Interested in learning more about Snapchat but not sure where to start? The eXtension #EdTechLN recently hosted a TweetUp and webinar simulcast on using Snapchat for Extension storytelling. Check out the TweetUp recap to learn more about how Extension professionals are currently using Snapchat. Also watch the webinar recording to learn about the basics of using Snapchat!
Questions? Contact Jamie or Danae.
We had the highest level of social media engagement this year during annual conference than ever before! Thank you to everyone who posted what they were learning, sharing, and spending quality time with last week. It was certainly a great couple of days. Congratulations to all of our door prize winners, who hope you enjoy your early holiday gifts and put them to good use! Reach out to Jamie or Danae if you have questions about how to do so!
Our conference Snapchat filters alone were used more than 60 times and seen by over 850 people!
Here is annual conference, as experienced through your posts on Instagram and Twitter. Enjoy and we’ll see you again next year!
Missed the September Coffee Break? Be sure to watch the recording!
Monday, August 15 at 2:00 EST
Topic: Using Social Media to Extend the Learning Process
Presenters: Drs. Karen Jeanette & Brigitte Scott, Virginia Tech, Military Families Learning Network
Tuesday, August 16 at 2:00 EST
Topic: Social Media Conduct
Presenter: Mark Hagemeier, J.D., Associate General Counsel University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences, Little Rock, AR
Wednesday, August 17 at 2:00 EST
Topic: Social Media Analytics & Impact
Presenters: David G. Allen & Josh Paine, Communications and Marketing, College of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences, University of Georgia
Thursday, August 18 at 3:00 EST
Topic: Accessibility for All: Digital Media Accessibility
Presenter: Richard Petty, Director, National Center for Aging and Disability, The Institute for Rehabilitation and Research, Memorial Hermann Healthcare System, Houston, TX
For more information and to register, visit the NAEPSDP website.
Figuring out the best times to post content on social media can be puzzling. Research shows that businesses and organizations post most of their content during normal work hours (9am-5pm, Monday through Friday). However research also shows that the best times to post on social media for maximum engagement is actually outside normal business hours. Take a peek at the cheat sheet below (courtesy of TrackMaven) to gauge when may be the most appropriate times of day and days of week to post on your social media channels. Pay close attention to the “most effective” column on the far right. (Click the image for a larger view or to print).
While the most popular times to post on social media are well within the normal work hours, the best times to post content for engagement (likes, comments, shares) are before or after work hours during the week or on weekends. Interestingly, the best time to send an email newsletter is Thursday afternoon.
Keep in mind that Facebook page insights offers information about when your specific page followers are active online. To find out when your followers are on Facebook, go to your page and click on “Insights” along the top navigation menu. From there, click “posts” on the left hand navigation menu and you’ll see “When your fans are online” at the very top of the page. Here’s what it looks like:
Use this information to decide when to post content on your social media channels. If posting on Facebook outside of normal work hours seems daunting, consider scheduling your posts. Simply click the drop-down arrow next to “post” when crafting your next post and choose “schedule” to decide on a future time/day for the content to be published.
Happy posting!
The inaugural innovateExtension event was held May 12th, 2016 on Ohio State University’s campus. Twenty-two teams and more than 140 participants vied for funding for their ideas, projects, prototypes, and concepts.
Honorable Mention: Dayta Dreamers (Debby Lewis, Amy Elhadi, Kim Showalter, Suzanna Windon | Coach: Kevin Gamble) Pitch: Hiring a web developer, housed in the PDE unit, to design a “data portal”. The portal would be able to accept various types of data and generate multiple types of reports based on the data that will be accessible by a broad range of employees.
3rd Place Team: Live Healthy Live Well (Pat Brinkman, Michelle Treber, Lisa Barlage, Joanna Rini, Beth Stefura | Coach: Alice Henneman) Pitch: Expansion of the Live Healthy Live Well social media programming into a text-based message campaign, also including brief YouTube videos and hashtag creation and use.
