These stories are Facebook’s way of inferring what content users would most like to see when they first log in. Facebook explains the formula they use to decide which posts appear:

We determine whether something is a highlighted story based on lots of factors, including your relationship to the person who posted the story, how many comments and likes it got, what type of story it is, etc. For example, a friend’s status update that might not normally be a highlighted story may be highlighted after many other friends comment on it.

Facebook Help Center: What is a highlighted story?

For those of us managing Facebook pages, this may mean that some fans will not see our content unless their friends are also interacting with us. Our content may also disappear from their News Feeds if they haven’t interacted with us recently by clicking on shared links, commenting on or liking our posts. In fact, comScore found that “[...] users are 40-150 times more likely to consume branded content in the Newsfeed than to visit the Fan Page itself.” (The Power of Like, July 2011)

How can we ensure that fans stay active? A few suggestions:

• Encourage feedback: Rather than only posting links, ask for opinions from your fans. Take a poll using Facebook Questions. Run a photo caption contest.
• Choose relevant and compelling content: This may seem elementary, but remember the audience you’re trying to reach. If it’s current students, provide campus news and bring up common milestones (the Beanpot; the end of finals; a department-wide social event). Check your Facebook Insights regularly to see which pieces of content are getting the most feedback. Patterns here may inform your decisions as you go.
• Encourage visits to your Facebook page elsewhere: Do you have sharing functionality built into your website? Are you promoting your Facebook page through your more traditional marketing channels?

How have you been promoting activity on your Facebook page?

Related: 27% of Facebook Browsing on Newsfeed, Just 10% on Apps (Inside Facebook)

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.

On Facebook, Bigger Isn’t Always Better (10,000 Words): When asking how many Facebook fans you should have, consider the quality of those fans — are they participating? Are they visiting regularly?

10 Blogging Tactics That Increased One Business’ Traffic by 300% (Hubspot Blog): Using your blog as an FAQ repository and posting regularly (this business posted twice per week) are great ideas we’re planning on implementing here. What other tips have helped you build interest in your blog?

WordCamp 2011 is being hosted at Boston University. There is even an education track — check the schedule today.

Asian Slur Video Surfaces at Syracuse University (Storify): A great case study in how a school’s public relations team should consider social media as part of their crisis communications plans.

The Web Is Shrinking. Now What? (AllThingsD): Paying attention to the distinction to the “social web vs. the searchable web.”

@ is the Universal Sign of Engagement (Brian Solis): What real engagement (vs. reactionary conversation) really means. Found this article via Professor Steve Quigley and his Summer Session 1 #BUNewMedia class. Follow the hashtag on Twitter for updates and interesting articles.

Boston University and Social Media (Emma Tangerine): Emma Tangoren‘s blog post on what transpired this week between BU Students and @USATODAYcollege is a must-read. Many social media communicators and their efforts were mentioned. Also see her Storify summary and the related BU Quad article.

Anything we might be missing? Have an article that struck a chord for you this past week? Send it our way in the comments.

- Jenny

Developing the Social Media Management Team (@Greg2dot0′s Blog): “Focus on the behavior, not the tool.” Thinking lately about social media adoption in an organization as much more than technology training; it’s a culture change. I met with Robin Lubbock of WBUR several weeks ago and he explained how he’s meeting with staff one-on-one to get them set up on social tools (because everyone learns differently.)

Tumblr Now Has More Blogs Than WordPress.com (Mashable): Nearly 20.9M blogs have been created on Tumblr. We’re currently experimenting as well. Thinking of ways we can use Tumblr to talk with students (since so many are using Tumblr for their personal blogs (and tagging Boston University.) I’m looking at similar social portals that emphasize photos & short text — even personal website builders like flavors.me, about.me and Jason Kottke’s stellar.io now emphasize foolproof signup/design and visual appeal.

5 Tips for Launching Multiple Facebook Fan Pages (10,000 Words): “Assess your progress” is the key part for me. Facebook Pages (even if you’re only managing one) should have clear goals in place that tie directly to your overall marketing efforts. How do you assess your Facebook Page’s success? What particular metrics do you track? Did you know: Social Media Communicator for the School of Public Health, Elana Zak, is a contributor to this blog? Check out her latest post, “Standing Up for the Journalism Degree”

Nieman Reports: Curation, Community and the Future of News (The Nieman Foundation for Journalism at Harvard University): Steven Rosenbaum sees an area for growth in “content curation” jobs: sifting through the massive amounts of social data surrounding a news event, and finding the key messages and influencers in the conversation. Be sure to check out the Digital Lifestyle Survey findings (I’m not sure whether I should be proud or embarrassed to say I’m in the “48.5%” category on that second graph — how about you?)

