Current revision

[edit] Marketing & Promoting Your Publication

We start from the idea that each of the publishing parties has expertise in different areas and that by working together, we will be most successful in marketing and promoting your publication. Already, authors promote their work widely by talking about it at conferences, teaching it to students and engaging in the scholarly conversation. In addition to these usual activities, we’d like to ask you to consider using social media tools to draw attention to your work, and can provide you with guidelines to help you use these tools.

We also welcome your suggestions for how best to draw attention to your work. Filling out our Promoting your Publication form will help us announce your publication to the widest possible audience.

Michigan Publishing’s primary goal for your work is to enhance its discoverability online so that anyone who is interested in it can easily find it and read it. A fully searchable electronic version of your text will be freely and permanently available through our publishing platform. The publications we host are indexed by search engines, which help readers find your work.

As a library-based publisher, Michigan Publishing has expertise in the library community and works to let libraries know about your journal. We catalog publications upon release and make the records available to libraries worldwide through WorldCat

Michigan Publishing is pleased to work with you to further promote your publication upon launch. Here's what we do & what we need for you to facilitate this process.

[edit] What Michigan Publishing does for all publications:

Request an ISSN or assign an ISBN as appropriate
Create metadata for the resource to be cataloged and indexed by aggregators such as OAIster
Add the resource to our website and post a notice on our blog
- Would you be interested in participating in an author/editor Q&A, for the Michigan Publishing blog? If so, would you prefer to write the questions and answers yourself or to have a Michigan Publishing staff member write the questions for you to answer?
If applicable, add an RSS feed so that readers can subscribe to automatic notifications about the availability of new content
Notify our local community at U-M, as well as our publishing & library peers, about the resource
If applicable, add the resource to online directories of scholarly resources (like the Directory of Open Access Journals)

[edit] How we can work with you to increase visibility:

Write a press release with you to announce the new resource.
Brainstorm audiences and engagement methods for blog posts, press releases, and other announcements.

Please download and complete our Promoting your Publication document to help us craft a press release, blog post, and other announcements to promote your publication.

[edit] If you're interested in seeing how people are using your publication:

We collect statistics about usage of our publications, which you can access through our stats system. Instructions for doing so are on our wiki.
Google Analytics reports are available upon request.
You can set up a Google Alert for the name of your publication to monitor how your publication is being talked about on the web.

[edit] After your publication launches, here are some things you can do to help get the word out.

Set up an e-mail address that you can use to facilitate the regular communication needs of you publication.
Include the URL for your publication in your email signature.
Build a rich network of in-bound links to your publication. This is important for making your publication more visible on the web because it improves your performance in search results.
- Encourage colleagues who are bloggers to write about and link back to your publication.
- Encourage friends and colleagues who are Wikipedians to add content to Wikipedia that links back to your publication (when appropriate).
- If your publication has a website hosted elsewhere, please link to the site hosted by Michigan Publishing.
- Add links to the publication wherever it is mentioned on the web; from your CV (if it's online), your departmental homepage, or your personal website or blog (if you have them).
- Encourage contributing authors to do likewise!
Set up accounts on social media sites for your publication.

[edit] Wikipedia

As one of the most-visited sites on the web, Wikipedia can be an effective method for driving traffic to your publication. Wikipedia articles require citing sources, and the content of your journal (especially if it is openly accessible online) can be used for this purpose. Anyone can edit Wikipedia, and learning how to add citations that link to your journal content is easy. Wikipedia offers a comprehensive tutorial for editing articles.

[edit] Using Social Media

Social media such as Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, or many other services can be a great way for authors and editors to publicize their work. Before you sign up for accounts on various sites, taking a moment to think critically about your goals will help you choose an appropriate channel and use it successfully.

[edit] Goals and Objectives

Why are you establishing a social media presence?
What do you plan to achieve through this channel? To Inform? Encourage dialogue? Announce news? Network?
What is the audience you are trying to engage?
Does that audience prefer one kind of platform to another? (e.g., Twitter vs. Facebook, Instagram vs. Pinterest, etc.)
How will you measure outcomes to know whether you have met your goals?

