Social Strategy – Step In Communication

Fran Stephenson November 4, 2015 Leave a Comment

Warm Handoff Is Key to Managing Channels

Part 2 in the Outside Channel Managers Series

Guest post by Jennifer Hatton

It is rare these days to begin working with a new client who doesn’t have at least one live social media channel. Many clients have two or more channels that are “live” and because of that we have a process to make sure we get the information we need and get off to a good start. It’s called the warm handoff.

The warm handoff is a term used in tech to categorize a service or support issue for which everyone on the team knows what’s going on. A cold handoff is one in which information is missing or a ball gets dropped along the chain. We of course prefer a warm handoff when we onboard as channel managers, which means you have everything you need to get started.

Onboarding Existing Channels

Getting a verbal or written download from the previous channel manager is the first step. Learn all you can by asking them questions such as:

What is your process for posting and reviewing content?
Where do you get content that is not directly from the client? Other organizations’ Facebook pages/Twitter accounts, websites, etc.
What gets the most response from followers?
What is the least popular (but maybe necessary) content?
In your opinion, what is the tone and voice?
Is there an approved strategy?
Anything else that is important or noteworthy?

There are times when the person you are relieving is not available. When this happens, you can use the same questions, but you’ll be answering them by observing the channels directly.

State of the Channels

Now is the time to start digging into the channels and do a mid level “state of the channels” review. Go through the pages. Look at everything. A good place to start are the bios – are they complete, still relevant, using the correct hashtags, do the links work. For Facebook, take a long look at the “About” page to make sure hours, links, long and short descriptions, and the custom URL are all filled out. Double check the type of page while you are there. One surprise is often the organization forgot to claim their page name and URL. Check that too.

Secure the Channels

Security is important but we frequently see clients who get busy and forget about their channel security. Who has access to the channels? Do you need all those page managers? What email addresses are linked to Twitter and Instagram? Use a password keeper application or a document to list all the channels and log-in details.

Passwords should be different for each channel and changed whenever you change channel managers. A yearly security and password update is also recommended to keep you and your client safe. There are easy to use password applications that not only save your passwords but help you create new ones, too. One example is Last Pass (link to site) but there are several to choose from.

Check All the Images

The last step in reviewing the state of the channels is to look at images. Check for current logos, make sure sizing is correct on profile photos and that images are credited properly. Facebook cover photos should be refreshed periodically. As a new channel manager, you have the opportunity to plan ahead to switch them out at least quarterly to keep the page looking fresh and visually interesting.

To sum it up, ask lots of questions! The more you know the easier it will be to onboard as a new channel manager. What tips do you have to make sure you have a warm handoff?

In Part 1, we looked at the keys to being a successful outside channel manager.

In Part 3, we’ll look at how to review your channels with a critical eye.

Jennifer Hatton manages social media channels –from the outside–for clients in healthcare, tourism, retail and the hospitality industry.

Fran Stephenson October 29, 2015 Leave a Comment

Managing Social Media from the Outside

Sometimes an organization needs help managing social media channels. Someone to plan and post content to Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and other channels as well monitor conversations and lead the way when customers ask questions or need help.

In these situations, organizations might turn to outside channel managers. They might lack that skillset in their internal team. Perhaps the organization has shifted their marketing communications’ team priorities. Or they might want an outside organization to help in coaching to a new level of proficiency. An outside channel manager can look objectively at the current practice and help develop stronger social relationships, better content flow and engage audiences with a set of fresh eyes.

It doesn’t matter why the organization needs an outside channel manager. What’s really important is that you can step in and accomplish your clients’ goals as an outside counselor. So how do you do that successfully from OUTSIDE the organization? With a sound strategy, smart processes and good communication, you can manage social media channels from the outside.

Sound Strategy Is the Key

You may be taking over channel management in the “muddy middle” of a transition or after the channels have started to slip. It’s time to ask lots of questions. What were the goals and objectives for the networks? What’s working? What doesn’t seem to be hitting the mark? If there is a planning document or strategy that framed their previous practice (assuming it will be shared with you), use it to frame next steps. Set some interim goals and objectives. We had one client who had lots of great opportunities for storytelling and great content too, but their output was inconsistent and infrequent. By creating interim objectives for the level of output on each channel, we could see an immediate lift in the conversations on their Facebook and Twitter accounts.

The Right Tool for the Right Job

Finding the right tool to monitor, schedule and comment is necessary for efficient management from the outside. It’s important to match the size of the clients’ network needs and budget with a tool that will help you create efficiencies for them. And the tools change all the time! What you used for a project one year ago may not be the right choice. Make a decision on tools early, when your client has social media top of mind because in 2-3 months, they won’t be as eager to make the expenditure.

