Is This Hashtag Really Necessary? – Taking the Plunge into Twitter Chats
MCS12 Marketing, Content and Social Strategy
Location: Ballroom D
TUESDAY, 4:15 - 5:00 p.m.
The Twitter Chat, or any internet “ask me anything” event, can be a dangerous proposition. What starts out well intentioned can go south in a huge hurry. Just ask Citibank, the CEO of REI, or any GOP presidential candidate. Then why would any higher ed institution want to expose their leadership to such a potential pratfall? Because it’s the right thing to do. It’s a direct connection to your audiences, and gets better attendance and broader reach than any forum held in a campus auditorium. When properly executed, a Twitter chat can generate excellent results for institutions of all sizes. This presentation will discuss lessons learned from The College at Brockport’s first ever presidential Twitter chat in November of 2015, using the hashtag #bportprezchat. It will explore what went right, what went wrong, and what could be improved. It will also provide tips for helping you prep for your own Twitter chat, so you can communicate more directly with your audiences.
Presenters
Dave Tyler
Senior Social and Digital Media Manager, The College at Brockport
Dave Tyler is the Social & Digital Media Manager atThe College at Brockport where he’s worked since 2009. In addition to writing content for the school’s website, he also runs its various social media presences, does PR and marketing work, & with the help of a team of interns produces videos for campus events & marketing activities. He also launched the College’s Social Media User Group, or SMUG, which meets monthly to discuss social media activities and issues. Before coming to Higher Ed, Dave worked in public relations. Before that, Dave spent more than 11 years as a reporter for a variety of newspapers. Dave is also the publisher of Link: The Journal of Higher Education Web Professionals, the online magazine of HighEdWeb. A former US ambassador to Chile, two-time Grammy recipient and the winner of the 1995 Heisman Trophy, Dave also likes to find out if people read all the way to the bottom of these bios by throwing in ridiculously untrue statements at the end.