This document discusses the value and impact of social media in cross-border projects. It begins by noting that social media is important for increasing project value and impact through communication, engagement, and reaching new audiences. Statistics are provided showing the widespread adoption of social media platforms globally and across demographics. The document then discusses challenges projects face in using social media effectively and introduces the WEB2LLP project, which aims to develop skills and resources to help projects set up coherent social media strategies. Key concepts discussed include building community, engagement, collaboration, and flexibility. Case studies are presented of different projects that demonstrated these concepts successfully.

1. Value and Impact of social media in
Multi-disciplinary Cross-Border projects
Gary Shochat
www.paueducation.com
In Collaboration with: Katherina Zourou, Sally Reynolds, Sabine Schuman
This project was financed with the support of the European Commission. This publication is the sole responsibility of the
author and the Commission is not responsible for any use that may be made of the information contained therein.
http://www.web2llp.eu
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2. What we’ll be looking at today
• Why Social Media (and WEB2LLP) are important for
cross-boarder projects
• Key concepts and strategies for increasing project
value and impact through social media
OUR HASHTAG #web2llp
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3. How many of you have social
media accounts?
How many of your acquaintances,
friends and colleagues have social
media accounts?
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4. Here’s some ‘WOW’ statistics
‘Facebook has
nearly 50% of
internet users
worldwide as
ACTIVE users’
Source:
GlobalWebindexStudy
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5. It’s no longer about age
The fastest growing demographic on Twitter is the 55–64 year age bracket.
This demographic has grown 79% since 2012.
The 45–54 year age bracket is the fastest growing demographic on both
Facebook and Google+.
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6. Or about location
11% of people on earth use facebook – nearly 690k posts every minute
Facebook members 1.4 billion worldwide
No European country in top 10 countries engaged in SM (1. Israel 2. Argentina
3.Russie 10.USA
Social networks and blogs account for 12% of UK internet time

7. And the stats go on and on…
58 million tweets a day,
100k every minute
Total amount of UNIQUE
youtube users every
month 490 million
Average amount of photos
uploaded to Instagram per
day 40M
Every second 2 new
members join LinkedIn

8. Have you ever created and
implemented a social media or web
plan for your project?
Does your project / company /
institution use social media?

9. Desktop research: 150 randomly
selected LLP projects (2010 selection)
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No website/no web presence at all: 7%
SNS: 31% of the sample
15% with Twitter (2nd most popular SM after Facebook)
7% of LLP projects with a blog
6,25% with widgets enabling rapid sharing
5% with a social media feed (Twitter, Flickr or Picasa)
5% with a video sharing tool
3% with a picture sharing tool
0,6% with a social bookmarking tool
0% with a Presentation repository (e.g. Slideshare)
0% with a web 2.0 public library (e.g. Mendeley, Zotero)

10. Why do LLP projects need a
web and social media strategy ?
Social Media is a great way to publish
information and use a ‘multiplier effect’ to
disseminate it.
• Communicating project progress
• Engaging with stakeholders
• Reaching new targets/end users
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11. An initial WEB2LLP assertion
a) Lack of skills and competences of LLP project
teams regarding the effective use of Internet &
social media (SM) tools
b)Loose embeddedness of SM in the
communication strategy
c) Lack of visibility of good practice regarding what
is achievable in an LLP context
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12. The Web2LLP reply to this need
Develop skills and resources on how to set up a
coherent web strategy containing social media
components, appropriate to each LLP project
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13. The methodology
The training framework
during the project
The training framework after
the lifetime of the project
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14. Strong points of the project
• Customized training based on well identified
training needs
• A sound training methodology: a range of face-toface, online and self-paced learning possibilities
• Impact on digital communication skills of LLP
project teams
• Strong connections with NAs ensuring impact on
country level
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15. The goal?
Dissemination
Exploitation
IMPACT!
Valorisation
Sustainability
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16. key Social Media concepts
and values to improve a
projects impact:
- Community
- Engagement
- Collaboration
- Flexibility

17. Community
A project is part of a community and its
presence on social media should strive and
create a community.
People’s main goal on social platforms is
to connect with other people— not with
projects, companies or ideas.

