The Winter/Spring 2013 edition looks at the coming teacher shortage and what the College of Education and Integrative Studies is doing to help position its graduates for success. The magazine also highlights the accomplishments and commitment of Biology Professor Jill Adler-Moore, as well as the good works of a dentist who is providing his services free of charge to dozens of Renaissance Scholars.

MASS EMAIL QUALIFICATIONS

The information in the email should be new to the reader. The message should not be redundant. Reminder emails are heavily discouraged. The message size should be as small as possible. Attachments are heavily discouraged. If necessary, attachments may be included, but they cannot exceed 2 MB. Messages that are approved for mass email must also meet at least some of the characteristics below:

• The message is related to campus safety
  • Ex. Safety Alert System messages
• The message supports university goals and priorities (ex. strategic plan)
  • Ex. Stories of Success Learning is an event focused on building a learning organization
• The message involves  an issue that the president has designated a campus priority
  • Ex. Graduation rates
• The information is timely and cannot reach others through usual communication vehicles, such as PolyUpdates, BroncoBytes and PolyCentric
  • Ex. Kellogg Drive road closure due to traffic collisions
• The message involves  an issue that affects all or a majority of the audience segment to whom it is addressed
  • Ex. Registration deadlines to all students
  • Ex. Academic Senate emails to all faculty

TIPS FOR EFFECTIVE EMAIL CONTENT

If you want to make sure people READ the email you have worked so hard to send, make sure the content is as strong and concise as possible. It should…

• Appeal to the target audience. Make it clear for the audience why this matters to them.
• Be accurate. Double check facts, including dates, times and phone numbers.
• Be concise. Place key points at the top and remove unnecessary words and thoughts.
• Have a call to action. Include a well-defined call to action you hope the reader will take after reading the message.

STEPS TO MASS EMAIL

Individuals should contact the mass email moderator in their division to have messages approved. (Moderators are listed below.) Public Affairs and I&IT also have the ability to approve messages outside their divisions. Here is a general guide on how to get mass emails approved.

• Get email message approval from department head or follow your division protocol.
• Get email message approval from the division moderator.
• Write a message from the appropriate email address (people will reply to that address). In many cases, this is a group address rather than an individual address.
• Send the email to the appropriate email group (A lists of groups is provided below).
• BCC (blind carbon copy) the person or people who are approving the message on your behalf so they receive a clean copy of your email. This is not required, but recommended so your moderator can read the email with the same formatting readers would see.

MASS EMAIL GROUPS

Email senders should receive approval from their department heads before attempting to send the message. They should also coordinate with an email moderator (contacts listed below) to ensure their messages are delivered in a timely manner once it is submitted. They can then send the email to the following groups. The email group addresses below are established to allow messages to be addressed to specific campus audiences. Group names are followed by “@csupomona.edu”.

CONTACTS

Representatives who can approve messages to specific groups are from the following departments.

• Increase knowledge and support of the university
• Increase understanding of Cal Poly Pomona’s distinguishing hallmarks
• Increase pride and a sense of community

We work toward these goals by sharing engaging content that highlight the university’s 4Ps.

• Purpose
  • Mission, values and goals
  • Contributing to the state and greater global community

• People
  • Exceptional teacher-scholars
  • Dedicated staff
  • Diverse and engaging students
  • Career-ready graduates who are ready to lead
  • Successful alumni and friends who have made a difference
  • Remarkably diverse and collaborative community

• Programs
  • Learning-centered academic programs
  • Student-centered support services
  • Community-service that pairs hands-on learning with opportunities to make a difference in people’s lives
  • Innovative research that expands the field

• Places
  • Beautiful campus in Greater Los Angeles
  • Rich heritage
  • Technology-enhanced classrooms and labs
  • Bustling campus centers

In the blog post “Welcome to Spam-a-lot” we expressed our surprise in the sheer quantity of bogus posts. Even when we set comments to require approval, it took up valuable time we needed to work on other projects. For that reason, we have discontinued commenting on our web site.

