Using Social Media Effectively for Ohio Rural

Electric Cooperatives

October 2011

Bill Balderaz

Webbed Marketing

Agenda

• Developing a Social Media Strategy

• Executing the Strategy

• Measuring the Effectiveness of the Strategy

• Social Media Cheat Sheet

Why you should use social media

Social media is here to stay•695 million Facebook users

•120+ million LinkedIn users

•140 million tweets each day

•2.5 billion Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn visits received in one month

•164 million active blogs

Why you should use social media

• Build your network

• Develop corporate culture• Social media is all about building connections.

Why not use it to strengthen your company internally?

• Keep employees in the know through a private, internal social network like Yammer

Listen First – Monitoring Tools

ListenResearch and listen to what your audience is saying before you start

talking. You can learn a lot about your audience, competitors and influencers just by listening.

Monitor and Track:

• Conversation volume

• Conversation topics

• Where people are talking

• Tone of conversations

• Industry influencers

Listen – Free Monitoring Tools

Google Alerts

• Email updates of the latest relevant Google results (web, news, etc.) based on your choice of query or topic.

Social Mention

• track and measure what people are saying about you, your brand, your services, or any topic across the web's social media landscape in real-time.

Many free tools that allow you to monitor what is being said about your company, brand and industry

Listen – Free Monitoring ToolsTweetBeep

• Hourly Twitter updates. Great for online reputation management, catching all your @replies and @mentions, finding networking opportunities, keeping up on the latest news, and more!

Twellow

• An online Twitter directory that grabs publicly available messages from Twitter and then analyzes and categorizes each of the users responsible for those messages into the various categories.

Twitter Search

• Real time search tool for all public tweets on Twitter.com.

Monitoring Tools - Paid

Paid tools allow for larger number searches, in-depth searches and work faster than free versions. Many also help with the analysis of the data.

Investment ranges from $500 to as much as $10,000/month

•Hootsuite Pro

•Alterian SM2

•Radian 6

•Sysomos

•BuzzLogic

•Viral Heat

Monitoring Tools – What to Look For• Covered networks – Most hit Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, but if need

niche discussion groups may need to go paid

• Metrics/reporting – Some show graphs, others just aggregate numbers

• Workflow capabilities

• Customer support services

• Ease of interface

Social Media Policies

Social Policies - Legal Compliance and Ethical Concerns

Social Media policy should extend to all employees

Train employees on social media

• This allows employers to show employees the right way to use it

Implement a policy NOW

Guidelines for Creating Policies

• Create the policy to fit your culture and previous policies/handbooks

• Make it easy to understand

• Create a rollout plan for your new policy

• Educate your employees on the policy

• Involve ALL relevant parties and department when creating and reviewing the policy

• Do your research! Look at a lot of other company’s policies to be sure to include all pertinent information

Developing a Social Media Strategy

Questions to consider before developing a social media strategy

• Will each part of your organization have its own social media presence?

• Will you have one “unified” presence representing all the branches?

• Which social media networks should you pursue?

• Who will be in charge of coordinating updates?

• What are the top conversation topics that get your audiences talking?

• Who are your advocates right now?

Questions to consider before developing a social media strategy

• Who are the key influencers in your industry?

• How do you engage key influencers and make them advocates for your organization?

• What policies do you need to consider?

• Who should you benchmark your social program against?

• Are there channels beyond YouTube, Twitter and Facebook you should participate in?

• How do you handle a social media crisis situation?

Set Goals and Objectives

What do you hope to achieve with social media?

•Are those goals realistic?

•Can they be measured?

•Who will be responsible for your social media and its success?

•How will you hold that person(s) accountable?

Before you start using social media you should define what you want to do, how you’ll quantify it, and in what timeframe.

Integration

• Social media should be a part of your overall communications strategy, not an afterthought or separate initiative

• Make sure that all departments (and any others using social media) are following the same guidelines and processes to ensure a consistent image for the company online

Engage Target Audiences

• Based on the research and listening you previously completed, you should have a good idea of your target audiences, where they are talking online and what topics resonate with them.

