Susan Kelly is the Richmond County Extension Director at North Carolina Cooperative Extension. In this blog post she narrows down her three favorite apps used at her office. Follow her on Twitter @KellyCED_NCCE
The County Extension Office is that place filled with paper – brochures, flyers, pamphlets, fact sheets. We might be the slowest to adopt apps that could make marketing Extension easier and efficient. As a serial early adopter, I have used many applications and introduced them to the office including a reservation app like Eventbrite, Delicious for bookmarking, Google Calendar, Wunderlist for “to do” lists, Twitter and Instagram. My three favorites are Facebook, Storify and Mailchimp.
1. FACEBOOK
If 72% of all online adults use Facebook and 69% of rural residents are using social media, Facebook is a social media staple. My office maintains two Facebook pages and I administer four more for other groups that are part of my Extension program. It has become routine to promote our events and news on Facebook and a great real time way to share information with our clientele.
Facebook advertising has also been a targeted and cost effective way to reach a broader audience.
2. STORIFY
Storify may not be as widely known but it is a great tool for gathering articles and information, sorting it into “stories” and sharing with clientele. I find it very easy to save articles by using the Storify bookmarklet, allowing you to share the article to Facebook and/or Twitter at the same time. I collect all of the articles written by our field faculty into one “story” that becomes and article timeline of our work that is easily shared and accessed. Take a look at storify.com/RichmondCoExt
3. MAILCHIMP
Finally, Mailchimp is one of many email applications but my favorite for ease of use and generating handy reports to document who is opening, reading and clicking e-newsletters. The Mailchimp app can be added to a smart phone so newsletters can be monitored while out in the field, perfect for busy Extension professionals!
I have tried to use Storify – but I had only seen it used with Twitter feeds – never had thought to use it as a ‘newsletter’
That’s why this learning network is so important, there are so many ways existing tools can be used and applied. It’s always good to get a fresh perspective from new members joining in the conversation.