The Liberty Hotel’s Social Media page: This caught my eye this week. Looking forward to the launch of a social media guide for all BU accounts (currently in the works). Twitter users: Have you bookmarked our “BU on Twitter” list?

BU 2015: Student Blogs

We’ve noticed several initiatives across campus by students and organizations to acclimate prospective and current students (especially BU 2015) to life at BU and in Boston this summer. Some examples:

• The Quad’s “Cheapskate’s Guide to Boston,” running all summer, and “Orienting to BU,” just for freshmen
• COM Ambassadors: Check out their blog — they’re tweeting on @COMUGrad, too.
• BU FYI, run by the Dean of Students’ office (check Kenn’s blog, too — he has a new playlist each week for orientation)
• Common@Mugar: The Mugar team has been pounding the pavement — check out their latest initiative, New@BU, aimed at the freshman class. They also released a fun video this week on Session 2 of orientation.

Anything we might be missing? Have an article that struck a chord for you this past week? Send it our way in the comments.

- Jenny

Image courtesy roncaglia on Flickr / Creative Commons.

The panel included:

• Scott Kiekbusch: Director of User Experience, Digital Influence Group (moderator)
• Janet Aronica: Community Manager, oneforty
• Zach Hofer-Shall: Analyst, Forrester
• Kathy O’Reilly: Director, Social Media Relations, Monster.com
• Ben Boardman: Marketwire and Sysomos

Some of the key takeaways from the discussion:

Your strategy around using social tools should be solidified first before assessing which tools can fulfill your needs. Developing that strategy should first involve a good deal of listening only, and using web analytics to determine where your audience is spending the most time.

When choosing tools, keep four main categories in mind: Discovery (listening and searching for your brand & competitors), Publishing (the platforms themselves: Twitter, Facebook, WordPress…), Measurement (what was your return on investment for participating?), and Database (social CRM). Some tools address some of the needs, but you likely will need a combination of tools to cover all of them.

Keep in mind that a large part of your social strategy will involve educating your internal team (more broadly, your employees). Policies should be in place to guide your team on how they should participate, rather than just what they can’t do. Employees are often your best brand advocates — identify them and make use of their talents, but also emphasize that your brand comes first (above individual personalities).

A plethora of tools were mentioned in this morning’s panel, so to quickly compile them, I’ve hand-selected the best takeaways and links to all of the tools mentioned using Storify (see below). If you are currently using any of these tools within your own group, or would like to examine them, please let us know in the comments or reach out to me directly.

[View the story "#SMCBoston / #SMB22: Evaluating Social Technologies 03/24/11" on Storify]

Image courtesy Intersection Consulting on Flickr / Creative Commons

#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!

At Student Health Services Wellness Education, we use social media quite regularly. We know that the population we serve is connected to many platforms including Facebook and Twitter. We also know from the research that most people get answers to their health questions online or from a friend versus a health educator or medical professional. While this knowledge makes it difficult to dispel myths, it is helpful to get the word out to our students in this format.

About one year ago, we created the BU Student Health Facebook page and since then, we have added close to 2,000 friends. On our Facebook page, you will find a daily status update that varies from day to day. On Wednesdays, for instance, we provide a weekly wellness tip, while on Fridays we provide a weird body fact. We also create all of our events on Facebook and invite our friends — we have found that we can get the word out about what is going much faster this way than with large, costly posters. We also use Facebook to post interesting health and wellness news clips and to create surveys for students to participate in. Since approximately 85% of college-age students are on Facebook, we think that this is a valuable resource to our office.

In addition to Facebook, we use our Wellness blog quite regularly. We always post our upcoming events, Student Health news and programs, and other health and wellness information. Because we are able to update it ourselves, it is a little more user-friendly than the general Student Health website. We typically put a new post about something important every one to two days. We have noticed that certain posts get more attention than others. For example, just before an event, many students will visit the Upcoming Events page. We also notice that students seem to be very interested in articles related to the flu, stress, and the GTK campaign.

