Transcript Growing Your Roots: Social Media and Environmental Education

Growing Your Roots: Social Media
and Environmental Education
by
Executive Summary
East Side Media was asked to do three things:
1. Research on Constituency Groups
2. Analysis of Social Media Programming by ACEE
3. Review Outreach Strategies for Social Media
These results are relevant to all environmental education agencies.
Research on Constituent Groups
Overview
Keys in using social media effectively are knowing where your audience
is and what they are talking about

Tactics used for engagement can be
influenced by who your audience is,
what networks they are on, and what
they are talking about

Environmental educators have fairly well
defined audiences, the research aims to
identify what networks those audiences
are on and what they are discussing

Research on Constituent Groups
Alberta Teachers
Strong community of Alberta teachers who are particularly active in
Twitter. Their focus varies wildly, environmental education was not a
strong focus of their activity

There are no locations (i.e. pages or groups) on Twitter that users
congregate to interact, activity on Twitter is limited to individual user
interaction on a user-by-user basis

Easiest and most direct means of accessing Alberta teachers on Twitter
is through the “#abed” hashtag (stands for “Alberta Education”)

Follow the hashtag, participate in the conversations that happen, and
reach out to the teachers involved in those conversations (especially
key users who are very active and well networked)

Research on Constituent Groups
Alberta Teachers

Alberta teachers are also engaged in a lot of blogging
Blogging offers individuals with particular expertise the opportunity to
write about the topics of their interest in greater depth than most other
forms of social media and networking

Not uncommon to have professional sub-communities generate
blogging networks to share, peer review, and collectively develop their
expertise

Twitter and blogging can be complementary activities as Twitter is an
effective networking tool for the blogging that one does

Research on Constituent Groups
Alberta Teachers
Facebook can also be useful in this way, but Alberta teachers are not
using it as such

Blogging presents a useful opportunity for engagement between
environmental education groups and Alberta teachers

Topics of blogging for most Alberta teachers focus on two things: the
subjects they teach (math, english, social studies, history, etc.) or
pedagogy (I.e. theories and models of teaching itself)

• These topics have a naturally narrow focus for readership
Research on Constituent Groups
Alberta Teachers
By engaging teachers through their own blogs (linking to, mentioning,
and responding to the teachers' blogs), environmental education groups
will be able to expose their work to a larger audience while building a
relationship with those teachers

Also worth engaging are school
boards with blogs or elements of their
websites that function like a blog

Research on Constituent Groups
Connecting with Other Groups
The tools available through Facebook (posts, likes, comments, pictures,
videos, questions, etc. make using it as the primary avenue for
engagement a natural fit

Help yourself by helping others: like others' pages, share others' posts,
comment on and like posts of others, etc.

Very little barrier to outreach on Twitter, easy to connect and begin
basic engagement with other organizations

Determine popular hashtags in use by Twitter users with which ACEE
might like to connect (#green, #environment, #energy, #sustainability,
#yyc, #yeg, etc.) and participate in conversations using those hashtags

Research on Constituent Groups
Connecting with Other Groups
Use Twitter engagement to eventually build relationships on more
robust networks like Facebook, LinkedIn, and blogging

Research on Constituent Groups
Conclusions
Focus on engagement: must sincerely and authentically participate in
and become a part of the communities to which your target audience
belongs

Remember to spend as much time listening as you do speaking (if not
more)

Social media users are on networks for social interaction – two-way
communication is key in this regard


Know who your audience is and what they're interested in talking about
Successful Use of Social Media
Facebook
Reciprocity is key on Facebook (and most
social media), make sure communication is
two-way

Make sure all of the content you post is
geared towards engaging your audience

Always reply to comments and fashion responses to solicit further input
from your audience

Demonstrating you're interested in your audience's opinions will help to
generate more substantial relationships

Successful Use of Social Media
Facebook

More comments will increase the visibility and reach of your posts

Ask questions and seek feedback from your audience explicitly
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Tagging people in your posts is a good way to get their attention

Vary your content to keep your page fresh and interactive
Successful Use of Social Media
Blogging
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Blogging is a social exercise, do it well but also have fun with it

Timeliness of content is important, news move quickly online

Write conversationally and network with other bloggers where possible
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Takes blogging cues from how you would operate your Facebook page
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Use Facebook and Twitter to promote your blog posts
Successful Use of Social Media
Twitter
Focus on building a network, the bigger and broader your network the
more influence and reach you have


Retweet other users' tweets and focus on one-on-one interactions

Show that you're interested in engagement & not just broadcasting
Always retweet in the old fashion (RT @usersname: tweet) & add
thoughts to your RT

Use an MT (modified tweet) to partially repost a tweet too long to RT in
its entirety

Successful Use of Social Media
The Numbers Game

Facebook ads can help to build numbers quickly
Good to run an ad in conjunction with some sort of contest to pique
curiosity and interest
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Always build an engagement piece into the contest, just a page like isn't
enough

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Regular activity will help to build numbers on Twitter
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Identify key, well-networked users to follow on Twitter
Successful Use of Social Media
The Numbers Game
Create a list of people you want to have follow you and a strategy for
convincing them to do so


Can pay to promote tweets, generally less effective than Facebook ads
Post regularly about timely issues to keep your blog readers coming
back

Email better networked bloggers asking them to link or respond to one
of your posts

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Consider implementing a blogroll (list of recommended blogs)
Outreach Strategies
Overview
Don't promote your content with the same network of people every
time, vary your pitches up to target specific people for different posts

Determine a particular salable angle for your content that you can use
in promoting and increasing exposure for it

Look not just at people who might interested in your content, but also
people in their networks about whom you might not have thought or
known

Do a cost benefit analysis on time spent promoting your content vs.
other activities for your organization – find the right balance

Outreach Strategies
Facebook
If you have a pre-existing relationship with the owner of the Facebook
page, then a private ask via telephone or email might be best

If you know the page is alright with readers posting updates, then go
ahead and do so

Asking permission to promote a post on someone's page before doing
so is an important but often forgotten step

Consider also tagging a page you want to promote the post when you
publish a link on your own page
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Outreach Strategies
Twitter
If no relationship is pre-existing, then try tweeting a link to the blog post
with a mention (@username) of the user you want to retweet and a
short explanation of why they might be interest

Remember to leave some space
in your tweet so that it is easily
retweeted (at least 10 characters)

• Direct messaging a user who is
following you is also available,
though generally considered less
effective
Conclusion
Key Insights
Substantial opportunities for network and relationship building through
blogging (especially with teachers), try incorporating more informal
practice of blogging to increase content, focus on timely issues

Focus efforts on developing Facebook, Twitter, and blogging as
effective social media channels, leave other networks for later
development

Always gear content towards engagement: how does what you post
invite feedback from and interactions with your audience?

Balance quantitative and qualitative approaches, grow your networks
but make sure you do so in a sustainable fashion by not sacrificing time
and energy on quality engagement
