Social Media Assignments for Spring 2011

Twitter assignment: Due March 1st in Two Weeks 30 points

1. Basics
 Fill out your bio, add a photo, and share your URL.
 Set up Tweetdeck, Hootsuite, or Seesmic

2. Write down your Twitter goal(s) in summary paper. Examples include:

 Get more social media mentions of your blog or site
 Find sources
 Increase readership
 Build reputation in a niche area
 Build relationships with clients
 Find new story angles

3. Identify and follow 25 people (excluding friends) that will help you attain your
goal.

4. Tweet Posts – 15 posts per week for two weeks

 Tweet ten original informative tweets related to your goal topic area per week.
 Retweet or @reply someone five times per week.
 Use a hashtag in three hashtags in three separate posts.
 Most tweets should contain links.

5. Use URL shortener

 Sign up for bit.ly or another URL shortener service. YOU MUST SIGN UP FOR AN ACCOUNT
BEFORE TWEETING. You must share only shortened URLs. Connect your Tweetdeck to your
bit.ly account in settings > services

6. Reflection Summary
 Share with me what you learned and your thoughts about Twitter in meeting your goals.
 If you have used Twitter for some time, please share with me some innovative approaches to your
use of Twitter. I would love to learn from you.
Social Media Press Release: Due March 22, Tues. after Spring
Break. Can’t Check Cameras Out During Spring Break. 50pts

According to realwire, “The Social Media Release (SMR) is a press release format designed for the
online media world. The press release was written with just the “press” in mind, but in the online
world your story needs to be told in a format that is relevant to a wide variety of people – journalists,
bloggers, publishers and the public at large.” As you write, keep in mind the your intended audience
and their social media and multimedia needs.
You will be graded on following the assignment instructions, video shooting and editing principles,
and web writing and SEO basics. I have found four free SMR creation tools: PRX Builder. PitchEngine,
PressLift, and PressIt. This is an experimental assignment. I have not full tested each of these sites. If
you find more, please share with the class. On the day of assignment is due, post your SM url to the
Facebook class fan page.
The SMR should contain:
 Social media and main contact(s)
 Suggested headline
 Core facts
 Body containing news summary
 Background information of person or organization
 Social media links
 Suggested tweet
 Suggested tags
 Preapproved quotes
 Sharable visuals that follow photography and videography principles
 List of useful links
Other writing tips include:
 Write in third person
 Follow web writing and SEO principles
 Follow AP style and grammar
 Be of news value
Video
 You must upload two separate videos to YouTube
 The video must have appropriate file name, tags, description, etc.
 Interview must be an extended, edited quote
 The b-roll must contain visual raw information related to topic with natural sound
 Video must be saved as a high-quality .mov before uploading to YouTube
Reflection Summary
You are required to write a summary of your experience including what you learned, suggestions,
and whether your press release received any attention.
Google for example social media releases. Here are some example press releases:
http://www.cdc.gov/socialmedia/h1n1/
http://pressitt.com/smnr/science-minister-opens-new-medical-tech-centre-to-boost-innovation-in-
nhs/82/
http://www.marketwire.com/press-release/Skip-the-Conversation-Go-Straight-to-Voicemail-with-
slydial-880759.htm
Try starting with PR Newswire and marketwire as well.
You can submit, but it is not required, your press release to Press Release Point, i-Newswire, or
PRLog. These are free services.
Honor’s Assignment Extras: Due March 22, Tues. after Spring
Break. 45pts
1. Google: Google your name or company, etc. in quotes “Jane Doe” and screen capture a .jpg of
your Google results. Screen-capture your web presence by pressing command+shift+4 (Mac) to
create .jpg of a section. You can capture multiple sections of your results. You can also use
http://www.superscreenshot.com/ or PDFmyurl to capture entire page. You will capture the results
again when you hand in the social media assignment.
2. Online presence: Fill our your bio on numerous sites. This includes a picture, credentials,
and URLs on every site. Hand in the your URLs on the due date. Sites can include LinkedIn,
BrightFuse, Twitter, Flickr, MediaGeeks, YouTube, Vimeo, Google Profile, SlideShare, Scribd,
Flavors.me, About.me, Quora, Awesomize.me, Foursquare, Delicious, FriendFeed, Facebook,
MySpace, Digg, Reddit, Favstar, OpenSalon, WordPress, Storify, NewsVine, Twtjobs, etc. FB,
YouTube and Twitter are the top three (right now).
3. Slideshare: Pick a topic about social media topic or for a client. Or create a visual slideshare
resume. Create a PowerPoint and upload it to Slideshare. Demonstrate that you are knowledgeable
in some area.
4. Social media monitoring: You need to identify an individual blogger in your desired
professional area and write a one-page report about what you learned about social media
and blogging from them. You can interview them for your paper.
5. Set up metric tools:
1. Bit.ly (Monitor link traffic)
 Shorten your links in bit.ly to track clicks and how your links are shared.
Provide the top 10 links clicked on including the number of clicks.
2. Sitemeter (Traffic analyzer). Track your blog site traffic. Useful site to see the
location of users and see how the users found your site including keywords.
3. Others include:
i. YouTube Insight (Traffic analyzer). Tracks how people get to your site,
the content clicked on, average pages per visit, etc. for your Web site.
ii. Feedburner (Subscribers). Provide the number of people who subscribe to
your blog via RSS
iii. FriendFeed (Subscribers). Subscribe to multiple feeds related to one
individual. Provide the number of subscribers.
iv. Twitter Lists (Subscribers). Create a list that is useful to Twitter users and
provide the number of subscribers.
v. Facebook Insight (Traffic analyzer).
vi. Klout (Twitter influence)
Table Example:
Twitter Mentions
Week 1

Week 5

Week 6
Week 2

Week 3

Week 4

Week 7

Per Day
Number of
posts
Retweets
@replies to
your id

6. Reflection Paper: You must do more than simply list what you did. Focus on what you
learned and how online communication is evolving. Also, add ROI tables to your paper.
1. This paper must be at least 4-pages double-spaced.
2. URLs, tables, and screen grabs are not part of the 4-pages.