Murdoch Marketing #DiscussAndDiscover Guide For use by Schools

Transcription

1 Murdoch Marketing #DiscussAndDiscover Guide For use by Schools September Jonathan Gurney, Social Media and Content Marketer

2 CONTENTS About 1. What is Twitter? 2. How can academia use Twitter? How to 3. Sign up 4. Get started 5. Join the conversation and start tweeting 6. Leverage the #DiscussAndDiscover marketing campaign Best practice 7. Individuals on Twitter 8. Legalities 9. If things go wrong 10. Twitter glossary

3 1. What is Twitter? Twitter is an online social networking service that enables users to send and read short 140-character messages called "tweets". Registered users can read and post tweets, but unregistered users can only read them. Wikipedia Why do people use Twitter? Twitter is a platform that enables people to find interesting content and follow people that are interesting to them, either personally or professionally. People mostly use it to find out about or share news as it breaks, engage in global debates and publicise their own work or profile.

4 2. How can academia use Twitter? Twitter is a global conversation platform. Academics often use it to follow what others post on particular topics, engage in conversations with others relating to particular fields, post their own content, and lend their acumen, as academics, to give context to contemporary issues. Capabilities Twitter can connect you with academics and institutions around the world, enabling you to see their opinions on topics and also respond with or share your own. Benefits Use the platform to create your own curated feed of thoughts, opinions and breaking news. Use it as a self-publishing tool. Share your learned opinions with an active and engaged audience. People will follow you because you are the expert. Lend your own voice to important debates. Twitter is increasingly being used by people to debate important issues, your academic credentials could help dispel a lot of the misinformation that gets spread. Want to participate in a conference, or can t make it? Follow the hashtag (more on that later) and see what people attending are saying.

5 Global Twitter use by Academics TOP USE/ACTIVITIES: 1. Follow discussions 2. Post work/content 3. Discover peers 4. Comment on research 5. Discover papers Richard Van Noorden, Online Collaboration: Scientists and the social network, Nature Publishing Group, viewed online September

6 3. How to sign up When signing up, Twitter will ask for the following information, so have it ready: Your full name This will be public, and will enable people to find you Your address This won t be public, but people who know it can find you A password This enables you to login, so ensure it s secure THEN A username, AKA your Twitter handle (More about that on the following slide) A profile picture This will appear in your profile and alongside your tweets 1. Sign up

7 Your Twitter handle This is the name that people will use to follow you and reply to your tweets. As such, there are some important things to consider. Length: Twitter has a 140 character limit on tweets, so the longer your handle the fewer characters that someone replying to you has work with. Identity: Your Twitter handle should have some reference to who you are. Using your name will make it easier for people familiar with your work to find you. Profession: It s OK to put professorx as your handle, but bear in mind that you will also be seen to be commenting in your professional capacity. This potentially limits how much debate you can participate in. 2. Choose username 3. Upload profile picture Click the Settings cog icon. Click Edit Profile. Change your photo/details as soon as you can this ensures people trust your profile.

8 4. How to get started Once you have your account set up you ll want to get started. A good first step is to follow some accounts that will begin filling your timeline with content. Following When you sign up you ll have the opportunity to find Twitter users who are also in your contacts. You can also use this facility after you ve signed up just go to twitter.com/who_to_follow/import

9 More ways to find users to follow You can search Twitter for topics, people and anything else that interests you. This is a great way to connect with people you may not have interacted with before. Popular thought leaders, such as Neil degrasse Tyson, maintain Twitter accounts. Do be aware that sometimes an account that claims to be a particular person, e.g. Stephen Hawking, might be an impersonator. In time, people might start following you too. This is a good opportunity to follow back. If someone follows you, there s no pressure to follow them back if it looks like they tweet about topics that aren t as interesting to you. Once you ve followed some people and are starting to see some example tweets, it s time to compose your first update.

10 5. How to join the conversation Your first tweet With your profile all set up, you can now post your first update. We encourage you to make it an introduction, telling the world a bit about yourself and your academic credentials. If you contact Jonathan Gurney, the Social Media & Content Marketer for Murdoch, he can then retweet this update from the official Murdoch account to help you reach some of the students of Murdoch. Murdoch University s first tweet

11 Anatomy of a tweet

12 More ways to tweet Include a Hashtag This is a way of classifying your tweet, and also making it searchable for people interested in that topic. If you are tweeting about politics, for example, you might include #Politics to your tweet. Mention a user Your tweet can contain mention of another user on Twitter e.g. institution or academic. It s a simple way of giving them credit, or including them in the conversation, just by preceding their username with symbol. Reply By replying to another user s tweet you will be contributing to the conversation. Your response will begin with their username. Retweet This is the mechanism by which one account re-broadcasts the tweet of another user. Murdoch University will typically retweet academic accounts as they express their opinions on various topics.