Our campus and greater community can always contact us at the information provided in this site. To engage in discussion about issues pertinent to public relations, we invite you to join the PR Roundtable or Social Media mailing list. For more information, contact Uyen Mai at (909) 869-5331.

Justin Velasco, a former reporter from the San Gabriel Valley Tribune, has stepped in to manage media relations and social media. He covers STEM, science, agriculture, business, environmental design and engineering for the university. He can be reached at justinv@csupomona.edu or (909) 869-4205.

Dan Lee, a former reporter from the Riverside Press Enterprise, is leading internal communication and media relations. He covers letters and arts, events, education, hospitality management, student affairs and general administration for the university. He can be reached at dblee@csupomona.edu or (909) 869-3501.

The hires are due to staffing changes to Public Affairs. In September, Associate Vice President Ron Fremont left Cal Poly Pomona to join Cal State San Bernardino as its vice president of university advancement. In addition, senior communications coordinator Esther Chou Tanaka has taken a leave through March 25.

Be Certain

Once you post online, the material can spread before you get a chance to delete it and repost, so be certain the information is (1) factual, (2) includes the details people need, (3) and can be shared and is not privileged or private. Double check that your message is appropriate for what your program stands for.

Be Honest

Remember we post on behalf of the university, and our posts should stand up to the university’s high ethical standards. Do not pose as someone else, never lie, do not steal other people’s materials, and only use materials we have a right to use.

Be Interesting

Offer a variety of content, including posts, photos, videos, links to interesting news content and sharing related groups’ content. Write text that is short and to the point. Consider asking your audience thought-provoking questions.

Be Reflective

Social media managers should also look at analytics to gauge the effectiveness of their posts. There are many free alternatives to evaluating social media postings, such as Facebook insights or Topsy Social Analytics.

Be Participatory

What sets social media apart is its participatory nature. Make sure to monitor comments on your social media sites, help launch conversations, correct misinformation, respond to questions, share content. Ultimately, it is about having two-way communication versus a one way news blast. The social media manager should aim to host a site that empowers civil dialogue. Rules for engagement are important when you open up the conversation online, so clarify for your users what types of posts are acceptable and which are not. This could simply take the form of Commenting Guidelines on a social media site.

Be Strategic

A good social media program is based on a strategy that is in line with the department and the university.The strategy doesn’t have to be long or involved, but should clarify (1) the mission and goals of the social media sites, (2) a sense of the kinds of posts you want to share, and (3) the process by which your department will manage the sites over time, including primary, secondary and tertiary points of contacts. Media and goals change over time, so it’s important to continually reassess your social media program.

In our conversations with campus groups, here a few of the top things to consider before you set up your social media presence.

Have a Plan

Develop clear goals for your social media site, including target audiences, outcomes you hope to achieve, and an action plan for how you will reach those goals.

Get Approvals

Make sure you have the approvals necessary to create a site that will represent your department. Posts on behalf of the university have raised expectations from the university and its audiences. When your site has been endorsed and supported by your organization, it is much more likely to be successful.

Team with Public Affairs

Social media is about being social. A key part of that is joining a bigger network. That means, contacting Public Affairs so we can add you to our social media directory and connect your site to the Cal Poly Pomona social media sites. This also opens up opportunities for us to “share” materials among our audiences and increase the visibility of our posts. As a part of the directory, remember to let us know your primary account contact and a backup contact.

Have a Clear Identity

NAMING:  In naming your site and writing the introduction, make sure to clarify which department is running the site and note your affiliation with Cal Poly Pomona. Users should know immediately upon reading your introductory statement what department you represent at Cal Poly Pomona and the purpose of your social media site.

LOGO USAGE:  If you use the Cal Poly Pomona logo,it may not be altered and must follow logo usage guidelines, which can be viewed on the Graphic Standards Manual.

