1. How to Use Social Networking Sites to Communicate to Families Chris Christensen – Johnson County CC Robb Cummings – Sallie Mae

2. Agenda Communication landscape today Common social media sites Things to consider Group discussion and questions

3. Source: Beloit College’s 2011 Mindset List www.beloit.edu/mindset www.beloit.edu/mindset The freshman class of 2015 was born in 1993. There has always been an Internet ramp onto the information highway. PCs and Apples of the early 90’s had hard drives smaller than today’s flash drives. For many students, email is passé and because of cell phones, wrist watches are no longer necessary.

4. Shifts in Communication Communication is no longer a one-way street. People now spend more time on social networking sites such as Facebook and Twitter than on personal/work email. Generational ◦Millennials are the heaviest users ◦Baby Boomers are the fastest growing users

5. Overall Campus Communication Strategy Social networking continues to evolve into ever more powerful uses for:  Admissions  Financial Aid  Bursar  Career Counseling  Alumni  Fundraising  Other Offices

6. Overall Campus Communication Strategy Cross-campus collaboration Know your audience & objectives Focus on ongoing activity within the campus community rather than on specific campaigns Measure your success…and adjust when necessary

7. What’s in it for the FAO? Connect with students/families where they are Larger reach with fewer staff resources Competitive advantages Rapid dissemination of message

8. Plan Your Strategy What do we want to achieve? Who do we want to reach? What social media channels are the right ones for our institution? What will work best for our office?

9. Where to Start?!

10. Even MORE Options…

11. Common Social Media Channels

12. Facebook 750 million+ active users 900 million+ objects (pages, groups, events, etc.) 20 million + applications installed daily Millions of websites have integrated with Facebook

13. What Can You Do On Facebook? Provide real-time status updates Promote events & important deadlines Monitor and answer questions Link to school website (or other sites)

14. Facebook Page for JCCC

15. http://www.facebook.com/pages/php

16. Twitter The SMS (Short Message Service) of the Internet 200 million+ users 80% of users access via mobile devices “Tweets” – 140 character messages Over 200 million tweets per day and 1.6 billion search queries per day

17. FHSU Twitter Site

18. YouTube/Podcasts Video sharing service Demographic is 18-54 years old 13 million hours of video uploaded in 2010 and 35 hours of video uploaded every minute! 700 billion playbacks in 2010

19. Kansas State YouTube Video

20. Flickr Online photo/video management and sharing application Over 5 billion images hosted as of September 2010

22. Blogger

23. Hootsuite www.hootsuite.com Social media dashboard that allows the user to monitor and/or post to several sites (Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Foursquare, MySpace, WordPress, etc.) Schedule postings in advance

24. Hootsuite

25. Tips To Remember Make it interactive Use relevant keywords in “About Us” section Offer FAQs Promote sites via email

26. Tips To Remember Link to other social media sites Keep it current! Remember it is public information Monitor your sites for feedback/comments

27. Things to Consider… Who updates your site? How often? Policy for addressing complaints and/or negative comments posted online? What is your institution’s existing policy on the use of social media sites? Social media sites are evolving constantly. Know when it is time to make changes.

28. Manage Your Media Tools for social media management ◦Google Alerts  http://www.google.com/alerts ◦Social Mention  http://www.socialmention.com

29. Google Alerts

30. Social Mention

31. Open Discussion Which social media sites are your institutions using? What issues/challenges have you experienced? Any unanticipated benefits? Advice from your experience?