[edit] Execution and Maintenance

Who will establish your presence (or your publication's presence) on this site?
Who will administer and/or maintain the account? Will you have a team of administrators sharing duties? Or will you be flying solo?
Are you prepared to keep your content fresh and to post on a schedule that meets the rhythms of your chosen platform? (e.g., at least daily for Facebook, multiple times per day for Twitter, etc.)
How will you keep passwords (especially shared credentials) strong and secure?

The University of Michigan's Social Media team has created a series of best practices documents for common social media platforms. While designed specifically for U-M staff managing U-M affiliated accounts, they cover the basic vocabulary and functionality of several of the most widely used venues like Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, and others. If you need an introduction to concepts like insights, notifications, likes, and much more, these documents can be a good place to start your social media education. But perhaps one of the most useful things you can do is find a publication that has a social media presence you'd like to learn from, and take a close look at how they make social media work for them. It doesn't have to be a publication in your subject area, or even a scholarly publication. There are many lessons to be learned from corporate communications, popular culture, news or entertainment media, and blogs.

[edit] General Tips for Using Social Media

Security: Use strong passwords and change them often. If more than one person manages or contributes to your account, develop secure methods for sharing passwords with one another. If you'll be using a mobile device to post to social media frequently, try to avoid authorizing too many third-party apps to post on your behalf, as these are often a source of accounts being compromised. All social media platforms have tips for keeping your account secure, which are worth a read even if you think you have a handle on account security. For example, here is Twitter's advice on "Safe Tweeting".
Legitimacy: Make your account "look official" by having a brand-appropriate profile photo and description. Provide URL(s) for your publication or sponsoring organization as appropriate. A social media account that is meant to represent a publication rather than a person should be easily understandable as such, and choice of handle and avatar will impact how much legitimacy your social media presence communicates.
Identity: If you'll be using multiple platforms, try to make your publication's appearance consistent across them by choosing display names or handles carefully, and using the same avatar, if possible. Consistency makes it easier for your audience to find your publication and recognize the relationship of your accounts across different services.
Voice: Use a conversational but professional tone. It's OK for your readers to see a human behind your social media presence. Even though you'll be double-checking your content for errors, mistakes will happen. Be transparent about them, and issue corrections as needed.
Automation: Tools for scheduling content in advance or for posting to multiple services at once are quite helpful, but should be used with good judgement. Not all content makes sense on all platforms, and the rhythms of how readers encounter content will vary.

[edit] Choosing a Platform

You've already identified the readership for your publication, but you'll also need to think about the audience for your publication's social media content. Think about where your readers "live" out on the web—are there particular platforms and venues you know they already use? For example, Twitter is popular with many academics in a range of disciplines, designers use Dribbble to share ideas with their peers, and GitHub is gaining popularity beyond its original audience of engineers. Setting up shop where your audience already lives might be a better use of your time than staking out new territory on a platform that your readers aren't heavy users of or aren't interested in engaging with.

The kind of content you plan to share will also play a role in your decision. For example, Instagram or Pinterest are great places to share visual media and engage with creatives, but probably don't make sense if you'll mostly be sharing links to text-based content like journal articles. If your publication will include pieces of code you'd like readers to be able to download, use, or improve upon, an organizational account on GitHub might make sense.

Michigan Publishing Marketing Guide

From MPublishing

Current revision

Contents

[edit] Marketing & Promoting Your Publication

[edit] What Michigan Publishing does for all publications:

[edit] How we can work with you to increase visibility:

[edit] If you're interested in seeing how people are using your publication:

[edit] After your publication launches, here are some things you can do to help get the word out.