Communicating From the Outside

You have to be creative when communicating from the outside. Creating simple client touchpoints is important. One way to do that is to share wins as they happen– maybe that Twitter post got a huge number of retweets or you’ve never seen so many comments on a Facebook post or Instagram photo. Just as important is creating regular communication to report metrics and analyze the program. Depending on the size of the project and the clients’ needs, this could be weekly or monthly. A regular group email to the entire team goes a long way to keep everyone informed.

We’re Just Getting Started

There’s so much more to share about successfully managing social media channels from the outside. We’re going to break down the outside channel manager best practices over the next three weeks and look at how to onboard successfully, how to source and schedule content and how to look at the social channels with an objective eye.

We’ll start next week with “The Warm Handoff.”

What strategies do you use to manage client channels from the outside? We’d love to hear from you in the comments.

Fran Stephenson May 20, 2015 Leave a Comment

How To Handle Negative and Irrelevant Comments on Facebook

Should you ever hide Facebook posts?

When you are managing Facebook pages, it is likely you will have to answer this question. In the process of managing Facebook pages for numerous organizations, this is a common occurrence. Some comments should be ignored. Some comments deserve a response. Others should be hidden or deleted. What should you do? Here are four comment types from my channel management experience and potential actions you can take to handle on your company pages.

Comment Type Number 1: Negative

This type of comment is critical or negative but is relevant to the reputation of the organization. It may involve an unhappy customer or a comment about a policy or process of the company. For this type of comment, it’s important to do three things, verify, escalate, resolve.

First, verify that the comment comes from a real person or real organization by clicking through to the commenters’ Facebook profile. If it appears real, the next step would be to escalate to your client or internal management team to develop an answer. Finally, create and post the response.

Comment Type Number 2: Irrelevant

This type of comment is also critical of the organization but is different in that it is irrelevant to the post. This requires a more subtle answer. If you respond too quickly or with a formal statement, you might uncover a bully or troll waiting to engage. Monitoring additional comments for a few hours is the first line of defense. If you have loyal and engaged fans on that page, they might chime in and redirect the conversation.

If that doesn’t happen, hide the comment — only the commenter and their friends see it. We once hid a comment from somebody’s mom who made a favorable comment about her daughter’s photo appearing there and then kept asking where all the “other people” were coming from. She was clearly new to Facebook, so we hid it to keep the embarrassment to a minimum.

To consider deleting the post or comment takes a little more time and thought. If it’s a “drive-by” commenter that may or may not return, we sometimes wait 48-72 hours and if no further action comes from this type of commenter, we then consider deleting it.

Comment Type Number 3: Unreasonable

This type of comment is often rude and inflamed. It might go right up to the brink of Comment Type Number 4 below. In this scenario, we spend extra time monitoring the post and other comments on it to see the progression of the conversation. There are three different actions you can take: hide the comment, delete the post and ban the user. The strategy leading up to the actions on this type of comment are similar to that for irrelevant comments.

Comment Type Number 4: Violates Policy

Whether it’s a violation of Facebook’s terms of service or a violation of YOUR social media policy, this type of comment includes name-calling or swearing. It can also be a post in which another person or page tries to sell something on your page. This is unacceptable for many company pages and should be deleted. If the post or comment has gotten widespread views before it’s been deleted, it might merit an explanation about why it was removed. This will enhance the company’s engagement and integrity with fans, but if it’s disgusting or pornographic, no explanation should be necessary and deleting and banning the user makes the channel managers’ job easier as these types of posters tend to be repeat offenders.

Smart channel managers know that managing your Facebook community includes making judgement calls on how to respond to comments by a wide variety of fans. Next time you get a comment that is critical, irrelevant, unreasonable or is a clear violation of policy, try these ideas. Let us know how it worked by leaving a comment.

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Fran Stephenson April 29, 2015 Leave a Comment

Why You Should Wait to Post To Your Social Media Channels

We get really excited when we have timely content for our social media channels. So excited that we often shoot ourselves in the foot by trying to get it all out there at once. As communicators, we are as trained to follow the news cycle as Pavlov’s dogs were trained to respond to the sound of the bell. The problem is-there’s more than one bell. The news cycle is less defined than it was ten years ago and is no longer confined to set appointment times.

We used to try to capitalize on the morning paper, the evening news, the late news and then the monthly magazine. Now we have 24 hours and we should take advantage of that extended time to spread out our social media messaging in our channels.

