Preventing rogue tweets on your institutional account

Admit it: If you manage both institutional and personal Twitter accounts, you've probably posted at least one rogue tweet.

You may have caught it and deleted it right away, but someone probably saw it. You just hope that someone wasn't your boss or a troll.

So what steps can you take to avoid causing a rogue tweet?

• Tweet from separate programs or devices. Many dual-Twitterers create boundaries by tweeting institutionally from their work computer and by tweeting personally from their mobile devices. This approach makes it easy to shift persona with less risk.
• Set your tweeting program's default account to your personal one. If you're going to accidentally tweet from the wrong account, it's much less risky to post a straight-laced institutional news item from your personal account than to post a snarky comment for your college or school. This trick is great if you don't have a smartphone.
• Don't tweet angry (or when otherwise mentally compromised). You shouldn't do this anyway, but tweeting angry (or when #gettngslizzerd) from an institutional account will most certainly grab the attention of your followers. Tweet from both personal and institutional accounts as though your boss, HR office or university president is watching at all times (because they just might be), and even if you mix up accounts, there's not much harm. Heck, one time I accidentally posted a higher ed marketing link from the law school account and the university retweeted it.
• Share these tips with other institutional tweeting colleagues so they don't rogue tweet, either.

Do you have other tips on preventing rogue tweets?

Has social media killed empathy?

Last week, a colleague sent me a USA today article that raised the question of whether social media has killed empathy. My answer: it hasn't.

Through online discussion forums and social networks, I have made new friends, connected with our profession's thought leaders, and kept in touch with classmates, neighbors and family with more frequency than my schedule would otherwise allow. Sure, there are those who live online to the exclusion of connecting with people in real life, but that's hardly a new phenomenon. (Raise your hand if know any video game addicts or workaholics.)

I view social media as an amazing means for enriching real-life relationships, particularly in higher education. Our audiences invest some of the best years of their lives on our campuses, and social networks now make it easier to maintain those relationships—both with the institution and among classmates—for a lifetime. And for those who are preparing to join our community, accepted student groups and networks can engage students long before the official orientation process begins.

The blurring of professional and personal spheres online can also increase empathy in ways we could never expect. Over the past two months, I have watched a colleague's story unfold on Twitter as her two-year-old daughter was diagnosed with cancer and started experimental treatments. I have been deeply touched by her tale, and I know many others have as well. Our higher ed marketing peers have supported her through prayer and fundraising. Ironic how one can feel such empathy for someone only known through social media. (Read Andrew Careaga's blog post to read little Sydney's story and find out how you can help.)

Speaking of Andrew, the Educational Marketing Group is looking for his replacement as International Brand Master. If you want to nominate a current higher educational branding professional, EMG is accepting nominations through Dec. 15, 2010.

Recognizing your bias in social media

As university communicators, we're paid to love and promote our institutions. We not only read our own press; we write it. Even though we all know that our colleges and universities aren't perfect, we wouldn't thrive in our positions if we didn't believe in the mission and leadership of our organizations.

This professional bias leads us to tread a difficult line when it comes to social media. If we're doing a good job of monitoring our brand online, we will inevitably see something negative at some point. Jessica Krywosa at the .eduGuru blog authored a post on her recent experience with negative Facebook comments, which also includes helpful comments on handling such issues.

But beyond our official social media channels also lies a wide range of forums, blogs and other social resources in which our institutions have no voice. Yes, we could respond as individuals to negative attacks when we see them on discussion forums or blogs, but we need to resist the urge to do so lightheartedly or in the heat of the moment. Most readers will immediately discredit comments that smell like they've been authored by a company representative. Some social media sources specifically ban biased responses (i.e., Wikipedia). At bare minimum, PR-sounding responses will be unwelcome in most any online community.

Most professional communicators know to pause and think before responding publicly to negative press. But while marketing professionals may know these protocols, we must remember that everyone in our organizations has the same publishing access to social media that we do. Not only do we need to be disciplined and not act prematurely, we must educate our internal audiences about these issues as well.

Are your headlines #Twitter-friendly?

News-style writing values brevity and clarity, and no where is that more important than on Twitter. With its 140-character limit and heavy concentration of journalist users, effective headline writing is critical for getting the biggest bang for news releases or blog posts on Twitter.

• Be concise. VERY concise. Yes, you may have 140 characters on Twitter, but that doesn't mean you should use all of them. First, you'll need to include a shortened URL to the full news release (minimum length: 20 characters if you use bit.ly). Second, you'll want Twitterers to "retweet" your release, so subtract another 20 characters "RT @username" and a brief comment. In other words, headlines should be shorter than 100 characters.
  
  
• Be clear. If you're lucky enough for your blog post or news release to go viral, you'll want your headline to be clear without additional context. Tweets that are serially retweeted will often lose the original Twitter handle, so the source may not be identifiable before users click on your link.
  