2nd Place Team: Team GMO (Emily Adams, Lee Beers, Mary Griffith, Peggy Hall, Dianne Shoemaker | Coach: Hunter McBrayer) Pitch: A three-part plan to help Extension professionals excel with critical issues. Critical issues are not limited to controversial issues. They also include issues and situations that arise quickly and Extension personnel must address in a very timely manner. 1) Educator Training, 2) Identify Critical Issues at Annual Conference, and 3) Development and Implementation of a Protocol for Critical Issues
1st Place Team: Critical Conversations (Jackie Kirby-Wilkins, Jeff McCutcheon, Cindy Torppa, Lisa Siciliano-Miller, Laura Fuller, David Crawford, Debbie Brown | Coach: Daphne Richards) Pitch: Extension professionals are faced daily with having critical conversations with a variety of stakeholders (e.g., funders, elected officials, consumer, community partners, and families/friends). These conversations include relationship building, networking, collaborating, facilitating, mediating, and innovating. Critical Conversations provides a variety of resources (including Tool Kits and Skill Building) and strategies for developing competencies, comfort, and skills for addressing critical conversations.
If you missed our First Friday Coffee Break with an Ed Tech this month, the webinar recording is now available!
Our next First Friday Coffee Break will be March 4th from 10:00am – 11:00am EST, topic TBD. Have a topic suggestion for a future Coffee Break? Comment below or email it to Jamie or Danae.
Social media branding got you down? Use our edit-friendly templates to create beautifully branded social media profile photos for your Facebook or Twitter account. We’ve developed templates in PowerPoint so all Extension staff can quickly and easily create OSU Extension branded profile images.
Visit our Social Media Template Box folder to access the templates along with step-by-step instructions for creating your profile image. We’ve included two templates – one with just the block O bug and one with the block O bug and the scarlet Extension banner. Choose the template that makes sense for your social media account.
If you’d like help learning how to create your social media profile using these templates, join Jamie and Danae on the First Friday Coffee Break with an Ed Tech on February 5 at 10am (TODAY!).
Questions or comments? Let us know!
Repurposing content allows you to take your best content and make it available to multiple audiences in a variety of formats.
Take an existing blog post or factsheet and expand on individual ideas presented. A listicle (an article presented in the form of a numbered or bulleted list) lends itself especially well to expansion.
Use a service like SlideShare to create visually stunning slide sets from PowerPoints, Word documents, PDFs, or infographics. Slide sets can be embedded on websites and blogs and shared on social media for maximum impact.
Blog posts, factsheets, or journal articles that are particularly data heavy can be repurposed into infographics and shared on social media or websites. Use online tools like Canva or Piktochart to create your infographics.
Share your best content on social media including Pinterest, Facebook, and Twitter. Since people use different social media platforms for different purposes, it’s important to compose unique messages for each platform. Find high quality and interesting images to accompany your posts and use online services like Canva to create content specific to each platform. Visit our blog post on royalty free images for image inspiration.
Use an online service like MailChimp to manage newsletter subscriptions and send your audience interesting content directly to their inbox. Be sure to include links to your most popular recent posts as well as content from other relevant sources and information about upcoming programs.
Use a service like Camtasia Relay (free for all CFAES employees) to capture your voice and what’s happening on your screen to easily create video presentations that can be shared on social media and YouTube. You can also create short animated video clips with online services like Wideo (free and paid plans available). Check out the short Wideo I made about repurposing content!
Use a program like Carmen Connect to hose a webinar. Webinars allow you to expand on a topic and interact directly with your audience.
Create a unique and relevant #hashtag and host a Twitter chat with your audience. Choose a time and topic and invite people to participate in your Twitter chat by using your #hashtag. Encourage your audience to use a service like Twubs to curate content.
If you have multiple blog posts or factsheets revolving around a similar topic (e.g. sustainable gardening practices; canning vegetables; tips and tricks on managing finances), consider repackaging that similar content into a comprehensive peer-reviewed eBook or electronic guide.
Consider updating and republishing your most popular content. This method of repurposing content works particularly well with topics that come up every year (e.g. maintaining a healthy weight around the holidays).
We have great news and not-so-great news this morning. Yesterday, we shared the link to a Buckeye Box folder that housed easy-to-use branded images. The not-so-great news: we’ve deleted this Buckeye Box folder. The great news? = the reason why! What we didn’t realize, was that this resource already exists! CFAES Communications now offers branded college and University background images, art, in addition to logos in .jpg and .png formats.
This 4-H Background image is one of many image resources available on the CFAES Communications site.
We apologize for the confusion. As we had mentioned in the previous post, if you have trouble using an image in it’s current format, do not see a desired image available, or just have a general branding question, please contact Jamie or Danae and we will help or contact the appropriate parties within the college.