Working for Cooperative Extension's Future

Below is statement (adapted slightly from its original purpose) of some of my views on how Extension should be approaching marketing, communications, and educational efforts. In the spirit of transparency, I am sharing these thoughts and would love to hear from you on these concepts and other ways that we can do a better job of convening education, communications, and marketing in Cooperative Extension.

The flattening of the information flow indicates that communications and marketing methods should take advantage of the knowledge and appreciation of others and engage them. Also online and offline behaviors are becoming less separate. We already see this convergence in those who have never known life without the Internet. Today’s youth do not have separate online and offline lives—they have one life—a concept that most adults have trouble understanding, yet our future depends on our understanding these changes.

While we know that those who use Cooperative Extension are very satisfied with Cooperative Extension, we are not widely known to the public (2008 Copernicus Survey). Only 15% of the U.S. citizens between the ages of 18 and 35 have heard of Cooperative Extension, and only 27% of the US adult population knows who we are. A dismal 5% of the younger adults have used Cooperative Extension and 11% of the US adult population has used Cooperative Extension. These findings indicate that we need to do a better job branding Cooperative Extension. Part of the strategy is to blend our educational and marketing efforts—organizationally and individually. Faculty, agents, and staff who represent Extension everyday are our best resource (haven't we said this for decades?) and the best way to develop and deepen our credibility by working differently.

Some concepts and traditional approaches to education and marketing should continue to be the basis of our work, however Extension needs to find ways to reach and scale the effectiveness of our programs and meeting new expectations of the public. This different way of working includes communications, marketing and educational efforts that are merged and building relationships with people who don’t come to our meetings or into our local offices.

Working differently to connect with others includes being open and transparent, learning and sharing simultaneously, and embracing co-learning and contributions outside of land-grant universities. Interestingly, these values are not different from the early days of Cooperative Extension with on-farm research and in-home demonstrations. Today though, we have the ability to scale and spread the interaction and engagement in new ways.

While we want to continue to use some traditional marketing efforts, occasionally we need to jolt audiences or potential audiences with unique and disrupting messaging. Cooperative Extension generally does not want to upset (for good reasons) our existing clientele—clientele who are often like ourselves. Sometimes we have to test the system in order to make progress with clientele who we are not currently reaching by using disruptive messages in education, communications, and marketing. This approach may come with risks but has the opportunity to reach new audiences. These decisions should be considered and weighed.

Some elements of a converged educational and marketing effort:

• Start with a mindset that marketing is not a separate function than the educational function and that these efforts are everyone's responsibilities--not just those in the communications and marketing units.
• Make a habit of listening (like any good marketing plan)--listening in communities we are not active in and in communities where we already have relationships. 
• Think of building online relationshps like we think of building relationships locally.
• Think about how to share while we are learning. We don't have to wait until published results are available to start discussing what we already know.
• Develop a plan of work but make sure there is room to adjust. Opportunities may come about in unexpected ways.
• Plan and develop strategies and tactics for communications, and most importantly, engagement, but be flexible to seek new ways and discard ways that don't work. 
• Know that community building and participation are works in progress and will grow, but the growth may be more like a curving spiral and less like a line.
• May need to target certain connections and interests.
• Be ready to identify new connections because of serendipitous encounters and plan for serendipity.
• Evaluate based on goals and search for patterns of activities, evaluating each stage and change tactics along the way.
• Involve more than one person to keep organizational accounts up-to-date as staying consistent is difficult with only one person.
• Encourage individuals to establish and develop their online reputations.
• Understand social media is more than Facebook and Twitter and is more than the technology itself. Contributing in collaborative environments maybe the very best way to grow ourselves.

The process of "scaling" ourselves without growing our organization begins with understanding what the challenges, opportunities, and characteristics of the future.

"The medium is the message. This is merely to say that the personal and social consequences of any medium - that is, of any extension of ourselves - result from the new scale that is introduced into our affairs by each extension of ourselves, or by any new technology."  Marshall McLuhan

McLuhan discoveries help us understand that failing to interpret how technologies shape us and how we shape technology means failure to be prepared for the the future.

Some of the ideas in this post came in part from some books I have read recently. I found these books particularly useful as we look at Cooperative Extension's future:

The Connected Company by Dave Gray and Thomas Vander Wal

The Race Against Machine by Erik Brynjolfsoon and Andrew McAfee

Where Good Ideas Come From by Steven Johnson

The photo is embedded from Flickr http://www.flickr.com/photos/67194724@N03/8357047751/

Social media is not marketing

When I tell people my title, Social Media Strategiest, many react with similar responses. "So, you are in marketing?" or "You market programs (Extension programs) through Facebook?"