13 6. The #DiscussAndDiscover campaign The #DiscussAndDiscover initiative is part of Murdoch s current marketing campaign. It ties to a set of series of creative concepts, used for recruitment marketing, that reach mass market audiences with thought starters. Murdoch is known for making a difference to global issues such as food security, free trade agreements, democracy, mining, workplace law and more. The thought starters being marketed are questions about global issues that map directly to courses people can study at Murdoch. This campaign creative prompts audiences to go on and #DiscussAndDiscover these issues online, and as a result discover the globally connected education that Murdoch offers.

14 Why we re engaging the Schools and their academics These thought starters have been developed with the Schools, to connect relevant issues and courses that have broad-appeal with the wider community. The Schools can leverage this campaign and use the hashtag to continue giving themselves exposure, by providing context (whether by writing an article or providing comment) to some of the big ideas going on within the Schools. Without context, any promotion is simply dismissed by audiences as empty marketing material. We re mindful that we need to position our academics as the subject matter experts. Marketing don t have the knowledge and depth of expertise that the Schools do we need our academics to demonstrate areas of stringent research. How you can contribute Working with the Office of Development and Communications to tweet information that links to upcoming mass communications messaging for your School. Addressing questions that might come up as a result of mass communications messaging, helping to inform and guide any debate that might arise as a result. Engaging your School Managers and ARO representatives with ideas and business plans that can be used for marketing.

15 Our #DiscussAndDiscover activity so far: Linking to popular topics in the media and offering examples of research conducted by Murdoch Academics. Shark Cull Prompting discussions with articles written by our academics. Overseas submarine purchase Get involved If you have some research or an opinion to contribute to the conversation, engage with us on Twitter (using #DiscussAndDiscover). Retweet the #DiscussAndDiscover content that s relevant to your area of expertise or is something that you find interesting. Share relevant articles that you have written with us for use as part of #DiscussAndDiscover and we ll help you reach a wider audience.

16 7. Best practice for individuals on Twitter Opposing viewpoints are welcome, but remember to present them in a respectful way. Ensure that content you post, such as videos or images, comply with Twitter guidelines and always respect intellectual property and copyright. When you post your professional opinion, you also do so as an academic of Murdoch University. When expressing an opinion on a subject that you are not an expert in, be sure to let people know that you are commenting from a personal capacity. The Murdoch Marketing team have also created a set of Social Media Guidelines for Murdoch employees, contractors and representatives. These exist to give help and guidance about how to best embody the University s reputation and values in the social media space.

17 8. Legalities Legislation The conduct of organisations and individuals on social media platforms is governed by State and Federal laws, just as it would be in other parts of life. Twitter Policies Individual social media platforms have Terms of Use, that is, sets of guidelines, policies, and in some instances regulations & laws which both organisations and users must follow. Be sure to familiarise yourself with these policies before using the platform. Twitter policies Murdoch Policies Murdoch University also has Policies which govern internet use. Below are the policies which are applicable to social media: Electronic Messaging Guidelines Electronic Collaboration and Social Media Policy Electronic Collaboration and Social Media Guideline

18 9. If things go wrong Murdoch Marketing has devised its own Commenting and Escalation Guide a step-by-step method of assessing the common issues we face online, with suggested actions. You are welcome to use our Guide. If you are still unsure, you can always escalate your question to the Social Media and Content Marketer. Things to remember: It s OK to disagree, providing it is done respectfully. Due to the character restrictions of Twitter, it can be challenging to trim down an argument while remaining coherent. Do get involved in debates, don t engage in ad hominem attacks. Twitter is public. What seems like a one-on-one conversation between friends might actually be seen by a much wider audience. Do feel free to express your own opinions, don t forget that they will be seen by more than just your intended audience, and are on record forever. Help is always available. Marketing are always happy to share their anecdotal experiences and assessment of Twitter to ensure that you are comfortably able to begin using this platform that 271 million monthly users across the globe enjoy.

19 10. Twitter Glossary Bio Follower GLOSSARY OF COMMON TWITTER TERMS The term for a post to Twitter, which has a 140 character limit. When you are posting, you are tweeting. sign is used to tag usernames in tweets: People will use to mention you in tweets, send you a message or link to your profile. Your bio is a short (up to 160 characters) personal description that appears in your profile that serves to characterise your persona on Twitter. A follower is another Twitter user who has followed you to receive your tweets in their stream. # or Hashtag A hashtag is any word or phrase immediately preceded by the # symbol. When you click on a hashtag, you'll see other Tweets containing the same keyword or topic. Retweet DM or Direct Message A tweet that you forward to your followers is known as a retweet. Often used to pass along news or other valuable discoveries on Twitter, retweets always retain original attribution. Use Direct Messages to have private conversations with people you follow who also follow you. Messages have a 140-character limit and can contain text, hashtags, links, photos and video.

20 Example tweet This tweet contains many of the terms mentioned in this document. 1. Firstly, it is a retweet. This means that, as Murdoch University on Twitter, we have reposted this Twitter user s content so that it will be seen by our audience as well. 2. It includes mentions. That means that not only will account be notified, so will account. 3. There is a hashtag (#MindsAndLives) this means users following #MindsAndLives will see this tweet.