So why are we trying to time the press release, the in-person event and the social media posts all at the same time? Out of sheer habit?

With a little planning, your social media channels can have more frequent messages to cover that 24-hour cycle, only in smaller chunks. This way they can carry your news in different ways over a prolonged period of time.

What are the advantages of this approach? You have multiple opportunities to engage with your community and the repetition of the messages – or at least the repetition of the theme of the messages – will likely translate into higher engagement. You might also realize better retention by your fans and followers and your message has higher potential rise above the clutter in those channels.

There is a downside to this and it’s focused on the social media channel manager. This forces social media managers to plan content frequency and channel choice, so if you’re not a good planner, it won’t work for you.

Let’s say you have an event coming up. Here’s how you might extend the life of your content by waiting to post elements of the event.

Date	Channel	What To Post
Day Before Event	FB or TW	We’re getting ready for X. Will we see you there?
Day of Event	FB TW or IG	Photo of getting ready for the event; expression of excitement for festivities.
During Event	FB TW or IG	Event coverage; frequency depends on size of event and fan base.
Later that Day OR Next Day	FB TW	More scenes from event and/or photo collection
Next 2-3 days	FB TW	Share media coverage of event; share what fans are saying/showing about event. Share what partners did during event
One Week Later	FB TW	Share video produced from event? Positive community action that happened due to your event.

Another advantage to this approach is that you will fight the time decay on your channels and most likely reach a larger cross section of your fans and followers. If your stories are spaced right and have a conversational tone, then the repetition will not be recognized as such and it will appear that you are telling the diverse elements of a bigger story.

This approach could become increasingly valuable for company page managers as Facebook continues to tweak its newsfeed toward personal pages and away from company updates. Twitter already favors repeating message themes.

So next time you have big news to share in your social channels, why not spread it out and see how it enhances engagement with your audience?

Fran Stephenson March 15, 2015 Leave a Comment

How to Find Content for Social Media

Finding content is a struggle for many of my clients. Even with a well-developed brand and strong marketing campaigns, many organizations have a tough time filling the spaces of their social media networks with content. Content is right under our noses if we know how to look for it.

“I just don’t know what to say,” is a phrase I hear repeatedly. That’s a sign that you’re overthinking the concept of content. It’s not like writing a brochure or a press release, although both are great sources of content for social networks. If it’s important enough to include in your organization’s brochure, you can bet some — or all of it — should find its way into your digital profiles too.

If the brochure provides the big picture, or the macro view of your company, then content is the micro view, or the small, up-close nuggets that bring the big picture to life.

There’s nothing more traditional and all-encompassing than the annual report. A good annual report gives a complete picture of a year in the life of an organization. It might be mailed, or shared online or both. It’s the macro view. And it’s the perfect place to start mining for those content nuggets for social media, or the micro view.

Here’s a brief example using elements from the annual report from ChildSafe, a Child Advocacy nonprofit in San Antonio, Texas. What could you pull from this annual report? Here’s a list:

Statistics about children assisted by the organization
Information about this community issue
Event photos
Volunteer recognition
Call for new volunteers
Donor recognition
Call for new donors
Ways for donors to give
Highlight programs funded by donors
Information about education and training
Efforts of community partners
Key staff and their roles
Board Members and their roles
Fundraising opportunities

Content is right under our noses if we know how to look for it. Just like the expression “can’t see the forest for the trees.” Lots of individual trees make up the forest, just like lots of pieces of content make up the story of an organization.

Fran Stephenson September 9, 2014 Leave a Comment

Facebook Reaches out to SMB with “Fit”

Small businesses are getting extra attention from Facebook these days. As the social network moves its users to a new blend of organic and paid content, Facebook users are becoming exposed to higher levels of paid advertising.

Individual users are unsure about how much advertising they want to see in the network. Businesses want to know more about using Facebook for advertising, but they have tons of questions. How does it work? How much should I spend? How do I measure success? Where do I get help?

These are all questions I get regularly from my clients; the result is that I conducted some very small experiments with Facebook ads, which you can see here and here .

The challenge for small businesses is that they already feel like they are wearing so many hats they do not feel capable of exploring or learning about one more thing.

Facebook is making an attempt to change that with its Facebook Fit program. This is a “road show” of seminars by Facebook itself. Earlier this summer, I attended a seminar in Austin that was geared to helping small businesses navigate advertising options and hear from similarly sized businesses on how they are using Facebook advertising.

The afternoon included a panel of small businesses who have successfully used Facebook advertising. The panel included the owner of a local restaurant and food truck; a local retail store with a robust e-commerce platform; a national jewelry brand; and a company with niche products for outdoors.

