Your Website is the Next Social Medium

Imagine a university website with content tailored specifically to the individual viewing it—a site where nobody has to hunt to find information relevant to them. Sound like a pipe dream? Maybe, maybe not. Social media has fundamentally changed the information gathering process. People want to be social anytime they consume media. According to social media mogul Gary Vaynerchuk, “This means that you need to fold a social element into all of your creative… and into every interaction with your customers…. From now on, every platform should be treated as a social networking platform.” Now, considering websites, if it's not social, it's not relevant. Fortunately, there are many ways to leverage the big data of social networks to an institution's advantage. A few key facts about users (such as age, location, and personal interests) can take content from “generic” to “extremely relevant.” Thankfully, social media APIs make this fairly simple to implement. Explore the possibilities that exist for integrating the secret sauce of social media into a website—everything from big ideas to small actionable steps to begin enhancing the social relevancy of content.

Transcript

1. @peteranglea #MCS11 Your Website is the Next Social Medium Peter Anglea @peteranglea Bob Jones University
2. @peteranglea #MCS11 How I typically introduce myself •  Web Developer and ½ of the web team for BJU Marketing •  Social media (Twitter, Instagram, Facebook), design, content, UX, etc. •  Oh, and I have a M.Mus.
3. @peteranglea #MCS11 My name is Peter Anglea. Hopefully it’s obvious, but I am a male. I was born on January 11th, 1988. Currently I work as a Developer at BJU Creative in addition to being an independent composer. I also worked at a company called Shank Door Company for a few years in high school. I live in Greenville, South Carolina, but originally I’m from Lebanon, Pennsylvania. I studied Composition at Bob Jones University and graduated with a MMus in 2011. Before that I studied Piano at Bob Jones University and received my bachelors degree in 2009. Before that I was homeschooled. My email address is peter@peteranglea.com. I know three languages: English, Español, and Pig Latin. In my political views I lean Republican. Currently, I’m single. But that’s ok because I have 674 friends and an additional 25 people who follow me (I suppose it’s because I’m popular). I’m not a big sports fanatic, but obviously I’m a fan of the Bob Jones University Bruins sports teams. I’ve traveled a little bit outside of the United States to counties such as France, Germany, Switzerland (I took lots of pictures there), and Austria. It goes without saying that I’m a music lover. Some of my favorite musicians/groups include John Williams, Arvo Part, Dan Forrest, the Canadian Brass, the Cambridge Singers, the Swingle Singers, the 5 Browns, Eric Whitacre, and (obviously) Peter Anglea. I’m a fan of just about all Pixar movies. When I settle down to watch TV, some of my favorite shows are ones like Psych, Blacklist, and food reality shows like MasterChef. My interests include music, piano, composition, web design, web development, and just computers in general. I’m a member of the HighEdWeb social group. A list of people and things that I like (in no particular order) include: Apple, Inc., BJU Creative, ACDA: Southern Division, UnMarketing, A List Apart, Higher Education Web Professionals, Garfield, Rhett and Link, The Narwhals, Brody the Bruin, Mongoose Improv, Schwiizerdutsch, Bob Jones University, Bob Jones University Alumni, Eight O’Clock Coffee, Brian Regan, MacHeist, Greenville Summer Shakespeare, Mozilla Firefox, Mint.com, How Facebook could introduce me
4. @peteranglea #MCS11 “ “This means that you need to fold a social element into all of your creative… and into every interaction with your customers…. From now on, every platform should be treated as a social networking platform.” Gary Vaynerchuk Author, “Jab, Jab, Jab, Right Hook”
5. @peteranglea #MCS11 Personalization is the next big hurdle for traditional web marketing. It’s time for a serious discussion about the role of social media in our future marketing efforts. Tweet this…
6. @peteranglea #MCS11 Level One – #hesm integration Recommendation aka “Now we’re cookin’”
7. @peteranglea #MCS11 Recommendation Bringing our content to their conversations. •  Like, Tweet, +1, Pinterest buttons •  Social comment plugins •  Open graph tags, Twitter Cards Tweet your favorite examples
