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Transformations Coventry University - SM4BCE

Project Name: Social Media for Business and Community Engagement (SM4BCE)

Lead Institution: Coventry University

Project Lead: Claire Edwards

 

Social Media for Business and Community Engagement is a Jisc-funded project, running from June 2012 to May 2013, which aims to transform the way Coventry University interacts with its stakeholders in business and the community through the use of social media. Coventry University already has a strong reputation in the field of business engagement however, at a time when Higher Education Institutions face unprecedented pressure to work more effectively with partners in the public and private sectors, it is vital that we explore the potential of new technologies to enhance Coventry University’s organisational capability in this area. The project has been very well received and has had an impact on Coventry University's future marketing and social media strategies. SM4BCE has also produced a social media toolkit for other institutions interested in exploring the potential of social media for business and community engagement

 

Background

The Social Media for Business & Community Engagement (SM4BCE) project originated as an idea among members of staff in Coventry University's Corporate Partnership Unit (CPU). The CPU is part of the University’s Business Development Group, a team of staff who focus on developing the University's activities with external partners with the aim of generating income for applied research activities and raising the profile of the University with key stakeholder groups in business and the community. The project was inspired by the University's 2011/12 student recruitment campaign, which saw Coventry University become the first UK University to use augmented reality technology in its advertising, combined with a feeling that the way the University was marketing itself to businesses wasn’t keeping up with developments in technology and social media. This was of particular concern as Coventry University, like many other UK Universities, is currently trying to develop new sources of funding – particularly for applied research. CPU submitted a bid for JISC funding that addressed these issues and investigate how new technologies and social media could be used to engage business and the community.

 

Aims and objectives

SM4BCE aimed to change the way Coventry University interacts with its stakeholders in business and the community. At the time the bid was written, the University’s  business-facing marketing relied almost exclusively on printed marketing materials which, coupled with an outdated website, made it difficult for business and community stakeholders to find out what we did and how to engage with us. This project aimed to learn from best practice in the use of new technologies and social media both within Coventry University and from across the Higher Education sector as a whole.

 

The key objectives for SM4BCE included:

 

  • An evaluation of current best practice in the use of social media and related technology for business and community engagement designed to inform institutional development across the sector;
  • Understanding how businesses and other non-student stakeholder groups currently interact with us and how they would like to interact with  the University;
  • Starting to use social media and related technologies to support business development activity;
  • Developing a toolkit designed to inform our future business and community engagement strategy as well as to inform the development of the sector.

 

Context

Coventry University already has a strong reputation in the field of business engagement however, at a time when Higher Education Institutions (HEIs) face unprecedented pressure to work more effectively with partners in the public and private sectors, it is vital that we explore the potential of new technologies to enhance Coventry University’s organisational capability in this area. As new methods of communication, such as social media, become the norm there is a risk that the University will cease to interact effectively with its target audience unless it starts to use these channels effectively.

 

The project also had wider relevance to the UK Higher Education Sector, primarily because Coventry University is not alone in seeking to increase the proportion of its research income that is private-sector led. The current government budgetary constraints are unlikely to be relaxed in the near future and most UK HEIs therefore have to seek alternative sources of research funding.

  

The business case

If Coventry University is to build on its current success in business and community engagement and to meet the institutional target of 25% of applied research income to be private-sector led by 2015, as laid out in its 2010-2015 Corporate Plan, we need to ensure that the channels we use for engagement with business are sector-leading and fit for purpose. The 2010-2015 Corporate Plan also sets out our aim to explore web-based collaborative tools and applications and to develop innovative models of research communities. To be successful in both of these aims the University needs to understand its current capabilities in this area and to work with stakeholder groups to develop relevant tools and strategies for future business and community engagement.

 

The increasing prevalence of social media and related tools means that universities such as Coventry will have to become more innovative in the ways in which they seek out and collaborate with partners and clients. There is a growing expectation that communication should be multi-channel and interactive – not simply a website and an enquiry telephone number. This project allowed us to explore a number of new methods of engaging with business and community partners in a number of key areas which can then be used to inform the business and community engagement strategy of the institution and develop the social media toolkit.

 

Key drivers

The key drivers for SM4BCE were:

 

  1. To retain a strong position in the field of Business and Community Engagement;
  2. To ensure that our communications with stakeholders in business and the community remain relevant, keep pace with rapidly changing communications technology and use the most appropriate channels;
  3. To help Coventry University meet its corporate objectives of increasing the proportion of applied research income which is private-sector led to 25% by 2015. This can only be done by strengthening our relationships with existing private sector partners and developing new relationships;
  4. To help Coventry University continue to innovate in the ways it communicates with its stakeholders, particularly with its students as they become the business stakeholders of the future.

