Growing Your Roots: Social Media and Environmental Education
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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
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
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
Takes blogging cues from how you would operate your Facebook page
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
Always build an engagement piece into the contest, just a page like isn't
enough
Regular activity will help to build numbers on Twitter
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
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
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