[edit] Wikipedia

[edit] Using Social Media

[edit] Goals and Objectives

[edit] Execution and Maintenance

[edit] General Tips for Using Social Media

[edit] Choosing a Platform

Views

Personal tools

Navigation

Search

Toolbox

@@ Line 1: / Line 1: @@
-Mpublishing is please to work with you to promote your publication upon launch.  We start from the idea that each of the publishing parties has expertise in
+= Marketing & Promoting Your Publication =
-different areas and that by working together, we will be most successful in
-marketing and promoting your journal. Already, authors promote their work
-widely by talking about it at conferences, teaching it to students and
-engaging in the scholarly conversation. In addition to these usual
-activities, we’d like to ask you to consider using Internet tools to draw
-attention to your work, and can provide you with guidelines to help you use
-these tools.
-We also very much welcome your suggestions for how best to draw attention to
-your work. Filling out our marketing information form will help us promote
-your journal to the broadest possible audience.
-MPublishing’s primary goal for your publication is to enhance its
-discoverability online so that anyone who is interested in it can easily
-find it and read it. A fully searchable electronic version of your text will
-be freely and permanently available through our publishing platform. The
-publications we host are indexed by search engines, which help readers find
-your work.
-= Marketing & Promoting your Publication =
 We start from the idea that each of the publishing parties has expertise in
 different areas and that by working together, we will be most successful in
-marketing and promoting your journal. Already, authors promote their work
+marketing and promoting your publication. Already, authors promote their work
 widely by talking about it at conferences, teaching it to students and
 engaging in the scholarly conversation. In addition to these usual
-activities, we’d like to ask you to consider using Internet tools to draw
+activities, we’d like to ask you to consider using social media tools to draw
-attention to your book, and can provide you with guidelines to help you use
+attention to your work, and can provide you with guidelines to help you use
 these tools.
-We also very much welcome your suggestions for how best to draw attention to
+We also  welcome your suggestions for how best to draw attention to
-your work. Filling out our marketing information form will help us promote
+your work. Filling out our [[Media:Promoting_your_publication.pdf|Promoting your Publication]] form will help us announce
-your journal to the broadest possible audience.
+your publication to the widest possible audience.
-MPublishing’s primary goal for your journal is to enhance its
+Michigan Publishing’s primary goal for your work is to enhance its
 discoverability online so that anyone who is interested in it can easily
 find it and read it. A fully searchable electronic version of your text will
@@ Line 42: / Line 21: @@
 your work.
-As a library-based publisher, MPublishing has expertise in the library
+As a library-based publisher, Michigan Publishing has expertise in the library
 community and works to let libraries know about your journal. We catalog
-journal prior to publication and make the records available to libraries
+publications upon release and make the records available to libraries
 worldwide through WorldCat
-MPublishing is pleased to work with you to promote your publication upon launch. Here's what we do & what we need for you to facilitate this process.
+Michigan Publishing is pleased to work with you to further promote your publication upon launch. Here's what we do & what we need for you to facilitate this process.
+==What Michigan Publishing does for all publications:==
+* Request an ISSN or assign an ISBN as appropriate
+* Create metadata for the resource to be cataloged and indexed by aggregators such as OAIster
+* Add the resource to our website and post a notice on our blog
+** Would you be interested in participating in an author/editor Q&A, for the Michigan Publishing blog? If so, would you prefer to write the questions and answers yourself or to have a Michigan Publishing staff member write the questions for you to answer?
+* If applicable, add an RSS feed so that readers can subscribe to automatic notifications about the availability of new content
+* Notify our local community at U-M, as well as our publishing & library peers, about the resource
+* If applicable, add the resource to online directories of scholarly resources (like the Directory of Open Access Journals)
-== Getting Started: ==
+==How we can work with you to increase visibility:==
+* Write a press release with you to announce the new resource.
+* Brainstorm audiences and engagement methods for blog posts, press releases, and other announcements.
-===What MPublishing does for all publications:===
+Please download and complete our [[Media:Promoting_your_publication.pdf|Promoting your Publication]] document to help us craft a press release, blog post, and other announcements to promote your publication.
-* Create metadata for cataloging the resource (& harvesting by OAIster?)
-* Add the resource to our website and posting a notice on our blog
-** Would you be interested in participating in an author/editor Q&A, for the MPublishing blog? If so, would you prefer to write the questions and answers yourself or to have a MPublishing staff member write the questions for you to answer?
-* Add an RSS feed so that readers can subscribe to automatic notifications about the availability of new issues