 

JISC resources/technology used

 

A range of JISC resources were reviewed as part of the project. Using social media for business and community engagement is in its infancy within HE, which may be why the majority of JISC resources available were of limited relevance to SM4BCE. It took some time to find a comprehensive list of JISC resources that seemed relevant, and when these were located, there were limited details on what the resources contained, meaning that time was spent reviewing only to find that the resource wasn’t relevant. Details of the JISC resources used and reviewed as part of SM4BCE are below:

 

Online Promotion of Research Expertise: http://www.jiscinfonet.ac.uk/tools/research-expertise 

This was a particularly useful resource providing invaluable information for the first stage of the project which reviewed current practice on social media within the higher education sector. SM4BCE used the resource to establish a benchmark for where Coventry University was in terms of social media use. The project final report was based around a review of University websites – the team looked at 75 in the UK as well as some overseas for comparison and some key findings stood out:

 

  • The assertion that there was “too little interactivity and too many brochures” resonated very closely with our experiences at Coventry, in fact this was essentially the rationale behind the bid to JISC! Brochures definitely have their place, it’s really important to have tangible publicity materials but these days people expect websites to be much more than a repository of downloads. This prompted members of the project team to look at for improving the interface for our digital and although this doesn’t solve the problem of “too many brochures” presenting them in more innovative and interactive ways may be a big step forward.
  • The report found that social media was used mainly for student engagement – again something the project found at Coventry. Even social networks aimed at business users such as LinkedIn weren’t used in a co-ordinated way by HEIs. The presence of staff on LinkedIn was entirely down to personal choice and there was no drive towards a “corporate” presence.
  • The assertion that online channels were unimportant in establishing business and community relationships but very important for maintaining them was of interest to the project. This prompted the project manager to explore this is in the focus group sessions as the University’s online presence could be seen  as its shop window and the way SM4BCE envisaged progressing was to help create more partnerships through more effective use of different social media.

 

Addressing barriers to Business and Community Engagement: www.jisc.ac.uk/media/documents/events/2008/04/conference08/bce.pdf 

SM4BCE is addressing a specific area of Coventry’s Business & Community Engagement and builds on an already strong culture of Business & Community Engagement at Coventry University. Therefore, this resource was not relevant to our experience as it looks at how to embed a culture of Business & Community Engagement at an Institution.

 

Benchmarking: http://www.jiscinfonet.ac.uk/tools/benchmarking 
The project manager anticipated that this resource would be of use when benchmarking in the initial stages of the project. However, none of the tools provided were particularly relevant for this project.

 

Collaborative Online Tools (for BCE): http://www.jiscinfonet.ac.uk/infokits/collaborative-tools 

The technology covered by this resource was considered already too mainstream, given the pace of technology change over the past few years. Coventry University is already using most of these tools and they are not relevant to the aims of this project.

 

Embedding Business and Community Engagement (BCE) infoKit: http://www.jiscinfonet.ac.uk/bce/embedding-bce 

This resource is aimed at big institutional programmes to create a culture of Business and Community Engagement. Coventry University already has this sort of culture and the aim of SM4BCE is to address technology change and ensure communication with business and community groups keeps pace.

 

Impact Calculator: http://www.jiscinfonet.ac.uk/records-management/measuring-impact/impact-calculator 

This resource was identified because it was thought it might be a resource for measuring the results of the project but it concentrates on measuring cost and efficiency savings which is not a particular aim for this project. 

 

Maximising the Impact of BCE Partnerships: www.jisc.ac.uk/media/documents/publications/briefingpaper/2012/BCEpartnerships.pdf

This resource was simply at too high level for SM4BCE which looks at a specific facet of Business and Community Engagement rather than at the creation and enhancement of a Business and Community Engagement Culture.

 

Walking Thru Time: http://walkingthroughtime.eca.ac.uk/ 

This is a very specific app based project with a different aim to ours. However their experiences would have been useful if SM4BCE decided to go down an app-based route.  

