Social Media Strategy--You Need A-PIE, part 2

This is is the second of a two-part post from Social Media 101 on building an effective social media strategy. In the first post, we covered the first two letters of the strategy acronym, "A" and "P"--Assess and Plan. See the post here. In this post, we will cover the second two pieces of social media strategy, "I" and "E"--Implement and Evaluate. 

"I" is For Implement

You have listened and documented and planned. You understand where you want to go, you have an idea how much time, money, and people your plan will take. You've listened to your stakeholders in-house and out, and you know where to reach them. You've prioritized what you can do now for success and what you will implement later.

Your main tool for implementing your strategy is going to be an editorial calendar. I set mine up with Excel. The editorial calendar should schedule basic updates for each tool (regular updates should have a purpose, such as a poll each Monday), indicate who is responsible for each application and how much daily time should be allotted for each tool. Also schedule time in to the calendar for professional development on a daily/weekly basis which would include setting up an RSS reader of some sort with top social media "how-to" sites, or making up a "social media curator" list on Twitter of those people who tweet out links to good "how-to" articles. Start with @cosidanews. Then, subscribe to http://www.socialmediatoday.com/ daily newlsetter of top blog posts on social media.  See the link below in the Facebook section for a good example of an editorial calendar.I do mine one month at a time. Next, a word about the tools.

Five Questions

Basically, there are five questions to ask yourself before picking a tool out of the toolbox:
1. What problem/opportunity/deliverable does this tool solve?
2.What value does it add to our overall strategy? What will it accomplish?
3. What target audience does it serve? (don't guess--look at the stats)
4. Does it fit in our time, resources and people plan?
5. How will we measure it? (ROI)

Basic Tools

Having answered the questions above, scan this list of basic tools. The order of importance and comments have been gleaned from informal research I've done in my social media workshops.
1. Interactive Website: Invest some money in making your website fan-friendly. Remember, the first priority here is fans, not media. You can have a press room on your website, if you like, but this is fan central. Make it user-friendly on the front and backend. This is your home base, the trunk of the communications tree. Make it fun and interactive. There should be icon links to all your social media above the fold. I would also suggest a video player above the fold.

Here are some quick questions to answer about your website: Does the domain name make sense and is it memorable? Do fans know where they are by the design of the home page? Is there a clear path to answers visitors will frequently ask such as contact info, schedule of events and scores? Does the home page include images? video? Are you capturing emails on the home page? Are there stories and links to info other than just straight news stories (academic and community service success stories?)  Do you regularly delete out-of-date content?Do you understand and implement basic search engine tactics? Do you have Google Analytics embedded in your website?

2. Facebook page: Where your website is more broadcast in nature, the Facebook (FB) page is engagement central. FB is a place where you will create a community of interactive fans. I won't go into detail about FB here, but delegate this task to someone who wants to do it. FB's mantra is change, so make a commitment to stay on top of it. I would strongly suggest doing an editorial calendar. This will ensure that you are following a strategy of engagement here. If you use Facebook for broadcasting only, it will be a waste of your time. Here's a link to one of the best instructional posts I've seen on setting up an editorial calendar for Facebook. Just remember, slow growth...if you stick to the strategy, they will come. If you sputter, do some research, look at best practices of others, or seek some input from those who know.

3. Twitter: Twitter feeds have evolved  into news broadcast tools. I see nothing wrong with this at all. Many people now have Twitter on their phones, and mobile is a great way to get quick updates of game scores, news articles and event feeds. Twitter can also be an effective channel for promotions, when coupled with other mediums. See Bill Smith's last few blog posts on the "Vote Mallet" promotion.

4. Other tools: In the coming weeks, we'll be looking at the social media tool box in the continuing series on Social Media 101 so I won't go into detail here. We'll look at Foursquare and other location-based apps, mobile phone apps, blogging, streaming video, event-day feeds, online video, and several other tools that enhance communications. Stay tuned.

"E" is for Evaluate

When all is said and done, evaluation is a constant. It isn't something you do once, it's a commitment to test and see if what you're doing is working and how to make it better. Return on investment (ROI) is the biggest question mark with social media. Yet, most of the research to this point indicates that social media has a much larger ROI than more costly traditional media. So why are administrators and communicators dragging their feet? The answer seems to be ignorance, or lack or understanding. Very few administrators and communicators are taking the time to develop a well-defined social media strategy that blends with their traditional marketing. Too many times, social media is an "add-on," sort of a, "we'll try it and if it doesn't work, we'll forget about it."