-* Notify our local community at U-M about the resource, as well as our publishing & library peers
-* Where applicable, add the resource to online directories of scholarly resources (like the Directory of Open Access Journals)
-===How we can work with you to increase visibility:===
+==If you're interested in seeing how people are using your publication:==
-* Write a press release with you to announce the new resource.
-to do this please fill out and return the Marketing Handout.
-===If you're interested in seeing how people are using your publication:===
 * We collect statistics about usage of our publications, which you can access through our stats system. Instructions for doing so are on our [http://webservices.itcs.umich.edu/mediawiki/spowiki/index.php/Collection_Statistics wiki].
 * Google Analytics reports are available upon request.
 * You can set up a [http://www.google.com/alerts. Google Alert] for the name of your publication to monitor how your publication is being talked about on the web.
-After your publication launches, here are some things you can do to help get the word out.
+==After your publication launches, here are some things you can do to help get the word out.==
-* Setting up a e-mail address that you can use to facilitate the regular communication needs of you publication. MPublishing can provide you with such a group e-mail address or listserv upon request.
+* Set up an e-mail address that you can use to facilitate the regular communication needs of you publication.
-* E-mail Signature: a great way to help get the word out about your publication with minimal effort on your part is to create an E-mail Signature in your email account with the name and URL of your publication. This can be done using most email providers. If you do not already use your email signature tool, here’s how:
+* Include the URL for your publication in your email signature.
-** Access the “Settings” or similar feature of your email provider. For example, for Microsoft Outlook the menu route is “Tools”->”Options”->”Mail Format.”
+* Build a rich network of in-bound links to your publication. This is important for making your publication more visible on the web because it improves your performance in search results.
-** Proceed to the “Signature” section and include a message such as “Visit The Journal of Baubles and Trinkets here: [link to publication home page]."
+** Encourage colleagues who are bloggers to write about and link back to your publication.
-*Build a rich network of links to your publication. (In an increasingly saturated information and media environment, it's a useful filter and is needed to compete for those scarcest of resources, time and attention!)
+** Encourage friends and colleagues who are Wikipedians to add content to Wikipedia that links back to your publication (when appropriate).
-** Encourage friends who are bloggers to write about and link back to your publication.
+** If your publication has a website hosted elsewhere, please link to the site hosted by Michigan Publishing.
-** Encourage those Wikipedians that you know to add content to Wikipedia that links back to your journal. (This may not help in terms of your overall links, but we do get A LOT of hits from Wikipedia.)
+** Add links to the publication wherever it is mentioned on the web; from your CV (if it's online), your departmental homepage, or your personal website or blog (if you have them).
-** If your publication has a website hosted elsewhere, please link to the publication's website hosted by MPublishing.
-** Add links to the publication wherever it appears on the web; from your CV (if it's online), your departmental homepage, or your personal website or blog (if you have them).
 ** Encourage contributing authors to do likewise!
-*Set up accounts on social media sites for your publication. [See Specific Media Guidelines]
+* Set up accounts on social media sites for your publication.
-For an extra reminder Download the MPublishing Marketing Checklist!
+=Wikipedia=
-[[Media:ItemsforMPubchecklist.pdf]]
-=Social Media Guide=
+As one of the most-visited sites on the web, [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia Wikipedia] can be an effective method for driving traffic to your publication. Wikipedia articles require citing sources, and the content of your journal (especially if it is openly accessible online) can be used for this purpose. Anyone can edit Wikipedia, and learning how to add citations that link to your journal content is easy. Wikipedia offers a comprehensive [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Tutorial tutorial] for editing articles.
-The use of the following major social media websites is a huge boon to authors looking to publicize their works. While setting these account up may seem overwhelming at first, once created, these social media website require very little upkeep. What follows is a comprehensive guide to establishing three types of social media accounts: Facebook, Twitter and Wikipedia.
+=Using Social Media=
+Social media such as Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, or many other services can be a great way for authors and editors to publicize their work. Before you sign up for accounts on various sites, taking a moment to think critically about your goals will help you choose an appropriate channel and use it successfully.
-==[[http://mmd.umich.edu/forum/resources_socialguide.php#top U-M Social Media Strategy Outline]]==
+==Goals and Objectives==
-===Purpose===
 * Why are you establishing a social media presence?
