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
[email protected]: @cbarger
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