Heidi Allen Digital Strategy

Did you know that the average corporate social business program is only three years old? Some companies are already defining best practices. Alitmeter have produced a superb report on how to prepare for social business. It’s free. It’s very good.

Some points that I pulled out from it are here.  The full report is at the end.

Many companies are looking at using the latest social media technology, yet most have not prepared for the threat of social media crises, or the long-term effects on business. To become advanced in the use of social media as an organisation there are four recommended steps. First, develop business objectives and establish governance, then get organized by establishing a team and a process to deal with crises. Next, connect business units to increase coordination and reduce duplication. Finally, weave real-time market response into business processes and planning. Advanced companies prepare for social business with the following four internal requirements:

1. Baseline Governance and Reinforcement: Established and reinforced a corporate social media policy that allows employees to participate professionally
2. Enterprise-Wide Response Processes: Defined processes for rapid workflow and engagement with customers in social media
3. Ongoing Education Program and Best Practice Sharing: Fostered a culture of learning through ongoing social media education
4. Leadership from a Dedicated and Shared Central Hub: Organized in a scalable formation, with a cross-functional “Center of Excellence”

Social media crisis management strategy

As part of a company’s digital strategy, a crisis management strategy- including an escalation plan for dealing with negative comments should be formulated including outlines of rules responsibilities and possible actions

A social media crisis is an issue that arises in or is amplified by social media, and results in negative mainstream media coverage, a change in business process, or financial loss.

Crisis can be categorized according to 3 severity levels:

Level 1: crises that result in negative coverage in mainstream media
Level 2: crises that result in negative coverage in mainstream media, and a significant response or change by the company
Level 3: crises that result in short-term financial impact.

In the majority of cases crisis can be prevented or diminished with thorough preparation and staff training.

Source Altimeter report (August 2011) Social Business Readiness: How Advanced Companies Prepare Internally

Causes of Social Media crisis primary stem from the exposure of poor customer experiences, poor influence relations or violations of ethical guidelines.  Most companies that suffer from a social media crisis lack proper social media internal education for employees.

The Social Business Hierarchy of Needs

These recommendations are organized by dependency – much like Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs. Companies must first meet baseline needs at the bottom of the pyramid before moving on to the next set of requirements.

And here is the most excellent report.  THANKS Altimeter for making it freely available.

For Employers and potential Social Strategists these latest posts from Jeremiah Owyang are very important. Having been asked many times recently whether I know anyone who would be good for a role as a digital strategist, how to interview, what to look for, and also vice versa – who to work for, what to expect – what does the role even look like – it’s worth taking a look at the Career Path of the Corporate Social Strategist below and what questions to ask a potential future employer:

Questions to ask a potential employer for a digital strategy position:

1) What level of executive support do we have?
2) Is the company ready to span social beyond one department?
3) Is the company ready to engage in negative conversations in public?
4) What is your future vision of success look like?
5) What resources will I be provided?

Jeremiah expands these points really well and develops them into a scorecard – the score giving an indication as to whether to walk away or what working for the company may feel like

Vivienne Storey (@mysocialpolicy) is General Manager for BlandsLaw, a legal firm specialising in social media risk management in the workplace. She spoke on the legal aspects of a good social media policy in the workplace at a recent social media for women event. Here is what she had to say:

Dismissing an employee because of Facebook comments or employee public arguments on social media platforms are real legal issues for companies, however, banning social media in the work place is not effective (people have smart phones like an iPhone or Blackberry). Many employees are confused as to how to use social media and a good company policy can guide them.

A social media policy is different from social media guidelines

• Keep your social media policy succinct.  Summarise it with guidelines. A social media policy may be 9 pages, the guidelines 1 page.
• Don’t write your policy in legalese – write it in plain English

Guidelines include advice such as reminding employees:

• That one-on-one conversations are being watched by others.
• Don’t drink and tweet

Things to consider in your policy:

• Who owns the LinkedIn database – employee or company
• Don’t cross private and business accounts.
• Don’t friend clients.
• Include crisis management (who to go to and what for)
• Don’t use phrases like ‘use your good judgement’ or ‘use your common sense’ in the policy.  Define what these are.
• Client confidentiality is a legal consideration. For example clients may not want you to check into foursquare  highlighting your meeting with them
• Protect your online name and passwords so that employees who move on don’t take them with them
• A social media team at a company should include marketing, comms, HR, legal counsel, IT.