 

Outcomes

Research

Desk Research

The first stage of SM4BCE was to undertake desk research into the use of social media for business-to-business communications. There was not a huge amount of existing research available for review – social media research has tended to concentrate on the benefits of business-to-consumer communication which, whilst interesting, is not quite what the project is trying to achieve. Some key findings included:

 

  • Peer influence-based, community-oriented marketing, hold[s] much greater promise for creating sustained growth through authentic customer relationships (Bill Lee, HBR)
  • Far from a distraction…social media proves a surprising boon to productivity (Ryan Holmes, Fast Company)
  • 90% of companies using social technologies report some business benefits from them (McKinsey Global Institute)

 

The project also had access to a number of surveys undertaken by other areas of Coventry University which had relevance to the SM4BCE project. The first of these surveys, undertaken by the University’s Marketing & Communications Department, contacted external stakeholders who received a copy of Coventry University’s applied research magazine Innovate to explore enthusiasm for digital editions of the magazine. The findings were that:

 

  • 85% of respondents would prefer to receive the magazine in a digital format;
  • Respondents would prefer to receive the magazine on a format that could be accessed from a PC, laptop or tablet computer;
  • No respondents wanted to receive a magazine that they could view on their mobile phone.

 

These findings were interesting as they showed a strong appetite among respondents for digital content but that mobile-phone optimised content was of limited interest.

 

The second survey, undertaken by the University’s Engineering & Computing Faculty, contacted external stakeholders for their opinions on Coventry University’s business services in order to better align the Faculties activities with business needs. Key findings included:

 

  • A single point of contact was valued for client projects and enquiries;
  • Word of mouth recommendations are important;
  • Collaborative, strategic relationships which are developed jointly are valued highly;
  • There is low awareness, even among current clients, of the full range of the Faculty’s offering (and therefore presumably the University’s offering);
  • There is a real need for both mass and targeted marketing to raise awareness among potential business partners of the University’s offering and activities;
  • It is essential to develop ongoing links with alumni ;
  • Pro-active contact with prospects, current and previous clients – as well as alumni – is welcomed.

 

These findings, whilst not specific to social media activity and focused on a specific Faculty’s business related activities, are interesting evidence about how Coventry University is perceived. The issues raised, particularly around communication and awareness of what Coventry University has to offer to businesses, could to some extent be addressed by a good social media strategy.

 

Benchmarking Study

A benchmarking study was the second phase of the project and was undertaken in order to provide a firm idea of how exactly Coventry University compares to other UK Universities in the field of social media use, particularly for business interactions, as well as giving us some idea about best practice. Approximately 70 UK Universities were reviewed with the sample being taken from the following groups:

 

  • Leading UK Universities – those that top the Times and Guardian League Tables;
  • West Midlands Universities ;
  • Post-1992 Universities – former Polytechnics awarded University title in 1992;
  • Business-facing Universities – those awarded the highest level of HEIF5 funding;

 

Some of the findings are as follows.

 

Social Media take-up is high in general

 

  • 98% of Universities surveyed had a Facebook profile
  • 100% of Universities surveyed had a Twitter profile
  • 98% of Universities surveyed have a company profile on LinkedIn
  • 97% of Universities surveyed have a YouTube account

 

The level of engagement and the audience targeted vary hugely from university to university.  

 

Use of Social Media for business engagement appears to be less common

 

  • Only 3% of HEIs surveyed have a dedicated “business” Facebook page
  • The proportion using Twitter for business engagement via a dedicated account – 22% – is slightly higher but still not even a quarter of the sample
  • Only 51% of the sample actively used their LinkedIn company profile to promote their activities, jobs and services

 

University Social Media Sites have a large audience

 

  • Average Facebook fans: 27, 600
  • Average Twitter followers: 9,500
  • Average LinkedIn followers: 3,700
  • Average Youtube subscribers: 935 (Average video views were much higher – over 460, 000)

 

Universities are experimenting with a variety of Social Media

In addition to the main four social media services used – Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn and Youtube – the Universities surveyed used a total of 20 other social media and social content-sharing sites. These ranged from photo-sharing site Flickr to Chinese microblogging service Weibo.

 

This supports the original assumptions made with regards to the use of social media in HE– namely that Universities are in general very well engaged with social media but their activities via these media are focused primarily on student recruitment and engagement with the potential of social media for business and community engagement being overlooked.