To give you a quick view of evaluation tools, I made up a matrix for a social media summit I did this summer (see it on slide #19 on this presentation).In the right hand column of the matrix is a "free" evaluation tool for each one of the main social media applications. Learn how to use each one to track the effectiveness of your social media efforts.  This presentation also gives a good primer for most of the main social media tools.

There are two key questions to answer to guarantee social media success. First, why do we want to do it? Hint: Everybody's doing it is not the right answer. Second, can we commit to doing it right (strategy, resources, time, professional development, and commitment to long run)?

What's your social media strategy?

Social Media Strategy--You Need A-PIE

When we were kids, we were all told, "You can't start with dessert." But when you come to the social media table, you need to eat your dessert first--you need A PIE. Even when your first inclination is to just start that Facebook page because everybody says you should, stop and build your strategy first: Assess, Plan, Implement and Evaluate.

A social media strategy is a must-do before you ever open the toolbox. It's simple: know what you want to accomplish before you dive in. Begin with the end in mind. The internet garbage pile is filled with organizations that never gave strategy a second thought. After all, "it's free, it's easy to sign up for an account--what can possibly be so tough about this stuff?"

Even if you've already started in social media without a strategy, I highly recommend going through the process. Research shows us that organizations that plan their social media strategy have a higher level of success.

(A)ssess - You have to listen first

• Who are your audiences? Are they online? What social media tools do they use already? Do you have a good website? How often are your fans visiting your website?

You can find out anything you need to know about your stakeholders with a well-defined survey (Survey Monkey or other free tool) sent to a cross section of your fans. At Montana State, we asked our fans to define how many times a week they used Facebook Twitter, viewed video online, read a blog, listened to a podcast, etc. and took our cues from those numbers. We found through Google Analytics that our average fan only visits our website twice a week, so we didn't have to worry about putting up new video content on our player every day. We found we had a very low number of people on Twitter, so we didn't invest a lot of time and effort in using Twitter for anything other than a newsfeed for the time being. You can also get a good idea of where people are by looking at the Ladder of Engagement from Charlene Li's Groundswell as well.

This phase usually takes about a month at the least. You need a good sample of feedback to get a realistic picture of where your stakeholders are at and what you want to accomplish.

Other ways you can listen: convene informal focus groups, follow what other "like" institutions are doing, look at free online research about social habits (great free set of metrics from Exact Target available online at http://www.exacttarget.com/sff/research_part7.html), and follow social media curators on Twitter for good links and info.

After you learn about your stakeholders, assess the state of the union in-house. Do this by asking these questions:
1. How much time, people and resources do we have available to do this? What do we need in terms of time, people and resources to make it work?

2. What is the current duty roster and what will be the new lines of responsibility?

3. What is our current information flow? Are we engaging our fans or just pumping out information? (You will need to acquire good engagement skills if you are currently just a news-only source. Social media will stall out in a broadcast-only model.)

4. What will we need to change about the way we do business to be successful?

(P)lan- First Prioritize

Next, paint a big picture with the information you gathered while listening. Separate your "urgents" from your "wishes." For instance, it may look like this:

Need Now:

1. Current event calendar w/ invitation capabilities

2. Photo gallery-place for fans to post photos as well

3. Videos of post game press conferences

4. Video interviews with coaches and players

5. Place for fan interaction/discussions

6. Real-time game day feed

7. More locations to broadcast our news stories

Need Later:

1. Live web streaming of games

2. Special contests and promotions for social media fans

3. In-house video production capabilities

4. Electronic newsletter

Next, match your resources (time, money, and people) to your urgent priorities. When it comes to this matching exercise, you may find out that you really don't have the time or money (equipment) to do video, so it could get bumped down to the "later" list. That is the value of assessing: you save yourself a headache by not starting what you can't do well.

In the now, numbers one through five can be reasonably accomplished with a good Facebook page. Number six is probably best accomplished with a Twitter hashtag or "Cover it Live" if you want a moderated chat on game day. Twitter is probably the best option for number seven.

I don't recommend using Facebook for broadcasting news stories. If you clutter people's Facebook pages with too many daily posts, they will block you. Choose 2-3 top news stories a week for Facebook (more on that later) and use Twitter or opt-in emails for the rest.