The method by which each of these businesses got involved in Facebook advertising ran the gamut. The restaurant owner started with a budget of 5 cents per day. Yes, cents. The national jewelry brand and the local retail store, on the other hand, had an integrated marketing budget and they slowly carved out dollars for Facebook advertising, based on their success with organic content, fan contributions and other factors.

They all seemed genuine. They all were realizing success with their marketing campaigns. They all believed in the benefits of Facebook advertising. Sure, Facebook invited them to the party and (by now) has a vested interest in their success.

As a group, though, their message was very clear.

Everyone on the business panel started out small. They tested. They learned from the tests. Then tried something new. They carved out budget for the ads. While the restaurant owner was spending $15 per month on ads, the retail store with the e-commerce platform was spending $500 a month once they integrated Facebook into their marketing campaign. It’s a smart approach.

Facebook claims that online ads have a 38% success rate, while ads on Facebook reach 89% success rate. This is not verified information, but is the benchmark they offered at the seminar.

How can you take advantage of this information so your business can begin exploring advertising on Facebook? There are a LOT of new features available to advertisers, some of which I have not yet tried, but will be testing in the coming weeks and months. Here is a rundown of some things available to small businesses.

Boosted Posts

This is where you take organic content and apply advertising dollars to it. You can target demographic and psychographic information, and the ad returns some good data when the “boost” money runs out.

Page Like Ads

Usually shows in the newsfeed, and users can rotate images seen and use same targeting as the boosted post. Also returns some good data.

Website Ad

Runs in the right-hand column and NOT in the newsfeed. Don’t have to have a Facebook page to link to it. You do have to be on Facebook to do Page Like Ads and Boosted Posts.

Conversion Measurement

This is newer than the ad types listed above, but allows you to track conversions (based on YOUR choices) after people view your ad. You set up the conversion pixel when you create the ad and it follows the visitor on the Web.

Lookalike Audience

Exactly as it sounds. You target your advertising based on page fans, website visitors or a database (see next section). Haven’t tried this yet, so I can’t offer any results.

Custom Audience

This option (in my mind) is troublesome. Here’s why. You take an existing list, like your email newsletter list, and upload it Facebook’s Power Editor feature. You can exclude current customers, target those “like” your current customers and other features. Facebook claims that it can’t actually see or reuse the lists you upload, but data security is a hot topic these days so I would have a lot of questions before I tried to use this feature.

There are many more features in the pipeline, including better mobile choices and better interface with applications.With Facebook Fit, the network is trying to be more responsive to small businesses. By their own admission, there are more than 30 million small businesses on their network, so it’s about time. They’ve even located their Small Business Division in Austin, which might mean more outreach opportunities.

I plan to test a new series of Page Like Ads and maybe even a lookalike audience and track conversions this fall. I would love to hear what you are trying on this network.

Fran Stephenson August 19, 2014 Leave a Comment

Three New Ways to Use LinkedIn

I’ve been using LinkedIn for more than 5 years and like many social networks, I have a love/hate relationship with it. When I love it, I am able to pass leads or professional information onto colleagues quickly and see what interesting blog posts are appearing around the Internet. When I hate it, I am being spammed by salespeople or being endorsed for skills that maybe I once had, but are not necessarily promoting at this stage of my career.

Good news. LinkedIn made a few tweaks in the last two weeks that will allow you to continue to target what you want to see and who you want to see on their network. I took a few of the new changes for a test drive over the weekend and here’s what I found.

Use LinkedIn as a Blog

If you have been hesitating about starting your own blog and loathe the idea of developing all that architecture, LinkedIn will be offering users the option to use their platform to publish. It’s being rolled out in phases, so if you itching to get started, you can request permission. I’ll point you in the right direction at the end of this post.

Prioritize Your Skills and Endorsements

This was the one feature on LinkedIn which I was beginning to HATE. While we all know how it works. The mysterious algorithm suggests to one of your connections some skill which a keyword says you might have in common. The suggestion appears when you log in and you say “yeah, Mary rocks at that.” And check the endorsement box. Many are accurate – in my skills and endorsements section, the majority are things I do and things I do WELL. However, I have never done fundraising, a skill for which I have been endorsed and saying I do “new media” well, that’s kind of old terminology, right?

Fortunately, you can now go in and tailor this section as well. First, you can re-order your skills, so even if you don’t have the most endorsements for a skill that you are focusing on, you can put it upfront. You can push down, hide or even delete skills you aren’t interesting in listing.