 

Stakeholder Engagement Sessions

One of the earliest issues the SM4BCE project team discussed was around understanding how businesses wanted Coventry University to communicate with them. There was already some evidence from the desk research stage of the project (see above) that the University could do more to ensure its stakeholders were aware of business-facing activities and opportunities to get involved. A logical next step was to engage with some of our business and community stakeholders to see whether social media would be a sensible way to address this issue.  As a result we held two focus groups in December 2012 and April 2013

 

Stakeholder Engagement Sessions: Focus Group One

The December focus group had 6 members:  three from various areas of the University involved with either social media or business engagement; and three representatives were invited from outside the University. Discussions were held about engagement with social media and thoughts on Coventry University’s current offering. Key points to come out of this session were:

 

  • LinkedIn is the best social networking site for developing business relationships. Facebook is seen very much as a non-business site.
  • Twitter is a good tool for marketing activity, particularly raising awareness and advertising events but it was seen as quite superficial.
  • It is important to link your printed media to your social media presence and/or your website e.g. via QR codes or Augmented Reality tools such as Aurasma.
  • Coventry University’s current social media is very student focused and not useful for business contacts.
  • It is important to develop a clear strategy for social media activity that can be reviewed and updated regularly.
  • Internal communications are also really important for large organisations – social media aggregation sites such as Yammer can be helpful here.
  • Social networking is about the individual – it is important to have a balance between “corporate” accounts and real people. People like the personal touch and good personal accounts can reflect well on the organisation as a whole.

 

The session reaffirmed many of the results of the benchmarking exercise – particularly that our social media is too student focused and we need to target business engagement activity to key social networks such as LinkedIn and Twitter. However it was also thought provoking, offering  ideas which had not been previously considered about such as managing internal communications and encouraging individual engagement.

 

Stakeholder Engagement Sessions: Focus Group Two

The April 2013 focus group had four members - three business and community representatives plus Coventry University’s Social Media Officer. Discussions centred on the benefits and drawbacks of social media use. This group came to the same conclusions as the first focus group, particularly in terms of social networks for interacting with other businesses – LinkedIn was again seen as the key social network with Twitter seen as important but not as strategically valuable. Other key points to come out of this session included:

 

  • Social media is not seen as a direct sales tool. Instead social networks are valuable for awareness-raising, public relations and networking with those whom you might struggle to engage with elsewhere. Social media content is seen as particularly valuable for driving traffic to a company’s website.
  • HEIs in general still aren’t great at social media for business engagement. Warwick Manufacturing Group (WMG) at the University of Warwick were highlighted as being particularly good.
  • Social media is seen as a supplement to “traditional” modes of communications. People still rely on e-mail or phone communication to really develop a relationship – even if that relationship originated on social media.
  • There is value in using social media for internal communications, particularly in larger organisations. Yammer was highlighted as were blogs and internal communication forums.
  • Providing adequate resource to manage your social media correctly is a concern as is managing content disseminated via social media.

 

Stakeholder Engagement Sessions: Outcomes

The focus groups were interesting and valuable in validating the project team’s existing thoughts and research about the value of social media for business engagement. The overall message received from both sessions was very clear: Coventry University need to be using social media to engage with its business and community partners and it needs to provide resource to do this well.

 

Aurasma – Augmented Reality Marketing

SM4BCE was originally inspired by the use of augmented reality in Coventry University’s 2012/13 student recruitment campaign. This campaign used an application called Aurasma which allows users to access interactive content by using a smartphone application to scan static content in posters or leaflets. The actual process of using Aurasma is however quite complex and requires users to have access to relatively high specification smartphones.

 

Despite a number of attempts, uptake of the augmented reality tool “Aurasma” have been relatively low by research and business-facing teams across the University – something which can perhaps be attributed to its complexity as well as a lack of demand. It is however regularly used in Coventry University’s applied research magazine Innovate and there are plans to use Aurasma in some upcoming marketing materials for our Low Carbon Vehicle and Integrated Transport & Logistics Grand Challenge Initiatives. In an ideal world the project would have had access to these early in 2013 so that we could get feedback about ease of use and whether businesses considered them valuable however this has not happened. There has however been no evidence of demand for augmented reality in any of the stakeholder engagement sessions undertaken whereas evidence of demand for engagement via social media has been consistently high.

 

Social Media

Twitter

Increasing Coventry University’s business-relevant content via Twitter has been one of the major achievements of this project. Access to tools such as Hootsuite (a social media management tool) has allowed the project manager to create and schedule content for optimum times as well as to engage with the rest of the University’s social media active staff.

 

The main Coventry University Twitter feed (@covcampus) is and is likely to remain quite student-focused – primarily because students use this feed to communicate with the University, something that will remain in place for strategic reasons. However there is a strategic drive at the University towards the use of social media for non-student purposes – in December 2012 a team of social media officers were employed to support the development of research content – and this project has strengthened this strategic direction. There is a compelling case for a dedicated “business-facing” Twitter feed which would run in conjunction with the University’s main Twitter account as well as with various other accounts run by faculty research teams. This would however require dedicated full-time resource.