You've assessed, you've prioritized. In the next installment of Social Media 101, we'll explore the implement and evaluate stages. Does your organization have a social media strategy? How important do you think it is to have one?

Can Social Media Become the New Workplace Suggestion Box?

The fallout from the recent hoopla over the firing of a female emergency medical technician for saying nasty things about her boss on Facebook has just begun. The National Labor Relations Board filed a complaint against the ambulance company, and the New York Times online says this case (to be taken up initially in January) could be a "ground-breaking case." This is the first such case that the NLRB has stepped in on.


This isn't the first case of firing due to the "misuse" of social media, by the way. A quick search on Google yields many cases. We've seen hospital workers fired for talking about patients and policemen fired for talking disparagingly about people they arrest. In these cases, the privacy rights of people involved were definitely violated. What makes this one different are two basic facts: the comments were made on the employee's free time from a personal computer away from work, and other fellow employees joined the conversation and added to the fuel.

Initial thoughts around the horn are that this particular employee was within her rights and the company's social media policy violated her right to free speech. Are there any positive takeaways from this initially? Let's consider a couple.

1. Companies have to take a new attitude towards in-house criticism via any public channel.

Good leaders know what to do with negative feedback...and it isn't lash out. Legitimate feedback needs to be heeded and acted upon. Meet the new workplace suggestion box: social media. Smart bosses will use constructive negative feedback online to start a dialogue with employees. The old-fashioned suggestion box was anonymous. The new social media suggestion box is not, for the most part. It takes some courage (and a bit of anger) to put your name on a negative comment you know might lose you your job. Good leaders will recognize the value of taking heated comments and turning them into impetus for change. We need to create a culture in our organizations where everyone can have a voice without being punished.

2. Companies need to write better social media policy.

You cannot write social media policy that protects the company (or its people) from hurt feelings. Social media policy should be designed to do two things: define how employees can use social media more effectively and protect the company's proprietary information. Social media policy devised correctly will teach employees to help protect the company's reputation online, but that has to start with in-house culture. In this day and age, there is no protection for jerks or bad practices. It's all out there. Personally, I think it's a good thing. Maybe the openness of social media will help organizations develop better working environments.

Whatever you think about the use of social media and policies in the workplace, one thing is certain: the dialogue has just begun. What's your take?

image from Google Images

Career Adaptive Evolution

Change. It never comes easy. Especially when it comes to our careers. According to evolutionists (via Wikipeida), adaptation is the evolutionary process whereby a population becomes better suited to its habitat. This is primarily explained by another popular theory called natural selection in which a species adapts to its changing environment in order to survive. "Survival of the fittest."
What happens when our life environment changes and our career requires adaptation? How can we become better suited to our environment in order to survive?

I am finding out. Recently, I quit my job of (almost) five years as a sports information director to spend more time with my family. We had moved my elderly parents from Wisconsin to Montana almost a year ago as they were at that stage where they needed help and they needed to be around family. That was the right thing to do for all of us. What I didn't realize at the time, was how much time that would require.

Shortly after they got here, we had to put my mom in a nursing home as my dad was exhausted with her care. Shortly after that, he landed in the hospital with bronchitis and depression. It was at that intersection I realized that my 60-70 hour/week job as an SID was going to have to go. I tried making it work for over a year, but I knew I needed a change before I ended up in the hospital too.

I was perplexed. We had uprooted our family for my job, and frankly, I really liked my job. I planned to retire in that job. What to do?

Adaptive evolution. First, I decided that a 40-hour/week job could be doable. Without events 3-4 nights a week, I would have plenty of time to breathe.  So, I am keeping an eye on the classifieds, but only for something that really fits my strengths and skills.

In the meantime, I made a list of all the activities from my job I loved and set out to create a career for myself that allowed me to keep as many of them as I could, but still gave me the flexibility to take care of my parents. Consulting in communications and new media is a good fit for me--natural selection--adapting to my environment. So far, I have facilitated one local workshop on social media and am developing a comprehensive Facebook workshop for December. In the meantime, I got a call from a friend who is doing a job search and wanted some coaching. Doors open and I walk through.

Upside: now I have more time to research for blogging and developing workshops. I hope to take those workshops on the road to university athletic departments, communications departments, businesses, organizations, and whoever will have me.

Career evolution. Life throws stuff at you. Are you ready for adaptive evolution? Have you got a story to tell? I'd like to hear it.

Image from flickr by curiousart