1. Handout 5 Organisations’ use of social media
Exploring social media
Handout 5 Organisations’ use of social media

2. Assessment criteria The learner will:
2.1 Describe how various social media sites may be used by groups, individuals, businesses and organisations
2.3 Describe how businesses and organisations may use social media to promote products and services

3. Types of organisations using social media
Social media is used for different purposes by different types of
organisations:
Educational institutions
Clubs and associations
Public sector organisations, such as local authorities
Businesses

4. Educational institutions, clubs and associations
Uses of social media:
Showing classroom activities
Talk to parents and encourage feedback
News and forthcoming events
Highlighting achievements
Use of Pinterest etc to help find resources for lessons
Putting alumni in touch
Examples of successful profiles:
Cambridge University Twitter
Dublin Swimming Club

5. Public sector organisations
Local authorities use social media to:
Inform residents on what they are doing in the borough
Provide a means of contact and answers to queries
Create a sense of community
Advertise forthcoming events they are sponsoring
Example of a good profile:
London Borough of Walthamstow

6. How businesses use social media
Most businesses use at least one of the following profiles:
Facebook
Google+
Twitter
Pinterest

7. Business use of social media
The principal reason businesses use social media is to promote their products and services.
Having a social media profile assists this by:
Increasing traffic to their website
Providing another outlet for direct sales
Encouraging engagement
Increase traffic to business’ websites – all profiles provide a click through to the main website.
Encouraging engagement – interaction with customers makes them active participants rather than inactive viewers of advertisements, in turn encouraging referrals and new business – via shares and retweets. Social media can act as an online ‘word of mouth’, quickly spreading information to lots of potential customers.

8. Secondary benefits to business of using social media
Increasing their credibility/raising their profile
Feedback and reviews from customers
Offering an alternative means of contact for customers
To increase their credibility/raise their profile – by establishing their identity and demonstrating openness, businesses can give both potential employees and customers a peek at how great they are. A well-run and informative social media profile that attracts lots of followers may increase standing in the market/brand value: a positive online presence may provoke publicity in other forms of media.
Feedback and reviews from customers – monitoring comments and postings on social media (social media monitoring) provides an excellent insight as to what customers expect, what makes them angry and provides an opportunity to demonstrate publicly the will to put things right when they go wrong. YouTube can also be used to upload video testimonials from satisfied customers.
Offering an alternative means of contact for customers – who may find it more convenient than phoning or ing. Some businesses successfully use Twitter as an instant customer service response tool.

9. Social media marketing
To be a successful promotion tool, business social media profiles must:
Be informative
Link to other useful information and sites
Be constantly monitored and updated
Example of a good profile:
York Test
Informative – the best profiles offer not only information about the organisation’s product/service, but also general information related to the sector, in order to attract followers and encourage ‘shares’. Sites such as Pinterest are an ideal tool to attract followers to related areas of interest.
Constantly monitored and updated – to maintain followers’ interest and encourage ‘shares’.

10. Social media mining
Social media mining is the analysing of data collected from social media interactions
It provides information about individuals’ likes and interests in order to target promotion
Social media mining is the analysing of data collected from social media interactions – specialist organisations collect and analyse how individuals use social media, selling on this information to other companies for promotional use.
The benefit to individuals is that organisations will offer you products you are most likely to be interested in, based on your activity on the internet and social media sites. However, many people are unaware that this information is being collected about them.

11. Any questions?
Social media mining is the analysing of data collected from social media interactions – specialist organisations collect and analyse how individuals use social media, selling on this information to other companies for promotional use.
The benefit to individuals is that organisations will offer you products you are most likely to be interested in, based on your activity on the internet and social media sites. However, many people are unaware that this information is being collected about them.