 

SM4BCE has not only provided content for the main Coventry University Twitter account but also supported the creation and promotion of content via supporting accounts including one dedicated to Coventry’s strategic “Grand Challenge Initiatives” which is business and community focused. When the project began the @grandchallenge account had been set up but fallen into disuse when the member of staff responsible took up a new role. With the support of colleagues from across the University the project has now revived this account and it is being used on a daily basis.

 

In addition SM4BCE has sparked quite a lot of interest in the potential uses of social media from business-facing staff across the University. The SM4BCE project manager has worked with the following to raise awareness of specific projects and/or events:

 

  • Faculty of Engineering & Computing Commercial Team:
    • Intrigue 2013: The Faculty’s first business open day
    • Continuing Professional Development Courses
  • Sustainable Building Futures Project
    • Training events for West Midlands companies
    • Awareness raising of the project’s activity
    • Support for dedicated SBF twitter account
  • City Lab Coventry Project
    • Publicity for an event at MIPIM in March 2013
    • Support with creating and using a dedicated City Lab Coventry twitter feed

 

Whilst this has been successful there remains a compelling case for a dedicated business-facing Twitter account to engage with a business and community audience.

 

LinkedIn

Progress on the use of LinkedIn has been small scale – primarily because it took approximately six months to gain access to Coventry University’s LinkedIn profile. The project has therefore only had access to Coventry University’s LinkedIn profile since March 2013.

 

In that time however the page has been updated with a more relevant summary of the University and much more detail on the products/services offered by the University, with a particular emphasis on those that are relevant to business. This has led to a quadrupling of views of the Products and Services page in the last two months. The SM4BCE project manager has also spent a considerable amount of time developing content for profile updates which has been well received with data from LinkedIn showing that overall content from the page has reached at least 30,000 people in April 2013.

 

Achievements

SM4BCE has seen its primary objective achieved – namely that of increased used of social media for business and community engagement purposes. This can be seen via the increased amount of business-relevant content on the main Coventry University Twitter and LinkedIn accounts as well as by an increased interest in and take-up of social media for business and community engagement activity by different people across the University.

 

By working closely with Coventry University’s Marketing & Communications department the project manager has also been able to ensure that SM4BCE has had an impact on the University’s new Marketing Strategy. This has at the time of writing lead to a dedicated marketing plan for business engagement which fully incorporates use of social media and interactive technologies such as Aurasma. It is hoped that this will enable the learning from the project to be embedded and place Coventry University in a market-leading position.

 

In addition the stakeholder engagement sessions as well as several surveys carried out simultaneous to the start of the project have provided us with a clearer understanding of how businesses view the University and how they would like to see us communicate with them. The strongest message which came out from all of the research undertaken by the project is that currently our social media communications are too student focused. The project has taken steps to start to change the reality behind this statement but ongoing work is required to ensure that the business perception of how Coventry University communicates is significantly improved.

 

Using the social media monitoring tool Brandwatch it has been possible to track the impact of the project by looking at the number of times Coventry University’s business engagement activity was mentioned across the web during the second half of the SM4BCE project when social media was being actively used:

 

 

 

This shows an initial large increase in mentions which dropped off slightly but which has remained at a reasonably high average level throughout the remainder of the project. A topic cloud has also been generated which shows the most-frequently discussed topics:


 

The project has produced a number of outputs as well as this case study. The value of these outputs is as follows:

 

  • Project Blog: this captures the evolution of SM4BCE as well as some key insights into the work undertaken by the project and the resultant learning
  • Social Media Toolkit: this attempts to capture the learning from the project about actually using social media for business and community engagement, particularly for those new to social media
  • Audio Case Study: this case study captures some key thoughts from Coventry University staff about the aims, activity and impact of the SM4BCE project

 

Benefits

The SM4BCE project has begun to see the following benefits:

 

  • Increased awareness of benefits of social media among business-engaged staff at Coventry University;
  • We are starting to see an increased awareness of Coventry University activity among business and community partners – although this needs more development;
  • Business-facing social media activity is becoming integrated into a University-wide Social Media and Marketing Strategy.

