Gaining Coverage

Presenters
Cutis Carlson, Nebraska (Kearny)
David Jarmul, Duke

Curt

Have to be flexible and nimble media relations
Institutions have distinct missions. Different sets of media opportunities and challenges. Understand your mission. Start there!

Communicatioms officerole is to generate pride, support the university, maintain high moral and add value for the institution.

Curt suggests organizing a public relations advisory council that meets quarterly. He will share the model he used at three different institutions. Have to email him for that.

Dos and donts

institutions strategic plan to plan media relations

Work to understand culture and environment--what works in one place usually can't be transferred to another institution

Build media relationships everyday

Don't abandon all news releases. Small town papers print news releases verbatim

Don't hesitate to describe your university's strengths, mission and goals

Highlight faculty and students -- tells human side of the story

Celebrate atheletic accomplishments at university level

More tips but nothing new or surprising.

David

David's presentation involved showing the different parts of Duke's website. He has a good handle on what content is going on which sites and why.

Stories that make national media are not usually about what dean wants...what dean or boss wants does not equal what news media are looking for. Challenge is to figure out the middle -- keeping both sides happy

News tips
Pitch people early for stories....look online for news tips. Anticipate news. Duke has a nice site for press releases that David says has led to media hits.

It works. No magic. If you have the right person with something good to say people will be interested in it. Reporters have a beast to feed.

Duke homepage. News by topic combine external and internal stories...powered by rss each dept stream in own content.

All news on Duke Today.

News releases. Still important. Restrict them to things that genuinely have a shot at appearing in tomorrows news or television. "I won't allow news releases to go out to satisfy internal needs. Want reporters to know news releases are genuinely important. News media will pay attention if you provide real news."

Fellowships grants, etc. are not usually news - find a way to deal with that, Professional news site.

Photos videos important for news outlets good photos help pickup.
Info graphics go viral.

Video to supplement story. Student led interviews.

Opinion sections offer opportunity for national placement. Put a lot of effort into op ed market do this with students too.

Social Media

Blog. iTunesU and YouTube. Duke on Demand. Duke version of Hulu

Storify professors live tweeting during president Obama's speech. (Cool idea provided enough faculty from different areas are willing to participate)

Mobile presence

Build behind the scenes. Provide resources for faculty, media trainings, training on how to write op ed, how to use social media. "We have a responsibility to faculty."

Duke has a policy that news releases must be distributed by the media office to control the quality of what reporters are receiving.

Case Studies

Presenters
Tim Jones, N.C. State
Michael Petroff, Emory College

This session the presenters shared ideas about including the entire university in messaging and taking an event and turning it into an opportunity for messaging to a wide variety of constituents.

Tim talked about State's decision to put strategy before tactics. Something that was difficult to do during the initial rush into social media. The healthy "communication ecosystem" is one where every channel supports every other channel. "The goal of communication is not to communicate but to influence actions and outcomes," he said.

He described how State took an event, 125th anniversary, and made it more than an event by deciding on the messages for the event and sharing with the university community how to talk about that event in an effective way - making the theme general enough that every school/ department could apply it to its messaging.

They created examples of print, email, social media pushes, blog posts and news releases to help the campus talk about the university. This messaging architecture will help them as they launch their capital campaign in 2013, he said. Everyone will be spreading the same message

Nice tip: Use a question on twitter as a fun way to link to research.

Focus was a big issue in this session. Social media channels need focus. A good case for keeping the. WF News Center twitter focused on news. Tim said that the way to earn credibility on social channels is to stay focused and not try to be all things to all people. Cultivate relationships with reporters by focusing Twitter and FB channels on news. People will learn to trust your channels with consistent content.

Focus=Credibility

State is testing google plus to refine focus on even more specific areas of research they want to highlight.

Mark also talked about connecting brand to messaging to audience. It requires collaboration and patience.

The content drives discussion as to what platforms to share content on

Mark gave great ideas for orientation

Help alumni reconnect by posting older photos of move in days and orientation. Ask alumni to send photos

A welcome class of 2016 site where community can leave messages

Repurpose content such as move-in tips, things to do when you arrive...we have other new student content as well

Build excitement 2 weeks before

Use the event to promote new administration (photos of new provost meeting families)

Create page where students can leave advice for entering students on FB page

Have students submit move-in orientation photos for possible posting on web

Repurpose content and storify-- especially good for parents and grandparents who don't use social media

#wfuwelcome

Collect flip cam video during the event

Recap and extend content life by updating storify

Plus to using storify is that it looks good on mobile...especially good for universities w/o mobile friendly sites. Send link directly to storify rather than embed for best mobile results.

Social media, Web, and Mobile Content

Moderators

Krista Halvorson, CEO Brain Traffic
Melanie Moran, Vanderbilt

Before this session, I was convinced that other schools had the answers to the social media and Web content quandries. Turns out that most of those in the meeting, including Vanderbilt, struggle with similar issues: information and work silos, media team players focusing on many responsibilities and too many communication outlets without focus.

Tips from this session:

Metrics: Pick the metrics you want to track before someone else picks them for you. Present those metrics on a one page sheet, once a week. These might include the top 5 stories on our site for the week, number of twitter followers, FB likes, engagement stats -- pick those things that are most helpful. For example, Vanderbiilt's campaign focus for the Web is positioning itself as a top research institution. They choose metrics that help them see how and where this message is reaching the audience by seeing who is reading the stories and clicking the links.

Content: Vanderbilt is creating its content based on its key message goals and pushing the same content out to sites with different looks based on audience - alumni, parents, faculty/staff, admissions

Field of Dreams: If you build it, they will not necessarily come. Be strategic, stay focused, use resources wisely and include other people outside the news group in discussions

Tags: Tag stories with the name of research funding organizations to make it easy to search, ie, NSF etc.

Create your own identity as an office: Referring to departments as clients helps clarify that the communications office is a content adviser not content producer. Consider the role of content therapist...listen to find out what's working for clients and what's not. The news office is not a store.

Identify issues: Is it a people problem (one that requires the content therapist role) or a tools problem