Marketing and communications departments have been ordained the keeper of social media in most organizations. This means in many cases, marketing has tackled social media like they approach any marketing project with campaigns and broadcast dissemination.

Social media is not marketing, as the telegraph is not marketing, television is not marketing, and the telephone is not marketing. Marketing can exploit these tools but the tools do not belong exclusively to marketing.

Wikipedia uses a definition of social media from Kaplan and Haenlein. To understand this definition you have to understand the definition of Web 2.0 and user-generated content.

Social media includes web-based and mobile based technologies which are used to turn communication into interactive dialogue between organizations, communities, and individuals. Andreas Kaplan and Michael Haenlein define social media as "a group of Internet-based applications that build on the ideological and technological foundations of Web 2.0, and that allow the creation and exchange of user-generated content." Social media is ubiquitously accessible, and enabled by scalable communication techniques.

I rather like the definition that Kevin Gamble and his colleagues used in an internal survey.

Social media refers to the various networked technologies that enable people to easily connect with other people for the purpose of communication, collaboration, learning, and the sharing of resources.

Terms "social business" and "social learning" are springing up, suggesting that the social part--the engagement--is important to other functions, such as customer service, sales, human resources, professional development, research, and development, to name a few. THREE CHEERS to those using social media for purposes other than marketing. Though there have been indications that social media is more than marketing for a long time, it seems that social tools are now getting some traction (though not enough) of being recognized for their value of social engagement across the organizational functions.

What are the possibilities when organizations understand and embrace the power of listening, sharing, cooperating, collaborating, and co-creating inside and outside the walled gardens--permeating the walls?

What are the possibilities when organizations fail to understand and embrace the power of social media throughout the organizations? The risk of failing to see and respond is greater than the risk of trying and finding ways that make sense for the organization.

Social media can be anything that uses tools to share, cooperate, converse, collaborate, and co-create. Organizations and professionals still don't really have a clear direction in how to use social media. Unfortunately, most don't think beyond the big four--Facebook, YouTube, Twitter, and LinkedIn. There are many tools that allow for public and private sharing (just as the big four have elements of some privacy options).

There are many tools that allow intra-organizational sharing and collaboration within their walled gardens. In Getting Beyond Simple Social, Thomas Vander Wal talks of five areas that he asks when organizations become stuck in using social business tools. Is getting stuck related to:

• The person
• How humans are social
• Cultural influences - or cross cultural issues
• Organizational constraints
• Problems with the tools / service

Vander Wal's list tells us that technology is only one of the five reasons why plateaus happen in organizations' social systems. Through his experience, he sees that "getting stuck" in using social systems usually happens for more than one reason. We have to think beyond the tool, yet the tool is important.

In an IBM study "If You Don't Have a Social CEO, You're Going to be Less Competitive" (Forbes), it is predicted that in 5 years 57% of CEOs will be using social media. CEOs are beginning to understand that email and phone communications are no longer sufficient. Why? Because the knowledge and information shared on the phone and email are stopped within the tool. CEOs and others are beginning to understand that using social technologies help engage with customers, suppliers and employees which will enable organizations to be more adaptive and agile.
Those organizations that see social media as something that can reach across and bridge functions and find value in seeing their customers as part of their organizations are the ones that will find the quickest and greatest benefits. Organizations that see innovation as a two way street will reap the benefits.

The tools, the media, are the enabling pieces. To capitalize and to benefit from social media is to understand that being social means engaging. Social generally means working in small circles. Communicating in large circles becomes much more akin to broadcasting. In most cases, it is through small close circles in making information viral.


This post is not about being against marketing using social media. This post is that social media is a lot more than marketing. In the process of the engagement that occurs in social spaces, marketing is achieved. In a recent conversation with Karen Jeannette, she talked about sharing success stories on the Master Gardener blog is more like public relations and marketing than education. This is great example where the focus is education and most posts are educational. but success stories are mostly marketing and public relations that have an opportunity to be educational. Often with educational posts and sharing marketing can be achieved.

Social tools allow for integration and cutting through silos in ways we have never had before. While reducing the silo effect is exciting, achieving this goal will happen when there is a mindset that allows for social integration and diversity.