+* What do you plan to achieve through this channel? To Inform? Encourage dialogue? Announce news? Network?
+* What is the audience you are trying to engage?
+* Does that audience prefer one kind of platform to another? (e.g., Twitter vs. Facebook, Instagram vs. Pinterest, etc.)
+* How will you measure outcomes to know whether you have met your goals?
-===Objectives/Goals===
+==Execution and Maintenance==
-*What do you plan to achieve with this social medium? Inform? Encourage dialogue? Share information? What kind of information? What platform(s) will you use to achieve this?
+* Who will establish your presence (or your publication's presence) on this site?
+* Who will administer and/or maintain the account? Will you have a team of administrators sharing duties? Or will you be flying solo?
-===Target Audience===
+* Are you prepared to keep your content fresh and to post on a schedule that meets the rhythms of your chosen platform? (e.g., at least daily for Facebook, multiple times per day for Twitter, etc.)
-* Who will be reading and commenting on your social media? Who are you trying to engage?
+* How will you keep passwords (especially shared credentials) strong and secure?
-===Execution and Maintenance===
-* Who will establish the social media site?
-* Who will be the administrator and maintain the site?
-* How often do you plan to update it? (Sites should be updated at least once to twice a week, and depending on the type of social media, more frequently.)
-* How will you make connection to other U-M websites?
-* How will you measure the outcomes to know that you have met your goals?
-==Wikipedia==
-===Strategy===
-* To make your publication  and it’s content available as a resource for others.
-What to post
-* Background information about your publication. When it came into print, major plot points or theories, a detailed description of your work, are all valid information for a Wikipedia page. You will have to source your information for Wikipedia to consider you a valid and trustworthy source. Be sure to source plenty of secondary and primary research.
-===Getting Started:===
-* First you will need to create a free account (to make a page otherwise this is unnecessary) by clicking the Create Account button in the upper left hand corner.
-* From here you can create a page for your publication or search Wikipedia for articles related to your publications subject and add it as a reference.
-* When creating a new article be sure to take a look at [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Manual_of_Style Wikipedia’s Maual of Style] to be sure that your article fulfills it’s standards
-Remember: Wikipedia is a Peer revision based website so once you post a new page others will be able to edit your work or criticize your formatting. It would be wise to check on your page regularly to be sure that any information added is of the correct topic.
-===Other things of note:===
-* Wikipedia keeps articles based on their notability. That is to say that a Wikipedia page has to be recognized to a degree by independent sources. This make linking your Wikipedia article to others incredibly important. The more links you have on other pages the less likely notability is a problem.
-==Facebook==
-===Strategy===
-* Communicate with students, potential students, alumni, and interested community members the way they want to be communicated with. Take advantage of the viral nature of Facebook—spread the word through our “friends” networks.
-===What to post===
-* News, events, comments on happenings in your department/unit. Be sure to respond to questions/concerns your users post. Facebook is an interactive medium—not a broadcast system. Cordially respond to comments and interact with your fans. Encourage discussions and postings throughout your page to encourage people to return to your page as much as possible.
-===Understand the lingo===
-* Page—standalone page; mimics the Profile page of a Person but designed for an entity rather than an individual; followers are called Fans rather than Friends
-* Group—collections of Persons under a common purpose, can be private
-* Cause—collections of Persons who may join under a common goal, usually to collect money
-* Person—individual people who get a Home page update list and a Profile page where they can add optional applications; followers are called Friends
-===Facebook naming conventions===
-*Think first and foremost about searchability. Search engines such as Google and Facebook’s own search engine will pull up accounts based on keyword relevance. Pick something obvious and relevant. That’s how you’ll get followers.
-** Tip: For those affiliated with the University, it does help to include University of Michigan or U of M in your name.
-*** Long Option—facebook.com/UniversityofMichigan[department]
-*** Shorter Option—facebook.com/UM[department]
-===Customizing your page===
-Facebook lets you choose your profile photo which will be seen in search results and by your “friends” because of this your photo should be easily recognizable to your target audience. For instance your author photo or the cover of a well-known publication. Facebook also gives you the option to fill in your interests as well as a variety of biographical information. Keep in mind when filling this out that all of your “friends” can see this information so don’t post anything you wouldn’t feel comfortable with seeing such as an address, phone number, etc.
-===Available options===
-* Wall postings—messages, photos, videos, links; allows fans to comment on these. All comments show up on every Fan’s Home page list.