Vivienne blogs at My Social Media Policy

The Science of Blogging

Dan  Zarrella from HubSpot has put together a stonking presentation on the Science of Blogging. Some of the nuggets

• People want to read your unique point of view
• Talk as yourself not about yourself
• Stay away from overly technical jargon
• Users comment when there is something in it for them
• Write simply, and plainly
• Don’t say the same thing everyone else is saying

Lots of stats

• Most / least shared or retweetable words (‘bored’ doesn’t do very well, but then neither does ‘iphone’)
• Grammar matters
• Videos get links, photos get comments
• Keep the reading grade level lower, and you’ll get shared more – I guess that fits with ‘stay away from overly technical jargon’
• Blogs are read and commented on more in the morning (between 9 and 10) and also read late at night (after 10pm)
• Publish your blog posts early in the day
• Share your posts on social media later in the day
• Post early in the week for views and links  and weekends for comments
• Share your posts in social media later in the week and on weekends

Link to audio voiceover of presentation here (you may need to register)

It’s easy to be wise after the event, even better to get advice from those who had to learn the hard way.  A previous post mentioned how to deal with negatives comments, and looking at some of the cases that imploded here are some pointers to avoid going social-media-bust, especially for larger companies.

Don’t execute a tactic without having a strategy

The ‘Let’s do Facebook’ approach is asking for trouble. Once a Facebook page is up, it’s public and open for all to comment.  Social media is not a campaign, it’s about establishing trust, being genuine and having a sustainable long term goal. If you get it wrong that’s public too – have a clear reason as to why you want to engage in social media, what your objectives are, and what sort of audience you can expect to attract. These objectives should be clearly communicated to everyone across the organization, including directing people how to listen and engage in the dialogue.

Be platform agnostic

Facebook has surpassed Google in terms of search results and in order to be found many companies are considering facebook pages, however, it would be better to be ‘platform agnostic’ and think less about the channel itself and more about the dialogue you want to have before you pick the platform. For example, having a facebook page which had little discussion and a mainly ‘brand.com’ type focus goes against the type of community driven platform that facebook is.

Inbound not outbound marketing

What does that mean? Outbound marketing is all about promoting your brand or product and not about having a conversation, it’s about pushing your brand in a one-way flow of information trying to force people to a particular site. Not only does that have the opposite effect in social media, it makes you really (really) boring.  Best approach is to listen and learn to see what questions people have and contribute to the conversation, that’s the sort of expertise people value.  And yes, you would be right in thinking that this could well take more time, certainly initially than simple promotion, however, it also brings a higher return.

Clear terms and conditions, disclaimers

Adding clear terms and conditions on a social media page gives readers clarity about the intent of the site and this should also include guidelines for users posting comments on what is and is not permissible.  The Mayo Clinic have done this very well publishing publicly publish guidelines for employees on their blog which features stories from patients, families, friends and employees

“The main thing Mayo employees need to remember about blogs and social networking sites is that the same basic policies apply in these spaces as in other areas of their lives. The purpose of these guidelines is to help employees understand how Mayo policies apply to these newer technologies for communication, so you can participate with confidence not only on this blog, but in other social media platforms…”

Have a Central Site

A main site, such as a corporate blog can be a way to establish a credible presence to regularly exchange information and distribute content that becomes known and trusted over time – it becomes a place to redirect people to if comments are happening on other channels outside of their control. Larger companies also need to consider if it is necessary to have a 24/7 regular real time response (particularly if they are a global company spanning different time zones). Any corporate website should have links to all relevant social media accounts including blogs.

