Using Social Media to Support Press and PR Jamie Brown, Press and PR Manager

What we do at the moment?

• Twitter (salforduni) 1700+ followers

• Flickr (over 12,000 views)

• Eventful, Conference Alerts, Upcoming

Why use social media for PR?- the push factor

“Manchester Evening News to cut 78 journalists' jobs”Press Gazette, March 2009

“Twitter Has A Big Month, Grows To Over 8 Million U.S. Users”

Social Times, March 2009

Why use social media for PR?- the pull factors

• Enables a conversation– ‘Please send me more details about this course’– ‘Interesting event, but I’m not sure what it’s all about’– ‘Why the f**k won’t anyone answer the phone @salforduni

• Reach a large audience– ChapelStreetBG

@SalfordUni you're welcome: worth RTing again: All of our Arts Unit events are now on the website. Have a look. http://twurl.nl/qz5z2g

Why use social media for PR?- the pull factors

• Reputation– People are

talking about us– We can join in,

influence, and put our side

Set a tone – in pictures

Set a tone – in words

• For £4 you can see a pianist praised by the NY Times here on 26 January. http://twurl.nl/atnlts

• The end of major employer engagement project marked by event 02/12. Find out how unis and business work together

• New year's resolution to learn more about human prehistory? Start with this January lecture http://twurl.nl/ylscoq

Results?

• Created buzz around courses – and applications• Filled events• Got journalists interested in stories• Delivered better customer service

• Reached large audiences which couldn’t be reached through conventional media.

Drawbacks and considerations

• The conventional media is still more important for most people• Social media should complement other forms of

communication• We need to be more agile in our practices• It’s not appropriate for all of our audiences

Next?

• Increased use across the University– 34 Twitter accounts– 21 blogs

• Collect all accounts and blogs on the main website• Live Tweeting from University events• Guidelines to be made available to all staff

• Keep an eye on what’s new!

Finally

• I’m making this up as I go along!

So:– What are we doing well?– Where are we going wrong?