Lastly, we have started a Twitter page. We were reluctant at first because last year around this time, students were telling us that they didn’t actually use Twitter, but they did follow other people like celebrities. It seems, however, that there has been a slight change with more students making use of Twitter. Typically, we simply link our Facebook status updates to our Twitter page to ensure that we have similar message, and also because it takes much less time. We have found that writing quick, fifteen-word health messages are noticed by our students because sometimes our messages get retweeted.

We think that using social media can help us permeate our health messages in ways that may have been difficult previously. We think that the blog and our Facebook page have gained popularity and we hope that our Twitter followers will follow the same path. Because of our use of social media for health promotion, I was asked to speak at the upcoming NECHA (New England College Health Association) conference. I am very excited about this opportunity, and to continue learning about how social media can help increase health and wellness awareness among BU students.

We hope that guest posts like Michelle’s can help other social media practitioners at BU gain some insight into how different organizations on campus are using social media to their benefit. If you’re interested in writing a guest post of your own, please contact us!

Ryan started by presenting some of his experiments with Facebook’s social plugin tools. He has incorporated them on his own into alumni event registration pages (managed with the help of Harris Connect). He has a test site and has set up redirects for the Facebook components with the format bu.edu/alumni/like/xxxx (where xxxx is the event and date indicator). Ryan explained that the redirects are necessary because WordPress (on which the alumni site is built) does not support the alteration of meta tags, which is required for some Facebook social plugins to be functional.

Jacki DeAngelo and Adriane Dean shared their experience in using Radian6. Though they have been using it for a short time, they are already understanding the depth of what Radian6, a web conversation monitoring tool, can provide. They emphasized the “river of news” portion of the tool as being most useful, and the ability to gauge sentiment around a particular professor or program is useful. They noted that much of Radian6‘s features are more catered to corporate clients, rather than higher ed (for example, brand sentiment comparisons), but they have been tweaking the system to cater to the information they’re interested in. Jacki and Adriane would be glad to set up a tutorial one-on-one with anyone in the SMC group who is interested in test driving Radian6.

BUniverse

Ben Agoes (of the Creative Services group) presented on BUniverse, a video portal for the BU community (students, faculty, staff, alumni and our editorial team at BU Today) to share content. The BUniverse project is headed up by himself and Scott Dasse (New Media), and is currently in the beta phase. While full-scale promotions will launch in the fall, BUniverse has been integrated in many locations including the Dean of Students site, BU Today content and the BU homepage, and has been quietly gaining a following on Twitter and Facebook.

BUniverse fulfills the need for a video portal that can be tailored to BU-related content, while still tapping into the power of YouTube’s resources. Videos can either be uploaded through the site (which then uploads the video to BU’s official YouTube channel) or can pull metadata from an existing YouTube video. Tags can be added to categorize videos based on courses or colleges, which have already been populated in a smart search field to help categorization.

Contributors require a BU login to upload content and comment on videos, but anyone can view, share and embed BUniverse content. The community is moderated by Nelia Ponte (Editorial) and staff to ensure that videos and comments are within BUniverse’s Terms of Service. The top video on BUniverse has nearly 5,000 views as of 05/25, and there are currently more than 20 videos on BUniverse with over 500 views. Agoes encouraged all departments to upload their content (lectures, event videos) to BUniverse to further populate the library.

Daily News Digest

Jo Breiner (Public Relations) spoke with the group about a recent change she’s made to the Daily News Digest, a collection of news articles concerning Boston University that is sent internally to just under 300 staff and faculty members each day. She has begun using bit.ly for most of the URL’s so that she can track the number of clicks in an e-mail and gain insights on which pieces are of most interest to the internal audience. She also advised everyone to be mindful and not share videos of news coverage from our tracking service outside of the university. She stressed that while we may pass around the videos internally as much as we’d like via e-mail, we do not have the rights to distribute them externally on websites, Twitter or anywhere else.

Other Issues

Mary Tunney (Public Relations) advised the group of Public Relations’ plan to be visible at orientation and work with parents to connect with BU on Facebook and Twitter accounts (and help them get set up on the services if needed). She also updated everyone on the status of Boston University’s new Community Page on Facebook, and that we hope to know more of Facebook’s direction with Community Pages and privacy standards in the coming week. For some background on how Facebook Community Pages are currently affecting higher ed, read Michael Fienen’s “Facebook Hates Your Brand” on .eduGuru.

Next Meeting

Our next meeting will take place on Tuesday, June 29th, and a couple of our Communicators will present on their trial experience with social media monitoring software Radian6. Mary requested that the Communicators e-mail her with any other topics they’d like to discuss at the next meeting.