• Identify specific outlets and tactics for your company and target audiences

• Facebook• Twitter• LinkedIn• Foursquare• Blogs• Mobile

Engage Target Audiences

Develop a message map that states how you are going to effectively reach your target audiences

Target Audience Key Message Channel

Audience 1 xxxxxxxxxxxxxx Facebook and Twitter

Audience 2 xxxxxxxxxxxxxx Blog and Twitter

Audience 3 xxxxxxxxxxxxxx Blog

Engage Target Audiences

• Create a content calendar to ensure that you have the content to maintain your networks after the initial launch

• Key items to remember when developing a content calendar• Don’t talk at people. Have conversations with your fans and followers• Respond to questions and comments quickly• Engage fans• Offer social media fans and followers advance information• Thank people

Executing the Strategy

Key points to execute your strategy

• Make sure you have the resources in place to successfully execute your social media strategy

• Provide good content – no social media strategy can be successful without it

• Find a social media management tool that works for you

• Hootsuite• TweetDeck• CoTweet• SpredFast

Social Media Best Practices

• Be interesting, conversational and relevant

• Add value – be a resource to your readers, fans and followers

• Don’t be overly promotional

• Be honest and open in your communication

• Best to post daily or at least 3 times a week

Social Media Best Practices

• Consider local marketing

• Include your social media sites on your email signature and on your website to build your network

• Schedule time for social media monitoring

• Have a crisis communication plan in place before you need it

Measurement and Reporting

Can social media really be measured?

• Social media absolutely can and should be measured

• What you measure will depend on the individual goals for your company

• Pick three metrics that are directly related to your goals

• Start with a baseline measurement so you know where you’re starting from and what you’ve achieved

• Consider also measuring one or two of your competitors so that you can benchmark how you are doing in your industry

Metrics to measure success - Examples

• Increase in brand mentions

• Increase in traffic to the website

• Shifts in sentiment surrounding brand/company

• Share of voice

• Number of media placements as a result of social media

• Increase blog subscribers by xx% within x months

Reporting

• Create a dashboard to share with key departments in your company to keep them updated on your social media efforts

• Determine how often you need to report on social media in your company – weekly, monthly, quarterly?

• This will show the ROI in the time and resources you have dedicated to social media

• By visibly seeing results from social media, you can spike the interest of others in the organization to get involved

Revise your Strategy

• Another reason to measure your progress is to be able to determine what is working and what is not

• Look at time of day, post topic, channel, etc. to determine what is resonating with your audiences

• Based on your metrics, revise your social media strategy to ensure success

Take - Aways

• An effective social media strategy must have clear, measurable goals that align with the company’s overall strategy and goals

• Ensure you have the resources in place to successfully execute your social media strategy

• Experiment with social media management tools to find what works for you

• Pick three metrics to measure your social media success

• Based on your results, continue to revise your strategy as needed

• Continue to Listen, Analyze, Strategize and Measure!

Social Media Cheat Sheet

Social Media Cheat Sheet: What to Post

Use what you have

•From business blog, newsroom, YouTube, etc.

•Make sure is recent, relevant

Watch other users and re-post interesting updates

•Be sure to give credit to user by referencing them in your re-post using @Name

• Events

• News posts

• Awards

• Customer quotes/testimonials

• Contests

• Promotions, coupons

• Advice / tips

• Reference other resources

• Pictures / videos

• Destination updates

• Location stories

• Seasonal info

Social Media Cheat Sheet

Best to post daily or at least 3 times a week

Set aside 15-20 min for posts

Sync social networks together to make content efficient (Hootsuite, Tweet Deck)

Ideal to post during day

Social Media Cheat Sheet

Connect back with those offering connection (be sure they are a legitimate contact if you do not know them)

Reply to questions from connections

Re-tweet, share, link to posts from connections

Anytime see something of interest, share it, comment and give credit to original author

Thank others for sharing info you posted

Take - AwaysSocial Media is here to stay

•Conversations about your company and industry are happening online whether you are there or not

•Social media can be beneficial to HR pros both personally and professionally

Listen First

•Stay up-to-date on what is being said in your industry

•Identify where people are talking about what topics

Stay legal

•Be clear on regulations/policies for your industry. Know what you can and cannot take into consideration when making a hiring decision

Questions?

Bill Balderaz

President

Webbed Marketing (a division of Fathom SEO)

Twitter: @bbalderaz

Email: bbalderaz@webbedmarketing.com