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!
The Virtual Summer School starts TODAY at 2pm with a session onUsing Social Media to Extend the Learning Process.
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
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.
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.
The following teams were awarded 3D-printed innovateExtension trophies and will work with OSU Extension Director Roger Rennekamp to secure funding for their innovative ideas and projects:
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.
Finally, participants were encouraged to post to Twitter and Instagram throughout the day utilizing the #innovateOSUE hashtag. Below is a compilation of just some of the pictures, videos, and comments shared:
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.
Save the Date for the 2016 Innovate conference + special Post-Conference Event for OSU Extension professionals!
May 11th & 12th
From the Innovate Community blog: With Excellence as our theme for 2016, we’re sharing innovations that let educators re-imagine their instruction without sacrificing pedagogical quality and rigor. It’s fun to experiment and enjoy the novelty of cutting edge technologies, but a focus on excellence is what drives meaningful implementation.
Innovate is a time for bringing people together across disciplines and across adoption barriers. The conference is built with the educator in mind: you don’t have to be tech savvy to fully participate in this day of presentations, demonstrations and valuable dialog.
Innovate is The Ohio State University’s annual conference exploring teaching and learning with technology. The highly engaging one-day event is built upon six years of successful conferences: 95% of 2014 participants learned something that could change the way they think about or do their job, 96% reported they would like to attend a similar event in the future, and the repeat attendees every year support this number. Innovate is hosted by Ohio State’s Office of Distance Education and eLearning.
While geared toward OSU faculty, with participation numbers growing each year of the conference, so too have professional development sessions relevant to outreach education and Extension initiatives. And in 2016, the OSUE Ed Tech Unit will be hosting a post-conference event for OSU Extension on May 12th. Innovate will be held at the Ohio Union, while our Extension event will be hosted at the 4-H Center. More details can be found here.
This year’s OSUE Annual Conference theme, “Innovation in Action”, provides the opportunity to showcase the creative, innovative programming taking place across Ohio in Extension! The Ed Tech unit is excited to offer several breakout sessions this year, alongside our annual Tech Faire (formerly the “Tech Zoo”). We’ll also be announcing a few new Ed Tech initiatives for 2016.
The Faire will also of course feature new technology for OSUE program staff to consider (MaKey MaKey, virtual reality, 3D printing, etc. – get a preview from a video taken during last week’s 4-H Professionals’ Inservice in the link below).
What Focus Sessions are you presenting that showcase how you’re utilizing technology in your work? Add them in the comments below and we’ll see you at #OSUE2015!
Danae and I recently walked the Live Smart Ohio blog authors through an updated version of our blogging best practices tip sheet. It includes the useful rules of thumb below to check before you hit “publish” on your next blog post, especially if you submit your blog content for peer review.
Does your post…
Have a good title that includes keywords?
Have less than 300 words in the body of your post?
Have a quality photo, image, infographic, or video included?
Have a few embedded links that readers would find helpful?
Have a call to action at the end? (information included that directs readers to local or statewide Extension / OSU resources)?
Include content that can easily be repurposed?
Cite your hyperlinked sources in the endnotes below the content?
More in-depth information and resource links for each tip in the list can be found in the slidedeck below.