Q & A with a Marketing SIG

The ACE Marketing SIG asked me to do a Q&A about my job as a social media strategist for the Military Families Partnership which is a Department of Defense Initiative with NIFA and Cooperative Extension.

Rather than keeping my answers closed in the email reply, I am sharing them here.

Q: What is a Social Media Strategist?

I was hired to help eXtension Communities of Practice--in particular those whose work in helping military families and military family service professionals--use, surf, lurk, engage, and co-create in online social spaces. Most organizations hire social media strategists either full-time or through a consultant arrangement to advise them on using social media for marketing. Because our (Cooperative Extension’s) role is in education, we see that social media strategies and tactics should be grounded in our education role. While we will certainly use social media to market and find new audiences, we are not solely concentrating our social media efforts in marketing.

Q: How would you describe your day to day work?

The Military Families Community of Practice (CoP) work is still developing in its early stages. Most of my work thus far has been in trying to build relationships with eXtension CoP leaders, DoD, NIFA and other partners. Soon, I hope you will begin to see some products. We hope to have professional development sessions around social media. We also want to help CoPs design professional development sessions that are sought by military family service professionals and are indicated by DoD priority areas--personal finance, child care, community capacity, and workforce development. We want to integrate and wrap social media applications around these sessions and the content that will developed for those sessions. For instance, we want to use Facebook, Twitter, blogs, some military social spaces, like Military One Source, to talk about the sessions, before, during and after the web conferences. The use of social media will be used not only to market but to share educational content and engage with people who are interested in the topics.

My days right now are more in the planning stages. I foresee my days in the future working with directly with the Military Families CoP, partners, existing CoPs, and other Cooperative Extension professionals in how to use online tools to accomplish their educational goals.

Q: While your work deals with Military Families Partnership, do you see other areas where Extension programming work and social media strategy could benefit from or is benefitting from?

Absolutely. As we build a social media strategy and use social media for the Military Families Partnership, these efforts will be intertwined with other eXtension CoP work and with Cooperative Extension work. As we develop professional development sessions around social media these sessions will be open to the public and will target both Cooperative Extension and military family service professionals (those who work for DoD and the military service branches).

Watch for these on learn.extension.org. In fact, we have asked John Dorner and Kyleen Burgess of North Carolina to provide a session on Facebook privacy settings for professionals on November 30.

Q: What about social media should marketing professionals keep in mind?

Most examples and social media strategists talk about using social media for marketing. Many of these strategies are designed in traditional marketing strategies using new tools. The problem with this approach is eventually the marketing – the broadcasts – become noise and eventually ignored. If we consider social media more like social space – comparing online social spaces to traditional and physical social spaces--we see social media more of a place to meet people, engage, listen, and learn. Then we turn those conversations into meaningful actions in developing education. Albeit in traditional social spaces, conversations and interactions are not usually recorded. Cooperative Extension’s product is education. A progressive approach is to not only think of social media as another way to market Cooperative Extension programs, but also to align social media with educational efforts to help accomplish educational and learning goals. Using social media to become members of communities where the members (Cooperative Extension professionals and clients) share learning goals so that the teaching is not always one way (Cooperative Extension professionals to clients), but rather the interaction and engagement yields learning and teaching by potential all members (Cooperative Extension professionals and clients) of the community. Marketing professionals have an opportunity to lead the way and model crossing functional lines and integrating education, marketing, public relations, and content creation by first looking at the social media space as a place they can learn and interact with others (in and outside of Cooperative Extension).

My most prominent piece of advice is to start now. Start listening online, then teach others—educators and administrators how to listen online. Start by creating Google Alerts, blog searches, and Twitter searches on typical words used to describe Extension institutions Cooperative Extension professionals and areas of interests. Here are some of the search terms I have used: Alabama Cooperative Extension (Google Alert), county agents, Extension agents, County Extension, oil spill, bioenergy, alfalfa, nutrition, counting calories, military child, child care. I changed these terms to others as I need to learn what people are saying about other topics.

del.icio.us Tags: social media,Cooperative Extension,Military Families,Communities of Practice

Listening, Interacting, and Responding

Last week I attended meetings in Washington DC. These meetings and conversations were productive, giving way to a lot of potential in the near future, albeit at times, the conversations were a little challenging.

Like always, being away from home, long days, and long nights wear on my body and my mind. Needless to say, I was tired and did not want to wait for the hotel shuttle yesterday morning. I walked out of the hotel on Friday thinking I would get a cab to the airport.