18. The wolf pack
Understanding Context …context is
who is around me…who is in my pack!
Achieving a goal together
Community

19. • People want to connect with like minded
people
• They want to connect with people who give
real value and who have a good reputation.
• They want to build a reputation themselves.
Community

20. An audience watches, a community
acts
• Establish presence – build a profile, connect with
staff
• Listen…listen some more.
• Follow, join and Collect
• Curate
• Publish
• Promote
• Communicate
Community

21. Case:
elearningpapers.eu
www.openeducationeuropa.eu
Re-launching and
re-branding the
main European
Portal for Life Long
Learning
Community

22. when to listen and when to talk:
gaining credibility in my community
• Linkedin: an established community – TALK &
DISCUSS
Community

23. • Twitter: ‘Follow-back campaign’
LISTEN & CURATE
• Facebook: Repositioning
LISTEN & TALK
Community

24. Engagement
Always ask yourself:
WHY? What is the benefit?
• What are people interested in social media? there’s a
benefit to it
• It’s not about ‘my project’, it’s about what people
want/need. The domain of discussion is more
important than my personal content
• Why would people be interested in your project?
• Why would people share your project and its results?
Community
Engagement

25. 2 degrees of impact
Awareness VS. Engagement
Like VS. share
View VS Act
Community
Engagement

26. People ‘engage’ when they care!
Don’t be afraid to inspire:
Inspiration creates involvement.
Involvement creates engagement.
Engagement creates advocacy.
Advocacy creates change.
Edgerank
• Time (time decay) – freshness – Relevant
• Affinity – Relationship – Important
• Weight – Importance based on interaction) – CRUCIAL!
Community
Engagement

27. Make the ‘why’ evident
Make participation easy
Always strive for more reach
• Contests are fun, and they have a clear objective:
WINNING!
• Social issues are important and they have a clear
objective: Showing your friends that you care
• Innovation and collaboration are interesting and
have a clear objective: making our life better
Community
Engagement

28. Case:
Youth on the Move contest
AWARENESS
http://ec.europa.eu/
youthonthemove/
Community
Engagement
• Facebook App
• Development cost 800 euros
• 4700 ‘likes’ in 22 contests
over 6 months

29. Case:
European Road Safety Charter
http://www.erscharter.eu/
AWARENESS
• Online Pledge
• Using casues.com tool
• 1,647 pledges
Community
Engagement

30. Case:
Charity: Water (NGO)
http://instagram.com/charity
water#
Community
Engagement
ENGAGEMENT
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Instagram Campaign
Sharing
Emotionally captivating
Easy to implement
150k followers

31. European Public Service
Information Platform
Case:
ENGAGEMENT
https://twitter.com/epsiplatform
Community
Engagement
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•
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Online platform
Advocacy & Technology
300 twitter followers
@epsiplatform

32. Collaboration
social media IS a way of harnessing our
‘wolf-pack’ to enhance Project IMPACT
• Twitter
• Photo based networks (instagram,
tumblr, facebook, pinterest )
Community
Engagement
Collaboration

33. CROWDSOURCING
Photos are highly collaborative, leading to new
ways of dissemination.
Crowdsourcing, beyond kickstarter, airb&b,
covoiturage (France) etc.
Using a ‘beneficial activity’ to draw on collective
strength
Community
Engagement
Collaboration

34. Mole Hunt, ‘Re-Captcha’
Digitization
Duolingo
Articles being translated by language learners
Community
Engagement
Collaboration

35. Emptyplate Instagram
(collaborative photography)
Case:
Collaboration
#‫# לתת‬donatuplato
Community
Engagement
• Instagram Campaign
• Donating money through
sharing photos
• Highly rewarding
• Easy implementation/
international
• More than 10K worldwide
Collaboration

36. Collaborative tagging
Defining and re-defining
tags/folksonomy for ‘new’ purposes
Collaborative dissemination and public
consultation through social media
Community
Engagement
Collaboration

37. Case:
Digital Agenda for Europe
Collaboration
•
Collaborative dissemination and
public consultation through social
media sharing photos.
• Using key stakeholders
#DAE2012
Community
Engagement
Collaboration

38. Flexibility
All of this will not work without being
VERY Flexible
Community
Engagement
Collaboration
Flexibility

39. Shake, Stir & be flexible
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BLEND (online-OFFLINE)
Mix
Combine
Look for synergies EVERYWHERE!
Community
Engagement
Collaboration
Flexibility

40. Experiment
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Search topics / trends
Join / Follow
Don’t market, tell a story/capture attention
Maintain and expand Hashtags
Use specific tools
– Hootsuite / sprout – change, schedule, measure
impact
– SocialBro
– Tweetreach
Community
Engagement
Collaboration
Flexibility

41. How did these values and concepts
relate to WEB2LLP?
Conviction, strategies, flexibility,
inspiration, changing ‘users’ to advocates.
EVALUATION
80% satisfaction level for the course
Evaluation 3 months later
•
The tools and services offered both during and after the course have been very
helpful and have left a significant mark on our work
• I have developed web and social media strategies for two projects I am
working with
• For our next projects to be planned I could raise the attention to plan SM
from the beginning - instead of just adding it at the end for dissemination
only.
Community
Engagement
Collaboration
Flexibility

42. Who we are
• University of Luxembourg (Luxembourg)
• Web2Learn (Greece)
• ATiT (Belgium)
• Coventry University Enterprises Ltd (UK)
• Pixel (Italy)
• P.A.U Education, S.L (Spain)