  
• Be relevant. If you're wanting your message to reach an audience outside of your normal followers, use hashtags (or "#" pound-signs) to reach those groups. Of course, that means that the topic needs to be a part of your headline and match the appropriate hashtag. For example, if I want to reach bankruptcy lawyers on Twitter about a new seminar, I should add #bankruptcy #law hashtags to the tweet.

Happy tweeting!

Free ways to monitor your brand online

Composite sites that search several sources in one swoop:

• SocialMention.com
• Addictomatic.com
• Google Alerts
  

Search your institution's names on these sites and use the RSS feed on the results page to create your own alerts:

• Ask.com News Search
  
• Yahoo News Search
• Bing News Search
• Google Blog Search
• Google News Search

Some of these may seem repetitive, but I find that by monitoring them on a personal portal (such as MyYahoo or iGoogle) makes them fairly easy to scan through for differences. It's also good to incorporate a saved Twitter Search through your preferred Twitter posting tool (mine is TweetDeck).

If you truly want to become the "Big Brother" for your institution, you can research prospective student forums or sites where students can rate your faculty or other aspects of campus life. Just try to keep things in perspective—the Air Force Blog Assessment chart is a handy tool for deciding if, when and how to respond.

Twitter lists for higher ed

Coming soon to a Twitter feed near you...lists!

I was slow to get into social media, but quick to get into Twitter. The editor in me loves how the 140-character limit forces people to get to the point. My PR side loves the networking value. The journalist in me loves having a place to broadcast. My inner information hound loves the sheer volume of content.

The folks at Twitter are now in the process of adding the simple, but valuable functionality of lists, which can be made public or private. Here are a few basic ideas for higher ed institution accounts:

• Alumni list - help alumni followers of your list identify and find each other through an alumni list.
• Profession list - separate those you follow who are leaders or employers in the profession.
• Peer list - connect with fellow institutional Twitterers from other colleges and universities.
• University list - highlight other accounts from your institution, possibly including faculty or top administrators.

How are you considering on using Twitter lists for your institutional accounts? Are there any drawbacks we should watch out for?

Social Media and Faculty Publicity

Faculty stars. You know who they are, and so do they. They may be prolific authors, influential activists, professional leaders or international speakers. Their achievements are frequent and important within their spheres of influence.

And these stars want you to magnify their shine through publicity.

Not too long ago, there weren't many options for handling stellar, PR-happy faculty. You could give into their requests for publicity in the few channels available (namely news releases or institutional publications), featuring them with such frequency that other quieter professors become obscured. The other option was to draw a line in the sand and say no, offending the well-regarded faculty member. Needless to say, both options had significant drawbacks.

Enter the social Web to the rescue!

With a flexible and well-designed Web site and social media presence, higher ed communicators now have a broad range of tools at their disposal for promoting faculty achievements. Instead of saying "no, we can't write another news release about you" to a prestigious professor, we can now respond with "congratulations, we've already posted your news to your department Web page and our college's Twitter feed." Here is our new range of options:

• College/university magazine article
• News release
• Home page spotlight
• Lower-level Web site features (i.e., departmental home pages)
  
• Facebook update (reserved for accomplishments that reflect more widely on the institution)
  
• Twitter update
• Flickr/YouTube (if media available)
• "Faculty applause" or "Faculty in the news" Web pages
  
• Testimonial quotes/features in marketing materials
• E-newsletter profile

Twitter for Fun and Professional Development

Twitter has a bad rap as a wasteland of useless babble, where individuals broadcast the bland minutiae of their daily lives.

I beg to differ.

Perhaps it's because my interest in social media began for professional—rather than personal— reasons, but this has not been my experience. Sure, there are people who post only updates a stalker could love, but then I don't follow them.

I have found Twitter to be a great resource for finding topical updates on a variety of professional issues (not the least of which is social media), networking with peers, and gaining an interesting perspective on the lives of community leaders (be it my dean, political representatives or megachurch pastor). The updates of those you follow are posted to your Twitter home page, making it easy to scan a variety of information at a glance.

And with a 140-character limit, who doesn't love a medium that forces writers to get right to the point?

Here are my tips on how to make the most of Twitter for professional development:

• Good news sources: Start by searching for professional organizations, publications, consulting firms and bloggers (find me @davinagould) in your field.
  
• Find leading personalities: Look for your boss, your boss' boss, and on up the chain. If someone has locked their updates, only ask for access if you're a personal friend or if they're following you first.
• Curious what other IHEs are doing on Twitter? Follow them, too.
  
• Follow people who follow you. Unless they keep tweeting about waiting in line for coffee, or don't tweet at all.
• Check out who your favorite Twitterers are also following—it's another great way to find interesting feeds.
  
• Network by retweeting updates you like (giving credit to the source) and by commenting on updates by others.
  
• Attending a conference...or wish you could? Many conferences use hashtags (#) to develop a conversation through Twitter's live search function. (If hashtags aren't showing up as clickable links, make sure you're following username "hashtag.")
  
• Monitor the buzz on your organization, industry and favorite subjects by saving relevant terms (including those with hashtags) to visit again.