The Social Media StrategistBuilding A Successful Program From The Inside Out

Christopher Barger, SVP Global Social Media, Voce ConnectFusion Marketing Experience: Session 1January 23, 2011

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Death, Taxes, and…

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Social Media: The Reality

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Organizational Social Media: A Common Mistake

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Organizational Social Media: A Common Mistake

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Organizational Social Media: “Lucky Seven” Essential Elements

• An Executive Champion• Clear Lines of Authority• A Social Media Evangelist• Sensible Metrics & Measurement

• Partnership with Legal

• Employee Education and Training

• A Solid Social Media Policy

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The Executive Champion

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Establishing Consensus: Who “Owns” Social Media?

Source: Flickr, “BrandonB”

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Lack of Clarity: Risks

• Inconsistent online presence and brand personality– Audience confusion

• Internal turf wars drain energy, attention and resources

• Staff frustration and burnout

“Too Many Cooks In The Kitchen,” John Cherry

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The Evangelist

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ROI & Measurement• Define “success” and know what you

want to see before you start• Know your zero point

• Numbers don’t mean what you might think they mean– Up to 47% of Twitter accounts are abandoned– 57% of Facebook users hide brand content in their

news feeds

Source: eMarketer

• Grow your engagement as zealously (or more so) as your reach

• Select the measurement tools that fit your goals

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Working With Legal: Why?• Recognize that you have similar

goals: the company’s best interests

• Recognize that “the right thing” in social and the company’s best interests aren’t always directly parallel– Transparency is not a zero-sum game

• Opportunity to create your own legal social media ‘experts’

• There is no longer anything such as “ask forgiveness later”

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What Legal Brings To The Table• Understanding & informed

interpretation of regulations and guidelines• Knowledge & informed interpretation of emerging case law

• Rules and ToC for contests and promotions

• Experienced eye for policy development

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Building Social Media Policies• Why?

– Protects organization and employees

• Who?

– All functions that affect or are affected by

social

• How?

– Sync with established business guidelines

– Compromise will be necessary

– Policy and “usage guide” are not the same

thing

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Education and Training• 3 Tiers of Employee Training Needs

– Your employee base– Externally-facing strategists– Social media actives

• Doing the training– Intranet modules– Classroom instruction – both lecture and lab– Ongoing education

• Lunch and learn/brown bag sessions• Newsletters and emails• Internal social communities (Yammer, SocialCast, etc.)• Bringing in external speakers • Conferences and community events

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Working Smartly With Online Influencers • Get over yourself

• Know & follow the FTC guidelines

• Do your homework• Don’t be a lounge lizard• Be involved offline• Be clear – about everything• Use the right people from your

brand• Monitor and follow up• Build your community of

advocates

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Get over yourself• Ditch the big brand hubris; they’ve

built their audience without you.• Relevance: make sure your pitch actually

fits the influencer’s personality, audience, usual subjects – not because you say so.

• It’s not all about you! Lead with their interests and topics.

• Your executive’s title doesn’t mean anything. In fact, no one knows who they are.

• Follow up. Every time.

• The first question you must always ask is, “would I watch/read this if I didn’t work here?”

• You cannot design “viral” content. You can design good content that has a better chance of being shared.

• Focusing on target numbers rather than good content is the recipe for top 40 radio

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Publishing: The Golden Rule

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Social Media Crisis: (Stuff) Happens

• If you are active in social media, something will go wrong.

• The trick is not preventing crisis, it is in how you handle one when it happens.

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Six To Fix: The 6 Types of Social Media Crisis

• Individual generated• Customer service #fail• Campaign• Social media #fail• Organizational brain freeze

• Three Mile Island

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Crisis Response: Common Themes

• Apologies go a long way• Speed is critical• Don’t delete criticism• Your audience isn’t just the

critics• Use the right tools

• Keep engaging and follow up

• Keep your social team in the loop

• Get caught learning from it

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The Book

How to build an organizational social media practice

Available at stores, on Amazon.be, on Kindle, and barnesandnoble.com beginning late February 2012

Facebook.com/thesocialmediastrategist

THANK YOU

christopher@voceconnect.comTwitter: @cbarger