When I walked out, I did not see anyone who could help me with getting a cab or understanding when the next shuttle would leave. Turning the corner, I saw that two attendants took noticed of my confused look. I said I needed a cab to the airport. They had a very short and purposeful conversation. One asked a question, pointing to the two shuttles parked. They seemed to have a moment of confusion, maybe a little embarrassment. I had no idea what they were discussing, but one said pointing to the other, “He will take you to Reagan airport.” 

After watching the exchange, it occurred to me that there must have been a mix up of some sort and they immediately offered a resolution. I am still not sure what the mix up was, but it was evident there was no cab too. I was the beneficiary of a quick, and inexpensive trip to the airport on the hotel shuttle—a trip especially taken for me.

I tweeted that they had great service. In response, DoubleTree said they were glad to serve me and wished me safe travels.

Are you listening? The Twitter response was another nice gesture from DoubleTree Hotel. I know now that DoubleTree is watching the Twitter stream for good, and I am assuming, for bad comments because they responded. I also know the names of the two people who managed their Twitter account. The Twitter profile tells me two real people are listening. Again, this is an easy, but nice detail.

You maybe asking “Why and what does this have to do with education and our organization?”

Do we know what has been said about our organization on Twitter, in blogs, in Google Buzz, in Facebook? If not, it is time to:

Listen

Develop methods of listening to online comments, commentary, and opinions, Easiest methods are to create searches in Twitter and creating Google Alerts. There are other monitoring methods, some are free and others that are more comprehensive and are available for a fee.

In Cooperative Extension, searches should include the names of key leaders, the name of the organization and how people refer to the organization. For instance, our educators are often known as Extension agents. Our organization is often called Cooperative Extension, University Extension, etc.

Land grant universities cover a lot topics. Individual programs should also be listening for the use of keywords. Do you work in agriculture? What are some terms every day people and ag industry and farmers use? Listen for those terms.

Do you work with family and health? Are you listening to what people are saying about indoor health, family fitness, food preparation, nutrition, losing weight, diabetes, high blood pressure, etc. Socializing and chatting online is not just for the young. Social networking use among internet users ages 50 and older nearly doubled—from 22% in April 2009 to 42% in May 2010. Young and old are using social networks, we should be listening to what they are saying.

Even if your organization does not have a social media strategy, you should be listening!!!

Interact

The fact that DoubleTree recognized my comment about their  great service was very much appreciated. I will remember DoubleTree service in making decisions on where to stay in my future travels. This should be a definite plus for their targeted marketing efforts

How is your organization listening and responding? Is someone responsible to responding to comments and suggestions as if these comments were made in survey or in a phone call to the office?

Respond

Interaction is the first step to letting clients know you are  listening--similar to “we received your email, your request, or your comment.” Sometimes though, there should be action at and throughout the organizational level. Social media should be used to improve the organization—its actions, its operations, its customer services, and possibly guide its future.

My hope as a customer of DoubleTree that two individuals monitoring the Twitter stream passed on the good word to the two men who helped me.

If I had been a dissatisfied customer, the information should have been passed on, and a decision should have been made whether there should be an action or a reaction made to prevent future problems. Though I have no data, I wonder how often the integration from customer to social network to public relations (or marketing) to organization to functional areas actually takes place.

Organizations have lived in siloed management for a long time, creating efficiencies of “staying in your own lane”. Integration and communicating across business functions are easy and are often discouraged. One of the least talked about benefits of social media is the ability of crossing, involving, integrating, and improving different functional areas.

If the organization sees that social media is a marketing function only, then the organization misses very important and valuable benefits to the whole organizations.

Social media is more than public relations and marketing efforts

When companies are considering adopting social media, they often turn toward their Public Relations and Marketing departments to investigate, develop a social media strategy, and implement social media within their companies.