-* Discussion board—a no-frills message board; allows Fans to post comments that are visible on the Discussion Page.
-* Events—each Event gets its own page, so it becomes a micro-site. Each event page has its own set of options, including an invite option that you can push out to all of the Page Fans. Fan responses to those invites are posted on all Fan Home page lists. Event pages are opened and closed by date and then archived as past events on the home Page.
-* Links—post links to http:// locations; includes option to include a summary, image from the Web page, and your own comment. New links activate a Fan notification; notifications are ‘on’ by default and may be forwarded both in and outside of Facebook.
-* Notes—this is a longer copy option that is similar to another page and allows text, photos, links, and ability to link to other Groups and Persons. New notes activate a Fan notification. These act similar to blog postings and are archived within your page.
-* Video—post a video library accessible from the Page that streams the video directly on facebook. New videos activate a Fan notification.
-Photo gallery—new photo albums activate a fan notification.
-* Other custom applications including RSS readers, news feeds, and custom HTML
-* Listing by URL (Ex: www.facebook.com/universityofmichigan for our main page) is available after your page has 100 fans. This option is not available for groups.
-* Email capability to all Fans for direct communication.
-* Insights—allows you to see traffic to your page, user demographics and interactions. Only available for pages. Requires 48 hours for new data to be available.
-==Twitter==
-===Strategy===
-Twitter is, in essence, micro-blogging. From a business point of view, it’s a news wire in 140 characters or less. Use Twitter to release brief news and to provide links to additional information. Use Twitter to inform your followers and pull them to your website, blog, or facebook page.
-===Twitter naming conventions===
-* Limit 13 characters
-Think first and foremost about searchability. Search engines such as Google and Twitter’s own search engine will pull up accounts based on key word relevance. Pick something obvious and relevant. That’s how you’ll get followers.
-** Tip for University Affiliates: Try a name that starts with UM or Umich to affiliate your unit or department with the university.
-===Understand the lingo===
-* Tweet—the status that you update on your twitter profile. Contains a maximum of 140 characters.
-* RT—re-tweeting is when a person or entity copies a tweet and posts it from their own profile. Credit is given to the original author by preceding the tweet with “RT @username”
-* @username creates a direct link to a twitter profile page. This is a great way to collaborate with other twitter pages, give credit to other twitterers, respond directly to posts and track when others tweet about you.
-* #hashtag—a # or hashtag is used to identify a post as part of a larger idea or conversation. End a post with a hashtag (like #umich) to track trends about your topic. Use sites like [http://www.tweetchat.com Tweetchat] to follow hashtags in real time.
-* If you need a little extra help check out [http://twittonary.com/ Twittonary.com] for a searchable Twitter term dictionary.
-===Adding URLs, links, or images to your Tweets===
-You will see that there are many shortened links in tweets across Twitter. This is so people have enough characters left to tweet a message as well as a link. Try shortening your url at [http://bit.ly/ http://bit.ly] where the site will automatically track click-through rates to your links and what devices they are coming from.
-* If you need image hosting to supplement a Tweet, you can use a service such as [http://www.twitpic.com Twitpic], which lets you share photos on Twitter.
-===Feeding Twitter to your Facebook and other social media===
-Third-party applications allow you to link your twitter updates to automatically update your Facebook status. Contact socialmedia@umich.edu at MM&D for help linking Twitter to your other social media outlets.
-===Building Credibility===
-Building credibility on Twitter is important because there are many active spam accounts and it is easy for someone to create an account in the name of your department or unit. Become more credible by filling in all appropriate information on your profile and customizing your page. Follow credible sources that are pertinent to your department and begin posting and citing your tweets.
-===Customizing your page===
+The University of Michigan's Social Media team has created a series of [http://socialmedia.umich.edu/strategy-guidelines/best-practices/ best practices documents] for common social media platforms. While designed specifically for U-M staff managing U-M affiliated accounts, they cover the basic vocabulary and functionality of several of the most widely used venues like Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, and others. If you need an introduction to concepts like insights, notifications, likes, and much more, these documents can be a good place to start your social media education. But perhaps one of the most useful things you can do is find a publication that has a social media presence you'd like to learn from, and take a close look at how they make social media work for them. It doesn't have to be a publication in your subject area, or even a scholarly publication. There are many lessons to be learned from corporate communications, popular culture, news or entertainment media, and blogs.
-Twitter provides you with a variety of backgrounds to choose from but you also have the option of importing an image to use as your background.
