We asked attendees about progression of their blogging efforts, and the sentiment from many was that groups are moving away from blogging due to time constraints and management. BU Dining Services said they had recently taken to Tumblr, as it easily allows them to post pictures and other shorter pieces of content. Admissions brought up their new blog, which allows them a way to provide more information to prospective students. PR mentioned that one of their latest blogs, Professor Voices, had been migrated from blogs.bu.edu to a new BU WordPress site.

Kat Cornetta of the Dean of Students office advised that departmental blogs, rather than being made separate entities on blogs.bu.edu, can be integrated into BU WordPress websites by:

• Creating blog posts in “News”
• Assigning each post to a category, which is the blog’s name
• Adding the category to the site’s main navigation

By creating multiple categories, you can create multiple “blogs,” which are simply subsections of your website.

Next, we discussed location-based services like Foursquare, and though some groups expressed interest in using it, no one seemed to have solid strategies yet. An example was brought up about using the Foursquare “Lists” feature to compile recurring features, like BU Today’s “Nearby Neighborhoods” or “Lunch Anyone?” series, to repurpose content and drive Foursquare users back to BU sites.

Other technical discussions followed, including:

• Embedding playable Vimeo clips on Facebook pages
• Reserving Foursquare venues and adding venue managers
• The inability to create LinkedIn sub-pages (currently limited to one main company page for Boston University, per LinkedIn’s guidelines)

We also shared a link to a Google Doc for all Social Media Communicators to post events that need cross-promotion. If you still need this link, please send us an e-mail.

Did you have an interesting discussion that wasn’t mentioned here? Feel free to leave it in the comments.

#BUSCVNGR

Michael DeFillippis (COM’13) came to the meeting to speak on behalf of his teammates (Alex Shuck and Rachel Sprung) and their experience with the SCVNGR Beantown Challenge. From February 7th through the 14th, the Boston University community was invited to participate in various challenges at campus locations (the GSU, Warren Towers, SMG) for points and prizes. For the campaign, they:

• Created a Facebook event page
• Enlisted the help of 17 “student ambassadors” from the Dean of Students office, who helped to spread the word
• Launched a fan page for Dean Elmore
• Created an initial batch of 15 challenges
• Used #BUSCVNGR to spread the word on Twitter

During the campaign:

• 113 participants played (this number does not include the team or ambassadors)
• An average of 22 challenges were completed per person
• New challenges were rolled out to keep up with the demand of new games

Some limitations of the tool include: iPhone and Android support only (if the challenges are connected into treks, SMS-capable phones can play, too). Limited backend functionality, including analytics (exportable views of participants, freeform text entries for challenges). There was also some confusion on challenge resets, which allow participants to do the same challenge for more points after an hour has passed.

To learn more about their campaign, visit the Beantown Challenge SCVNGR page, as well as coverage from the BU Quad.

BU Culture Shock

Raul Fernandez of the Howard Thurman Center presented on the efforts of the BU Culture Shock blog, a student-run operation with roughly 30 staff members (contributors and four editorial). The blog recently celebrated its first birthday, and has seen tremendous growth — in strategy, traffic and working knowledge. Some brief highlights:

• Currently netting roughly 4,400 hits/month on a custom-built WordPress frame
• About 20% of reader base are “frequent fliers” — considered heavy repeat visitors
• Emphasis on “street cred”/authenticity of voice. Allow writers ample freedom to say things in their own way
• Give student writers & editors opportunity to self-edit and self-police with occasional spot-checking from the staff
• Be Younonymous: Compelling content from anonymous guest contributors
• Releasing content at an average rate of 20 posts per week
• Recruiting new writers through current writers
• Using Google Analytics to benchmark against past performance

We asked Raul if he would be willing to share more about the inner workings of making BU Culture Shock run smoothly, and he has kindly provided us with the presentation he delivered during the meeting. Social Media Communicators members can access it on the SMC Google Group.

Facebook Pages

Jenny Mackintosh of Public Relations updated the Communicators on recent changes made to Facebook Page functionality. Facebook Pages now act more similarly to Profiles, including the ability to “Use Facebook as Your Page.” This includes updates & notifications (new fans and wall posts), the ability to view the News Feed as the Page, and the ability to write on other Pages’ walls. Some possible trouble spots included:

• Pages’ walls no longer in complete timeline order (help for admins: Admin View)
• Confusion about switching between “Use Facebook as Your Page” and “Use Facebook as Yourself” — could lead to erroneous posts from the wrong author.
• Facebook no longer automatically delivering news feed updates to fans who haven’t visited your Page recently (read more about this on All Facebook)

Upcoming Events

Our last item on the agenda was to go over upcoming events for cross promotion and introduce new members. We have posted the Upcoming Events to the Google Group, which can be accessed by all Social Media Communicators. If you can’t see the group, simply request an invite on the page.

Questions? Comments? Leave them below!

Highlights:

• Blogging is a cornerstone to SM campaign
• Focus on “combined relevance” which should tell you the reason your content matters – also, “personal relevance” which is why content is important to your specific audience
• Content should, first and foremost, be audience focused and not vehicle to push information about one’s self (on blog as well we other SM platforms)
• Potential audiences are looking for a “point of view” on blogs
• Use “Social Proof” to verify your content by embedding SM buttons and prove to audience the relevancy of posts
• Grammar and writing quality matter
• Weekends are ideal for sharing content
• Custom designed formats are ideal
• Make blog post titles descriptive to drive appeal on SM sharing sites
• Multiple blog authors, with profiles, is preferred
• Limiting categories can help page organization
• Avoid “TLDR” (too long, didn’t read)

Want to watch the webinar yourself? Dan’s talk is hosted in its entirety on HubSpot.

Some key takeaways included:

- eMarketer estimates that by 2014, 60% of internet users will read blogs at least monthly (from 45% in 2008)

- Lines between blogging, microblogging and social networking are continuing to blur

- Facebook still leads the way in top method to promote blog content (according to Technorati’s State of the Blogosphere 2010)

- Fostering & maintaining relationships with local influential bloggers is an ongoing priority for Public Relations

- One of the best ways to get BU noticed by bloggers is to create rich, relevant content (blogging ourselves — pull vs. push)

If you are a member of the Social Media Communicators Google Group, you can now access the full presentation. We look forward to hearing more from our SMC’s as they develop their own blogs. If you are interested in speaking to the group about your school’s or department’s blogging efforts, please let us know.

Image courtesy Kristina B on Flickr.