If organizations think of social media as another outlet for the company and involve only those who market the company, then these companies are missing out on many benefits of social online environments, such as:

• Integration of functions.
• Elimination of organization silos.
• Personal and organizational learning from outside the organization and from within the organization.
• Driving innovations through internal and external collaborations.
• Educating clients, potential clients, and communities about products, processes, services, and technical knowledge.
• Having staff (not in PR and Marketing) who are passionate about what they do and what they love about the organization tell their story.
• Utilizing small circles of influence to spread knowledge of the organization, its products, its services, its goodwill, its values, and its purpose.
• Learning of problems that the organization may have solutions for.
• Learning of problems that the organization may develop solutions for.
• Connecting problem solvers with those people in and out of the organization who are having problems relating to the organization’s services, products, and processes.
• Connecting with potential clients who are unaware that the organization may have solutions for their problems.
• Maintaining and building credibility and understanding among staff who don’t see each other often, but work in similar work areas or serve in different places in the work flow. 
• Building a collective organizational reputation based on the online professional reputation of employees throughout the organization.
• Maximizing the benefits of workstreamining and freeranging.
• Having fun within the routine of daily work.

del.icio.us Tags: social media,marketing,public relations,silos,integration

Agriculture and Social Media Web Conference Summary

As a special topic for Cooperative Extension, eXtension hosted a special topic professional development web conference on January 21, 2010 on the use of social media in the agriculture industry. The purpose of this conference is to provide examples of how social media is being used in agriculture. The recorded session, the presenters’ presentations, the conference chat, and tweets associated with the conference are available.

Here is a summary of points made by the presenters:

• Go where the people are.
• Simplify the message…improve your writing and don’t use agriculture production jargon.
• Write for the search engines.
• Engage the public and target audience by using various methods, responding to questions and comments on Twitter, creating contests, and interesting and humorous videos.
• Target your audience.
• Meet the needs of target audience.
• Use and integrate various online approaches.
• Use the tools, particular mobile devices, for efficiency and increase opportunities.
• Create a strategy: defining objectives, audiences, tools, and content. Market the tool, stay true to the objectives, and evaluate the results.
• Empower others to use social media.
• Use common sense blending professional and personal life online.
• “Jump in -- the water is warm”. Carrie Oliver

The presenters described things they have learned through social media and ways that and moments or indicators that their use of success are meeting their own goals and objectives.

• People appreciate information and knowledge transferred about production and process, educational efforts, and hearing what is going on the farm.
• Feedback comes through comments, responses, and direct communication.
• Web traffic increased after employing social media.
• The connections made through social media are sometimes surprising and reach world-wide.
• Learning and education is two-way opportunity.
• Twitter is fun.
• Social media (in particular, Twitter) is fun.

Resources:

Ag and Social Media January 21 Recording

Slideshare site for presentations:

• Arlan Suderman’s presentation
• Carrie Oliver’s presentation
• Dan Toland’s presentation
• Andy Kleinschmidt

Tweets captured from the January 21 conference

All presentations, chat, and tweets

My notes from each of the presenters.

del.icio.us Tags: social media,agriculture,farming,social networking,agSMExt,Cooperative Extension

Social media and marketing

Paul Chaney shared his keynote "Conversations Create Clients: Using conversation marketing to turn strangers into friends and friends into customers" from the Real Estate Barcamp Houston conference.

Though the presentation is 82 slides long, it is worth the time to glance through it. 

Here are notables from the presentation:

Five consumer trends:

1. There is consumer skepticism and resistance to advertising.

67% of consumer good sales are based on word of mouth

2. Media fragmentation is out of control.

Daily advertising messages: 274 to 3000.

3. Increasingly, the consumer is in control.

4. The pressure is on to improve targeting--to achieve relevance and minimize waste.

5. Companies are held to new levels of accountability.

Other points:

Conversational media is about people, not technology.

"Markets are conversations" and "participation is marketing" The Cluetrain Manifesto.

No longer target audiences; we participate in communities.

"Advertising will get more and more targeted until it disappears, because perfectly targeted advertising is just information. And that's good." Dave Winer

Conversation marketing strategy is to: listen, respond, engage. (See slide 48).

My conclusion: Use the online tools to

• Listen to customers, potential customers, and trends.
• Respond to the customers (listening and not responding is like you are not listening).
• Engage in the conversations.

REBarcamp Houston Keynote Presentation

View SlideShare presentation or Upload your own. (tags: rebarcamp houston)

del.icio.us Tags: marketing,social media,The Cluetrain Manifesto,conversations

Interesting lists of bloggers

100 Awesome Webmaster Blogs by and for Women lists interesting blogs for and by women. The list is divided into these categories.

• Women in Search
• Women in Marketing
• Women in Design
• Social Media, Organizations, and Writing Skills
• Women in Business
• Women in Tech

Also, commenters shared links to other lists:

Recap: Women in the edublogosphere 2007.

Wiki list of women bloggers  http://wmagicallist.wikispaces.com/.

These are great lists to find some great blogs. Enjoy