 

In the long term it is anticipated that Coventry University will continue to develop its activity in this area. SM4BCE has achieved a lot in a short space of time but there is clearly much more that could be done to take advantage of the opportunities offered by social media for business and community engagement. Social media is an incredibly powerful medium and, coupled with a strong website, can and should be used to strengthen the University’s existing relationships as well as communicate our diverse offering to a new audience. The impact of social media in developing international partnerships has not been studied as part of SM4BCE however it is something that is important to Coventry University’s long term strategy. Increased globalisation and improved communication technologies make the world smaller than ever before and therefore a strong social media presence could potentially be key to improved international business development.

 

Drawbacks

The SM4BCE project drawbacks included:

 

  • The research stage took longer than expected;
  • JISC resources were less relevant to the work of the project than expected;
  • With social media there is an instant need to post/monitor/follow up enquiries which really requires dedicated full-time resource which project was not able to provide.

 

A number of drawbacks which were anticipated but which haven’t materialised over the life of SM4BCE are those of responding to complaints and brand management via social media. The instant and fast moving nature of social media communications means that a small complaint can turn into a much larger issue if not dealt with correctly e.g. if a complaint on Twitter is ignored or a negative comment on Facebook is deleted. Similarly, a negative or inappropriate comment made on a corporate social media account can also do lasting damage to an organisation’s “brand”. The first issue of complaints can be dealt with simply by good customer service procedures – addressing the complaint and making an effort to resolve it will diffuse a difficult situation whatever the communication medium. The second issue of brand management is more complex and ultimately reflects an organisation’s culture – Coventry University has so far never experienced such an incident.

 

Key lessons

The key lessons learnt from the SM4BCE Project include:

 

  1. Get central marketing/social media team involved from bid-writing stage;
  2. Engage with stakeholders – internal and external;
  3. Social media should not be developed in isolation – make your social media strategy part of wider marketing/business engagement strategy, holistic offering;
  4. Resources are key when developing your social media capability;
  5. The SM4BCE project blog, required as a reporting mechanism, has been a great reflective tool.

 

Looking ahead

In order to maintain momentum and develop the findings of the project dedicated resource, ideally a dedicated business engagement social media officer, will be required. The business case for this resource is being developed as part of the University’s new Marketing Strategy.

 

There are a number of other activities which could be undertaken in the future to support and enhance Coventry University’s business-facing social media including:

 

  • The creation of an online business newsletter/bulletin/RSS feed;
  • Further work with the Coventry University LinkedIn community, particularly with Coventry University alumni, to really develop awareness of the University’s business offering to a potentially new audience;
  • Ongoing work to continue to integrate interactive elements into printed publications and to ensure printed publications are presented in an engaging way when uploaded to the Coventry University website;
  • One of the main drivers behind the success of SM4BCE has been the close relationships developed between the project manager and the social media team. To develop the work of the project continued close engagement between the Business Development Group and the Marketing and Social Media teams should be fostered.

 

There may also be further opportunities to research in this area which may be of interest to academic researchers in Coventry University’s Business School. The requirements for project sustainability will be the appointment, ideally over the next few months, of a dedicated member of staff to continue this work. This member of staff will then have to ensure the continued engagement of business-facing staff and the continued development of Coventry University’s business-facing social media activity and profile.

 

Appendix

Project Blog: http://cubusinessengagement.jiscinvolve.org/wp/

Social Media for Business Engagement Toolkit: http://cubusinessengagement.jiscinvolve.org/wp/social-media-toolkit/  

 

Articles Accessed:

http://blogs.hbr.org/cs/2012/08/marketing_is_dead.html?awid=7112405493693098204-3271

Marketing is Dead, Bill Lee, HBR Blogs

http://www.fastcompany.com/3000908/13-trillion-price-not-tweeting-work

The 13 Trillion Cost of Not Tweeting at Work, Ryan Holmes, Fast Company

http://www.mckinsey.com/insights/high_tech_telecoms_internet/the_social_economy

The social economy: Unlocking value and productivity through social technologies, McKinsey Global Institute

http://www.andymiah.net/2012/12/30/the-a-to-z-of-social-media-for-academics/

The A-Z of Social Media for Academics, Professor Andy Miah

http://www.vitae.ac.uk/policy-practice/567271/Handbook-of-social-media-for-researchers-and-supervisors.html

Handbook of Social Media for Researchers and Supervisors, Vitae

http://marketing.linkedin.com/success-stories/case-study

Marketing Success Stories, LinkedIn

http://www.guardian.co.uk/higher-education-network/blog/2013/jan/10/research-communications-uk-university-websites

Where are UK University Websites hiding all their research? Guardian Higher Education Network