Open up social media listings, become technology experts

Social media sites need to be accessible by employees so that they can experience it for themselves, and also so that they can learn about different platforms and their limitations. Some employees may then become experts in the technology and be able to answer questions such as: How does the facebook share button work? How does auto-posting work? How does new social media platform X integrate with existing digital strategy and should the company begin to use it? Which tools should be used to measure social media impact and reach? How does the content appear on mobile phones and readers?  How can a post be best optimized for search engines? Expert users not only enable companies to maximize the most out of the content posted, they also save time and potential misuse of information.

Bring competency into different groups to use multiple channels

Although a personal approach is best and a blog or social media account may rely on key individuals it is also important to build a talent pool of individuals who have competency to build social media channels across the organization and establish their own personal dialogue. BMJ Group blogs would be an example of a group who have done this successfully.

A community manager, or overall social strategist, who monitors the entire companies digital assets in terms of social media accounts may also be required, enabling the company to have an overview of the success of different channels and how they are being used. A good community manger should be experienced, know how to handle a full scale organized attack from critics, manage a crisis and protect a company’s valuable digital assets.

5 Tips to Starting a Digital Strategy by Matthew Green

Several months ago I wrote an article on why businesses should be using Social Media. The statistics proposed by NeilsenWire, AdNews, The Australian newspaper and the ABC News website lead to the following conclusion.

“With almost 7,750,000 wage earning Australians currently engaged in some form of social media the answer for most people should be a resounding ‘yes’.”

Being the sort of person that likes to practice what he preaches I established and continuously maintain my corporate social media presence. This includes our website, blog, Facebook Page, LinkedIn Discussion Group and company Twitter account. On top of that I also manage my own personal blog, twitter account, Facebook page etc. It’s a lot of work for a small business with limited resources (not to mention the fact that I am the proud father of five wonderful children) but it is a commitment you need to make if you want your efforts to be rewarded.

Like any marketing activity, a Social Media strategy needs to be planned and Heidi really helped us a lot with this process. Our clients and suppliers are a diverse group of companies but the three main outlets of Social Media they all seemed to use were Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn. We also discovered that our corporate newsletters were widely read so we had to factor that channel into the equation as well. What we came up with was a corporate blog site that we could feed through to our Facebook Page, Twitter account and Linked In Discussion Group. Heidi also introduced us to an application called TweetDeck that enables us to post Twitter comments to multiple sites including our Facebook page. All of a sudden we were able to write once and publish to many; and all our apprehensions were gone.

Since establishing our Social Media presence and becoming actively involved in the community I have made a number of observations that I would like to share with you.

1. Make sure you ‘tweet’, ‘blog’ and update your Facebook status regularly. Visitors will stop visiting if the content remains the stagnant. How often you do this is a business decision you have to make. I try to blog twice per week for my company and once for myself. However, I update Twitter and Facebook almost every day. Although this costs my company three to four hours per week of my time, I know that the group of followers we have appreciate the effort.

2. On the flip side, don’t be a blog hog. If people see you flooding the twitterverse with useless trivia then you will quickly become associated with spam and filtered out.

3.  Share your knowledge and offer useful information. Don’t just try to sell your wares because that is the surest way to become unfollowed.

4. Don’t get discouraged if you fail to gain instant success. In many instances, building up a viable social media presence takes time and effort. Not everyone will end up the size of Mashable or Hubspot.

5. Be honest! The global social network is an incredibly large organism and the old adage that ‘bad news travels fast’ is especially relevant.

Finally, the most important rule of all in my opinion, and one I’m sure everyone has been guilty of not doing at some stage is, – Reciprocation. If you do not acknowledge a retweet, comment on a blog, or offer an insight into a discussion, how can you expect your community to do the same for you.

About Matthew

Matthew Green is a forty something, father of five and small business owner with a Bachelor of Commerce degree and the author of the popular ‘iDad’ series of short stories. His love for creative writing developed out of telling stories to his children and his first novel ‘Pine Gap’ is awaiting publication. Samples of his work can be found at http://matthewgreen.com.au