Social Media was the trending topic of the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism the last weekend of January 2012. Hosted by the Continuing Education department, 2012 was the second annual Social Media Weekend.
Filled with panels, tutorials, workshops, networking, and idea-swapping, #SMwknd featured 50 speakers and a crowd of multifaceted social media experts. The 3-day event was led by Professor Sree Sreenivasan and the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism
Social media, best practices
- Grammar and spelling rules always apply
- Repeat, be clear, and concise, and repeat again
- Be appropriate: High school athletes LOST scholarships based on inappropriate Tweets
- On all platforms be, “helpful, useful, informative, relevant, practical, timely, generous…”- @Sree
- Start your social media when you don’t need it, so it’s useful when you do need it
- Whatever your biggest network/platform is, put your link in smaller platforms (ex: put FB page on Twitter profile)
- Visual.ly is a tool to help take facts and makes them look beautiful
- Brand pages should include lots of questions to engage audience
- Tip from Edelman SVP Steve Rubel, social media strategist: Adding a Facebook experience to a website poll drives website traffic! Try it!
- Building a media company within Facebook is brilliant
- 120 characters or less, including @ mention, #, and link
- Be mindful of what you retweet as it may be seen as a validation/confirmation of the content
- Keep your follow list in constant churn: Get in new voices
- Every tweet is about keeping your biggest tweeters happy says
- Only 1 of every 5 tweets should be about yourself
- For every tweet you’re sending out: Your mission is to engage, connect, and inform
- The RT button eats your characters without getting you anything in return
- Tag all your work and “gather all the stuff to bring it back” to one place, such as Tumblr
- To get around the Twitter character limit, think abt linking yr tumblr 2 yr twitter account: wikihow.com/Link-Tumblr-to
- Twiangulate shows who your most influential followers are
- Crowdbooster another recommended Twitter tool
Foursquare
- You can import your feed into your Google Calendar = Nice tracking of your schedule
5 new ways media is operating and how to adjust, by Edelman SVP Steve Rubel
1. Curate to dominate
- FB, LI, etc. have all hired journalists to become their own content creators
- Be a curator on a specific topic to stand out
2. Have data guide your editorial strategy
- Dig through your data and be timely
- Data drives traffic + there’s a raging war for page views
3. Keep media alive
4. Make media go deep and time it well
5. Be a superstar journalist
Read more from Edelman media futurist Steve Rubel and his Social Media insights on his blog.
A few fantastic social media tips from the top minds in the biz. With only three days to talk about social media, it was a whirlwind event for all who attended.
Thank you Sree Sreenivasan and all other Twitter contributors for engaging so many great minds in one place to learn more about social media.