-You can also use outside applications to customize your background and profile such as [http://www.colourlovers.com/themeleon/twitter Themeleon].
-* For UM associates:Stick to simple graphics that represent the U-M brand. Contact MM&D for help with graphics and design for your Twitter page, or visit the [http://mmd.umich.edu/forum/guidelines.php#logos Communicators’ Forum] web page for logo permissions and information.
-=General Social Media Tips=
+==General Tips for Using Social Media==
-Based on the [https://docs.google.com/document/d/1QDr8H0oiZ_IbmxWg8pKL_IXjy9-UaHHuMci0Ep3Du8E/edit?hl=en&authkey=CLuFsr0P University of Michigan Social Media Guidelines].
+* Security: Use strong passwords and change them often. If more than one person manages or contributes to your account, develop secure methods for sharing passwords with one another. If you'll be using a mobile device to post to social media frequently, try to avoid authorizing too many third-party apps to post on your behalf, as these are often a source of accounts being compromised. All social media platforms have tips for keeping your account secure, which are worth a read even if you think you have a handle on account security. For example, here is [https://support.twitter.com/articles/76036-safety-keeping-your-account-secure Twitter's advice on "Safe Tweeting"].
-* Respect:
+* Legitimacy: Make your account "look official" by having a brand-appropriate profile photo and description. Provide URL(s) for your publication or sponsoring organization as appropriate. A social media account that is meant to represent a publication rather than a person should be easily understandable as such, and choice of handle and avatar will impact how much legitimacy your social media presence communicates.
-** You are more likely to achieve your goals if you are constructive and respectful.
+* Identity: If you'll be using multiple platforms, try to make your publication's appearance consistent across them by choosing display names or handles carefully, and using the same avatar, if possible. Consistency makes it easier for your audience to find your publication and recognize the relationship of your accounts across different services.
-* Thoughtful Contribution:
+* Voice: Use a conversational but professional tone. It's OK for your readers to see a human behind your social media presence. Even though you'll be double-checking your content for errors, mistakes will happen. Be transparent about them, and issue corrections as needed.
-**Only post information if you are sure it will be of interest to others.
+* Automation: Tools for scheduling content in advance or for posting to multiple services at once are quite helpful, but should be used with good judgement. Not all content makes sense on all platforms, and the rhythms of how readers encounter content will vary.
-* Focus:
-** Engage in open discussion about your publication or your areas of expertise.
-* Clarity:
-** Clearly state your role and goals, it will help others understand and contextualize your content.
-* Caution:
-** Always think twice before posting and double check your information.
-* Made a Mistake?
-** Be upfront and correct yourself.
-* Balance:
-** Be mindful of what response your posts may provoke.
-* Keeping Up:
-**be sure to regularly check your social media site for new comments and to add new material!
-* Speech:
-** Talk to your readers like you would talk to real people in professional situations.
-Overall, be kind and genuine and try to help conversation along!
+==Choosing a Platform==
-=Credits=
+You've already identified the readership for your publication, but you'll also need to think about the audience for your publication's social media content. Think about where your readers "live" out on the web—are there particular platforms and venues you know they already use? For example, [https://twitter.com/ Twitter] is popular with many academics in a range of disciplines, designers use [https://dribbble.com/ Dribbble] to share ideas with their peers, and [https://github.com/ GitHub] is gaining popularity beyond its original audience of engineers. Setting up shop where your audience already lives might be a better use of your time than staking out new territory on a platform that your readers aren't heavy users of or aren't interested in engaging with.
-These guidelines are a collaboration of third-party documents and U-M policies. Thanks to the following sites for providing insight and outline for these guidelines:
+The kind of content you plan to share will also play a role in your decision. For example, [http://instagram.com/ Instagram] or [https://www.pinterest.com/ Pinterest] are great places to share visual media and engage with creatives, but probably don't make sense if you'll mostly be sharing links to text-based content like journal articles. If your publication will include pieces of code you'd like readers to be able to download, use, or improve upon, an organizational account on [https://github.com/ GitHub] might make sense.
-# [http://123socialmedia.com/2009/01/23/social-media-policy-examples/ 123SocialMedia]
-# [http://www.vancouver.wsu.edu/marcomm/social-networking-guidelines Washington State University social media guidelines]
-# [http://fiuuweb.pbworks.com/Social-Media-best-practices-and-guidelines FIU UWeb social media best practices]
-# [http://www.queensu.ca/www/socialmedia/ Queen’s University social media pages]
-# [http://www.facebook.com/ Facebook]
-# [http://www.twitter.com Twitter]
-# [http://www.wikipedia.com Wikipedia]