8. @peteranglea #MCS11 Level Two – #hesm integration Incorporation aka “Now we’re cooking with gas”
9. @peteranglea #MCS11 Incorporation Bringing their conversations into our content. •  Social media hub •  Storify •  Social posts as supporting content Tweet your favorite examples
10. @peteranglea #MCS11 Level Three – #hesm integration Personalization aka “Now we’re cooking with Harley”
11. @peteranglea #MCS11 Personalization Transforming our content into a conversation. •  Demographically tailored content •  Personalized messaging •  Rich interaction with information relevant to the user
12. @peteranglea #MCS11 Personalization is Pervasive •  “Our most personal device yet” •  “Recommendations for you” •  “Call me Master”
13. @peteranglea #MCS11 Kai  Ryssdal   Marketplace,  NPR   Amanda  Richman   CEO,  Starcom   Marketplace, 9/17/2014 Is it possible that someday in the near-ish future, I will be sitting on my couch in my living room in suburbia watching Scandal, and I will see Ad “X” and a 22-year-old woman sitting on the other side of L.A. on her couch watching Scandal will, at the same instant in time, see Ad “Y”?
14. @peteranglea #MCS11 Kai  Ryssdal   Marketplace,  NPR   Amanda  Richman   CEO,  Starcom   That scenario we are probably 2-4 years away from. No! Only 2-4 ye-- are you kidding me? Yes. Bold predictions. Wow! That’s nuts. But we are looking at a world of dynamic ad insertion…
15. @peteranglea #MCS11 Kai  Ryssdal   Marketplace,  NPR   Amanda  Richman   CEO,  Starcom   ...and what that offers the opportunity to do is understand that in your neighborhood and knowing your general age and demos, probably from data of your cable subscription, or perhaps your Netflix subscription, that you’re going to be more likely to look for, perhaps, a car ad, because you’re in the market for that, versus another audience member who may be looking at cosmetics, or pet food, or whatever things that we can use to distinguish who’s in that household sitting on that couch.
16. @peteranglea #MCS11 How much more effective could our web marketing be with just a few simple facts about the end user?
17. @peteranglea #MCS11 How do we get this data? •  Social media APIs, beginning with the largest and most popular…
18. @peteranglea #MCS11 Facebook API Personal Demographic Additional Info •  Name •  Email •  Age •  Education •  Picture •  Location •  Hometown •  Gender •  Languages •  Friends •  Likes •  Interests
19. @peteranglea #MCS11 What can we do with this data? Let’s lay down some guiding principles… •  Provide value to the end user. •  Ask for what you need, only when you need it. •  Don’t get creepy.
20. @peteranglea #MCS11 Uncanny valley #ThatAwkwardMoment when something is a bit too lifelike… Creepy Cute (don’t be creepy)
21. @peteranglea #MCS11 Personalization in Higher Ed concordia.edu
22. @peteranglea #MCS11 Personalization in Higher Ed iue.edu
23. @peteranglea #MCS11 Personalization in Higher Ed What else could we do? •  Custom navigation •  Personalized notifications •  Automated degree recommendations •  …?
24. @peteranglea #MCS11 Three levels of integration 1.  Recommendation – bringing our content to their conversations 2.  Incorporation – bringing their conversations into our content 3.  Personalization – transforming our content into a conversation
25. @peteranglea #MCS11 How can we get this done? •  We need technical experts who understand APIs and data •  We need creative experts who understand user interaction •  We need social media experts who understand relationships and storytelling
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28. @peteranglea #MCS11 + Web Developer Creative Professional Social Media Expert +
29. @peteranglea #MCS11 Kai  Ryssdal   Marketplace,  NPR   Amanda  Richman   CEO,  Starcom   Marketplace, 9/17/2014 I wonder if you guys just sit around the office and say, “y’know what, the sky’s the limit. Let’s think of the craziest technological thing we can think of, the most amazingly granular advertisement and, hey, let’s see if it could work,” right?
30. @peteranglea #MCS11 Kai  Ryssdal   Marketplace,  NPR   Amanda  Richman   CEO,  Starcom   Y’know what, in this time and era, I tell ya’, it’s the best time to be in the media business because there is a lot of opportunity for blue sky thanks to technology, thanks to the abundance of data, and the great creativity that’s happening in this space.
31. @peteranglea #MCS11 Keep up the sharing! Thank you. @peteranglea panglea@bju.edu blogs.bju.edu/webteam