Open Your Account

Be future focused when you begin to open your account. Is there a general email account you can use so that your social media presence isn’t confined to one person? This is especially true for departments that are using student assistants or interns, which often means high turnover.

Plan Your Posts

Start thinking about your future posts. You can use free online tools like Hootsuite to schedule out important posts months in advance. But you still need to plan on checking on your social media presence at least once a day. While you can pre-plan your posts, it’s critical to regularly maintain the site, share materials you find online, answer questions, correct misconceptions and facilitate conversations.

Questions?

If you have any questions about using social media for your department or program, contact Esther Chou Tanaka at (909) 869-3326 or email estherchou@csupomona.edu.

(Image courtesy of FrameAngel/FreeDigitalPhotos.net)

#CPP1stday started as a fun way to generate and capture the excitement about the first day of classes. Public Affairs teamed with ASI in this social media campaign, hoping to make the first day a buzz-worthy topic. We also wanted to use #CPP1stday to introduce ourselves in the social media world and promote conversations with old friends and new voices.

It worked! #CPP1stday generated hundreds of tweets and retweets on Twitter, lots of photos on Instagram, and hundreds of likes and comments on Facebook. (We won’t even get into Tumblr.) The Storify story shows just a slice of what students, faculty and staff were thinking, saying and seeing. The diversity of thought, excitement and sheer volume of chatter is amazing!

Yes, social media is a lot fun, but it also requires thought and preparation. GAS Creative Group developed flyers to promote #CPP1stday. Public Affairs designed a welcome back message, which included the hashtag, for the electronic marquees. We both planned out a few messages in advance and invited our on-campus friends to use the common hashtag.

On the big day, we posted pictures, tweeted questions, responded to others’ posts and kept up with the multitudes of conversations. What did we learn? Being part of the Cal Poly Pomona family is incredibly fun!

Connect with us on Facebook, Twitter, Google+ and YouTube. (We’re working on an Instagram profile page.)

Image courtesy of Eddie Award via Flickr.com

When we launched a department blog in Public Affairs, we hoped to expand the conversation about communication-related issues on campus. We knew that would take some time but were optimistic an online dialogue could take place.

It turns out that in just a few months, we have had 81 comments submitted to our site. Why haven’t you seen them? Sadly, they’re spam from other bloggers writing generic text so that we link back to their site OR blatant sales pitches for questionable online products. One spammer even posed as designer Michael Kors (curiously posting from Hungary in broken English).

Before this experience, I questioned organizational blogs that closed comments, wondering what they were afraid of. Well, now I know why. It takes time to filter through these false comments. This is a great example of the challenge of applying theory to practice. Best practices are so often easier said than done.

If you’ve had experience launching a blog and sorting through the spam, we’d love to hear from you. But you can be sure we’ll be double checking the content and IP addresses.

UPDATE – Since this blog post, we’ve received three spammy comments that have little to do with the article topic itself, but are generally harmless. I’ve approved them for your reading pleasure.

Although everyone has their personal opinion about color (for me, I find inspiration in nature), color trends are part design, part societal. Color forecasters (yes, this is profession!) consider what’s happening culturally and how this impacts our national mood.

Influences:

Fashion — The latest fashions from the runways of Paris, New York and Tokyo play a major role in new color trends.

Sporting events – This summer, the Olympics have had a huge influence in color and design. Brit Pop!

Auto manufacturers – Concept cars feature innovative color ideas.

Film and television — Whether it’s wolves or westerns, entertainment media is powerful in reaching a wide audiences.

Sustainability – Green is always in!

Tangerine tango was the color of the year for 2012. It’s just a fun color. A lively reddish orange, provided the energy boost we needed to recharge and move forward.  But oranges and reds are falling back in 2013 and being replaced by browns, blues, yellows and pinks along with peaceful neutrals.

I turn to nature for inspiration.