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More social media tips from Bill Handy, social media professor at Oklahoma State University.
Remember:
- Social media is one part technology, three parts culture — invest your time and money appropriately.
- Determine how to measure your success/failure before you begin.
- Know your audience!
- Go where your audience is; don't force them to come to your Web site.
- Trust your audience; they are your greatest allies.
A wiki in action
According to Handy, a wiki is a collaboration tool for easy access and editing. Like Wikipedia, all users have access to update a wiki. If a user posts a document that needs to be proofed by co-workers, he or she can post it to a wiki and they can make comments on it. Also, if there is an error in a media press release, users can fix it one location, rather than having to e-mail out a second release with a correction.
Handy says that while some classes end the conversation at Twitter and Facebook this is where his class begins. His class researches other SM tools available, including wikis, and how they can be used, such as for branding, engagement and collaboration.
“Case in point, from one online class discussion of wikis, there were 32 responses about how OSU or organizations could use them for any number of reasons,” he says.
In October 2009, a group of Handy’s students coordinated a campaign to increase the number of attendees to a T.Boone Pickens Town Hall Meeting.
“A wiki was used to coordinate the event and hardly an e-mail was sent, but there were several hundred updates to a wiki by almost 60 students,” he says. “The campaign ran flawlessly and the ultimate objectives of the students was achieved. Most people are challenged to even define a wiki let alone know how to use it for a specific purpose.”
