Action – Analytic Tools – see comparison chart from slides

§  Google Analytics – web pages, new social engagement – how long are visitors there?  Where do they go when they leave?

§  Facebook Insights – page posts - # people reached, look for patterns

§  TweetReach – identify audience through retweets

§  SWIX – Facebook and Twitter, moderate, but only surface - $39/month

§  TweetStats – timing issues

§  Klout and Kred – influence

§  Google spreadsheet – open and run – configure to run automatically

§  URL link shortener – follow link access

o   Need for internal evaluator to facilitate evaluative thinking and document

o   Reflective practice – focus group – Adobe Connect

o   Participating in online networks is an essential skill for extension professionals in an interconnected world. . . core competency

Social Media Management

·         Engage a team in management of facebook pages, but allow to post either as the organization or as an individual

·         Get colleagues to invite friends to “brand” page to increase audience

·         linqto – Facebook App which allows video chat

·         Some counties using Facebook pages to promote county events – connect to Google calendar

Social media - “communication, collaboration, learning and the sharing of resources”  “Facebook is becoming the new internet.” - Luke Wrobleski

Contacts/Presenters:

·         Sarah Baughman – Military Families, VT - @programeval

·         Jerri Caldwell Hammond - @JL_Hammonds

·         Marissa Stone - @Marissa_Stone

·         Luke Wrobleski