Social MediaThe greatest hits of the best practices

Social media isn’t a cure

• Are there times when you shouldn’t be using social

media?

• High-ticket businesses: few customers who spend tens of

millions; more personal contact is better

• Management-employees are constantly at odds

• Management constantly filters communication

• Don't do social media just to do social media. Have a

purpose, and more than to distribute a press release.

• Privacy and regulatory concerns: Lawyers?

Social media is good

for an

organization’s

SOCIAL

presence, and…

Connecting

unaffiliated

people

interested in

similar things

Delivering

superficial

messages

Keeping

people

up-to-date

Listening and

responding

When social media

makes sense

• Think before you leap!

• What will be different in 3, 6, 12 months as a result of our

[insert social media tool here] account?

• Who are we hoping to connect with?

• What kind of information is interesting to them?

• What’s the best format?

• What might go wrong? What expectations might people

have of us?

Plan the planning of the plan

• Have goals and objectives

• This will help you evaluate impact

• Twitter strategy example

• Set guidelines and policy

• Social media policies of 113 orgs

• How do your audiences use social media?

• This will help determine the approach

Plan the planning of the plan

• How will you be human?

• How will you let your guard down? Can you accept other

people orchestrating the conversation?

• Develop a system for managing it

• Five Tools for Franchises

• http://www.atomkeep.com/

• http://hootsuite.com/

Individual vs. Branded Twitter Accounts?

• Branded accounts seem less human and transparent, but individual accounts may not always promote best interest of the org.

• Branded strategies

• Gov agencies are usually better off with a branded account

• Staffed by a team of employees (better)

• http://twitter.com/toyota, http://twitter.com/razorfish

• Individual strategies

• @YourName, Communications Director of XYZ co.

• What happens when Mr./Mrs. Your Name leaves the company?

• @first-name-atDell (better)

General Persuasive Strategies

• Reciprocation

• Stay away from “bot” tactics!

• Organization’s can gain trust after it provides a lot of free value to people

• Social proof

• Most of us are impressed with people who have a lot of friends, followers, subscribers, youtube views, blog comments, etc.

• Liking

• Attractiveness creates a halo effect (good design)

• We like people who are similar to us (importance of humanness)

• We like people who compliment us, legitimately

• Consistency

• Commit to consistent engagement

What is Facebook good for?

• Fan page: Red Cross

• Good for main presence and mass communication

• No limit on membership, anyone can join/like

• Administrators appear as the business when posting

• Resembles a regular profile page

• Indexed by external search engines

• Ads publicize the relationship between user and the page

• Embeds analytics and tracking

What is Facebook good for?

• Facebook Group (Red Cross Family)

• Good for smaller group communication, especially INTERNAL comm.

• Share common interests and express opinions

• Membership capped at 5,000 members.

• Administrators appear as themselves when posting.

• Are not indexed by external search engines.

• Have more control over who joins by setting for member approval

• Can have general ads on the page

• Cannot use analytics and tracking

• Does not resemble a regular profile page

Facebook Tips

• Page name should be short, sweet and accurate

• Content is the lifeblood: If you aren’t active, it defeats the

purpose of having one

• Provide behind the scenes content

• Offer people something for joining

• Empower pre-existing pages and groups

• Coca Cola example

• Tap into the demographics

• Use Fan Page analytics: Insight (embedded) or Google Analytics

• http://www.quantcast.com/facebook.com/demographics

Handling Sticky Situations

• Nestle example

• Chipotle example

• Remember your PR etiquette!

• Great advice

• Allowing vs. removing wall post feature?

• No wall? Why do you have a Facebook page?

What is Twitter good for?

• More of an information network driven by “the people” than a social network

• Connecting with different demographic than Facebook

• Providing short, more frequent posts

• Imagine it like an “always-on” newsletter

• Emphasizing the humanness of your brand/organization; more like an asynchronous chat with people

• Link to blog posts, website news articles, make announcements

• Less distraction than Facebook (offers less detail and means of communicating), more conversation

What is Twitter good for?

• Easier to listen, more public access to conversations

• Twitter users are more likely to recommend brands and

orgs they follow than Facebook users are to recommend

those that they are fans of

• People’s social network differs between Facebook and

Twitter

• Character limit forces you to hone in on the essence of

your message

• Communicate with new groups of people

Deciphering Twitter

• Tweet: 140-character message

• @name: User or tweeter (e.g., @kmabrams is me)

• Follow: Act of adding a person to your community

• Tweeps: People in your community (followers)

• DM: Direct message (private like e-mail)

• Re-tweet: Forwarding someone else’s tweet

• @ reply: Public message to designated user for others to see

• Unfollow: Act of dropping tweeps

• Hashtag (#): Defined subject area

• Block: Not allowing follower

• Tweet-up: Meeting of tweeters (usually live, such as one at Commodity Classic)

• Chat: Streaming conversation, usually at designated time

Twitter Tips

• Don’t just make it a venue to promote press releases

• Listen and respond as much as you talk

• RT and comment (reciprocity and compliment all in 1)

• Categorize tweets for added visibility

• Events, conferences, popular topics (#ag)

• Use shorthand

• Provide exclusive information different from other social

media and online presence

YouTube Tips

• Post videos that get people talking and stay involved in

comments

• Partner up with other organizations and help promote

each other

• Keep it fresh and short (< 3 minutes)

• Comedic relief is always a plus

• Be genuine and compelling with your video content

• Be useful to educators

• Should be produced and edited fairly decently

Who reads blogs?

What’s blogging good for?

• More influential than other types of social media

• Space to fully express ideas through words, images, video, and linking

• Sharing personalized viewpoint and expertise

• Discussing issues of importance to the organization

• Providing in-depth commentary to a community

• Sparking debate and gaining feedback

• Providing additional value to people

• More one-way communication, unless you stay active with responding to comments

Blogging Tips

• Prompt comments in the blog

• What suggestions do you have? What is your experience? What

do you think?

• Integrate multimedia

• Be creative, catchy, and informative with your blog post titles

• You have the space, but that doesn’t mean write a novel

• Readers like subheadings, short paragraphs, bullet point lists,

bolding of important/key points

• Many will scan, few will read with gripping intensity

Online Presence

• Cross promote!

• But don’t constantly stream only one

type of content over all mediums

• People use social media to keep

updated on things they like or find

useful, but they may not always check

your website.

• Website should explicitly connect people to

their other forms of online presence

• Websites should be well designed and easy to

navigate and find information

How does social media fit

Web

Social

media

Paid advertising on

other sites, online media

relations, search

ads, pay per click

Internet

marketing

“Traditional”

media

Leveraging

relationships and

networks. Raw and

open feedback. Tapping

into existing social

networks.

Foundation is often a

solid website for

customers and media.

Measuring Impact

Traditional is limited

• # of users

• Visit frequency

• Active users

• % of returning users

• Geo-socio-demographics (gender, age, “soccer mom”, geographics)

• # of comments or # of content uploaded

New avenues

• Activation: # apps installed (FB, phones)

• % of active users/total (chart this over time)

• Conversation

• Time to reach virality (friends of friends/followers of followers)

• Engagement duration

• Brand or keyword mentions (+/-, content)

• Bounce rate

• Where are they coming from?

Measuring Impact

• How?

• http://www.socialmediatoday.com/SMC/62067

• Built-in tools

• Hootsuite.com

Summary

• Have a plan; have a reason

• Choose and use social media wisely

• How do your audiences use it?

• Content is king, but so is responding

• Cross promote various online venues

• Use your plan to measure impact

• Take advantage of evaluation and

analytic tools