Social Media for Cooperative Extension

One of my areas of thought and inquiry lately has been around the role of social media in developing and reaching extension audiences.  Extension has long prided itself on the relationships formed between the clientele and extension professional in the field.  Most of these relationships were face-to-face and I know I've talked about this in previous posts.  In "face-to-face" we have best opportunity for building those high quality relationships that build on the regular interaction, ability to "really see" what someone is talking about and ability to read body language and facial expressions that clue us into the importance of what is being discussed.  As extension professionals we have access to a wealth of valuable, research-based information that can be interpreted and implemented for local situations.  How do we do that from a distance now that we have to cover larger geographical areas to reach the same number of clients?  And better yet, how do we measure success?

The July 28 issue of Inside Higher Ed featured a story, Tweeting by Faith that reports that universities as a whole believe social media is a valuable tool but are ineffective in measuring what the tool is contributing to the organization.  They remain caught up in measuring number of friends, likes, followers, etc. which indicate people are available to hear and possibly listening, but don't really indicate that our message is getting across and used.

I previously reviewed a slide presentation from "Information Management" on the 9 Challenges with Social Media Metrics and share with you now what they identified as challenges and some of my thoughts on how they relate to Extension. 

1.  Response Tracking - This goes back to what we are measuring.  And to go beyond likes, retweets and shares we have to know who is using the content so we can later identify what change the information inspired.  This would require some type of "registration" which is a turn-off to many people when they are surfing.  Personally, if I see it and its not a site I already value, I'm not likely to register.  Someone could go in and make lists of those initial respondents perhaps and message them later to get follow-up information realted to how they used the information.
2. Audience - Are we successful in reaching the desired audience?  Of course this also assumes we sat down initially in planning our campaign and identified our audience.  In this we also need to know whether our message is going out at the proper level for the intended audience.  The message will be different for a beginning versus an advanced client.
3. Monitoring - Are we using social media to listen to how well we are performing.  What are our clients saying about us when we aren't directing the conversation.  This week there has been a great outpouring of support for Cooperative Extension related to our horticulture resources on the #CoopExt tag.  It's refreshing to see that, but who is watching.  And we can sit back and smile now, but if the message were negative would we be prepared to respond effectively and quickly?
4. Content analysis - We need to be sure that what we are producing is of the highest quality and usefulness to the intended audience.  Also, when we retweet or share other's messages we need to be sure it meets our quality requirements.
5. Connections - The article recommends some software that can be used to measure the strength of the connections that are being made on behalf of your social media presence.
6. Traffic analysis - What kind of interactions are taking place as a result of those connections?  Are they improving our reputation and reliability and helping to spread the intended message?
7. Influence - Klout has made us all aware that different people are on different levels of the influence chart.  We need to know how many people/companies of influence are supporting our programs through connections, messages sent, retransmission, links and comments.  I've always felt our messages were much stronger when someone else from the outside shared them as our message.  (Which emphasizes need for our clarity in delivering the intended message to the intended audience.)
8. Case Management - Do we follow-up with issues and challenges that are identified in a timely manner?
9. Cross-platform identities - How do we manage our identities for different forms of media to best utilize the attributes of that media?  Audiences often differ by media as do limitations and types of information that are appropriate to be shared.

How is your cooperative extension program measuring impact through social media?  Do you include it in your regular reports?  Does today's evaluation influence planning for future educational efforts?  And finally, how are you monitoring your message?  I look forward to hearing from you.

Academic Plans for Extension Programs

In Shaping the College Curriculum:  Academic Plans in Context (Lattuca & Stark, 2009) they list the components of an academic plan.  While their work is focussed on academic plans related to for credit undergraduate and graduate education, it can be easily adapted to non-credit education as delivered by Cooperative Extension.  Thinking about educational goals in extension and in terms of these components has many benefits both to the educator or educator team and the client.  Among these are increased clarity and purpose for educational activities and events, improved methods of evaluation and the idea of building a continuum for client learning that is clearly defined and easily followed.  Here are the components as defined on page 4 of the text along with how I interpret their use for Extension education.


I.  "Purposes:  knowledge, skills, and attitudes to be learned."  - In any classroom, we need to develop learning objectives.  What are our goals in terms of student learning, growth and development?  There will likely be higher, overarching goals and then intermediate objectives to be achieved in the process of reaching the higher goal.  For instance, if our goal is to increase client intake of fruits and vegetables, we may also have goals for them to learn to identify quality when purchasing fruits and vegetables, learn to grow fruits and vegetables, learn to identify fruits and vegetables available locally by season, learn to preserve fruits and vegetables, understand nutritional aspects of fruits and vegetables, learn to prepare fruits and vegetables, understand desirable intake of fruits and vegetables for various members of the family.  These preliminary goals may each be the topic of specific educational activities developed with the long term goal of increasing client intake of fruits and vegetables.


II.  "Content" - What are the preliminary goals, as developed in the example above?  And then what information will be used to achieve the preliminary and final goals? 


III. "Sequence" - Are there pieces of the educational content that need to be mastered for people to move to further levels?  In what order will information be presented to achieve this?  With the fruits and vegetables example, it may be beneficial for clients to understand the importance of increasing fruits and vegetables in their diet, so you may want to start with nutritional aspects first and then move to other components.  Or you may want to cover purchasing and growing fruits and vegetables before you talk about preparation and preservation.  Outline the sequence for covering the various topics.


IV.  "Learners:  how the plan will address a specific group or learners" - This may be more challenging in extension since you don't have the benefit of requiring prerequisite classes ro experiences.  However you will want to identify your target audience or audiences and think how they may interact differently with the educational content.  Will some members of the audience have needs that others do not?  How can these be addressed?  In this part of the process you may recognize that there is need for separate programs/curricula targeting unique audiences that can benefit from education in the area.  Understanding your audience will also help you in marketing the benefits of completing the program to potential participants.


V. "Instructional Processes" - How are you going to deliver the educational lessons?  You will want to provide education in multiple methods to reach a range of learning styles.  Where possible, active learning should be employed.  You may find different methods "fit" different objectives more effectively.  How can you utilize technology to provide linkages and increase student interaction between formal programming activities?  Can "homework" be provided to increase the effectiveness of group sessions? Help the learners master and own the content and take responsibility for obtaining their educational goals.


VI. "Instructional Resources" - What do you need to accomplish your objective?  Are there others who need to be incorporated into your team?  What about supplies, meeting locations, etc.?  Also, is there special training you need to prepare you for the experience?


VII. "Evaluation:  the strategies used to determine whether decisions about the elements of the academic plan are optimal" - There are actually a couple levels of evaluation - those at the level of specific activities and events and evaluation of the overall program.  From the perspective of the educational plan, you have made decisions plan based on your goals for the student.  Be open to the fact that they may have different goals or may react to your plan differently than you anticipate.  Be sure to ask what the students to express their goals regularly as you move through the educational process.  Do they match your goals?  Is the plan still adequate to meet those goals.  Evaluations at both levels should be based on achievement of the identified learning objective(s).


VIII.  "Adjustment" - As you find things that are and aren't working in the plan, make changes to increase the effectiveness of the plan in meeting the educational goals.  Once you go through the entire plan once, you will have things you will want to do differently.  Reflect identify what needs to change and then make the changes.  Input from students and colleagues will be extremely useful in identifying what needs to change.


Lattuca, L. R., and Stark, J. S. (2009).  Shaping the College Curriculum:  Academic Plans in Context.  2nd Edition.  San Francisco:  Jossey-Bass.