But here’s the best part of all! You can turn off the requests for endorsements. While I am grateful for the many connections who believed in my talent in one tactical area or another, I am weary of all the random requests for endorsements I get when I log in. As you can see from the graphic below, you have several other choices too.

List Your Volunteer Work

My favorite new thing (and something I’ve been asking for whenever LinkedIn sent me one of those surveys) is a section for Volunteering and Causes. Now future clients or employers get an immediate sense of your work in the community. And they’ve taken it one step further. You can check a box to say you’re LOOKING for a cause or a board appointment.

You can find these and more ideas for beefing up your LinkedIn profile on this post from the LinkedIn Blog.

Fran Stephenson August 14, 2014 2 Comments

Don’t Steal Stuff: Give Credit Where Credit is Due

We all learned the concept of giving proper credit in school. In research and composition, we called it “giving attribution.” The concept is not new and ethical communicators have always been very careful about using attribution.

The intense competition for activity on social networks, however, is making attribution a hot topic once again. The most recent “poster child” for lack of attribution involves a clever deception. A prolific Facebook user claims videos as his own, using a large FB following and advanced video capture software to re-post and re-claim videos. This story on Steamfeed explains it with a lot of images.

I won’t send you to the actual videos the story claims he has stolen, because then you’re giving more views to a piece of content with questionable credibility.

Is this obvious theft? Some say it is. At the very least, it violates the ethics of a number of organizations, and is not a good business practice — most of us would never counsel our clients to engage in this kind of behavior. It does serve as a great reminder of things that smart business owners can to do make sure that they are sharing well-sourced material.

Practice Digital Literacy

It’s so easy to get caught up in the excitement and flow of information on social networking sites, but it’s too easy to lose track of where you are. Be digitally literate by following the guidelines in Andrea Weckerle’s book Civility in the Digital Age. She offers three principles for examining credibility of sources:

Examine the source of the information
Examine authorship
Examine credibility of the information

“Our modern challenge now consists of trying to sift through the mass amount of data at our fingertips and find qualitative and credible information,” Weckerle says in the book (page 173).

Curate Carefully

As a business person, you no doubt are trying to navigate the mix of content creation and content curation, by sharing things that might interest your fans and followers or things that might align with your brand. Curating carefully includes clicking through to the original source of the material and making sure the site is legitimate and the author transparent.

Give Attribution Freely

Even if you’ve asked permission from a photographer to use a photo, or are forwarding something (like creating a Pin on Pinterest), give additional clarity to the communication with attribution in your accompanying text. Something like: “special thanks to Sue Smith for giving us permission to use this photo.” Michelle Phan, the famed YouTube makeup demonstrator, might be rethinking the concept of attribution, as she is currently being sued by a record company for use of a piece of music in one of her videos. According to the story in Media Bistro, millions of dollars are at stake.

Protect Your Assets

For media creators, it’s important to protect the assets you own. The first line of defense is to copyright your work, but that won’t keep people from using things without your permission. Many of today’s writers and artists are so willing to share their work, that they implement Creative Commons Licensing. In many cases, the person who desires to use the work need only link back to the creator when they use it. Sounds simple, right?

Not always.

Nan Palmero, a business and technology expert, has a robust Flickr site and shares hundreds of photos. He simple asks that the user link back to his website or his Flickr feed. But recently, he’s come across two sites who wouldn’t comply.

“I hate it when people and brands do this. I’m experiencing this with movoto.com right now. They keep using my photos for their “listicles” and I want them to link back but all they do is put my name on it,” says Palmero. “I don’t find that to be sufficient “payment” for using my photos. People should be compensated the way they want for their content. If the buyer feels the price is too steep, you don’t sell.”

How does he discover these violations?

“I do a Google search for my name, periodically. If I see use without a link back, I send a tweet or email asking to have it fixed. 9 out of 10 times people comply.”

Whether it’s videos, music photography or written works, everyone deserves credit for their original creations.

Part 2 in the Outside Channel Managers Series

Onboarding Existing Channels

State of the Channels

Secure the Channels

Check All the Images

Sound Strategy Is the Key

The Right Tool for the Right Job

Communicating From the Outside

We’re Just Getting Started

Should you ever hide Facebook posts?

Comment Type Number 1: Negative

Comment Type Number 2: Irrelevant

Comment Type Number 3: Unreasonable

Comment Type Number 4: Violates Policy

Want to Rock Social Media for Your Brand? Here’s How:

Boosted Posts

Page Like Ads

Website Ad

Conversion Measurement

Lookalike Audience

Custom Audience

Use LinkedIn as a Blog

Prioritize Your Skills and Endorsements

List Your Volunteer Work

Practice Digital Literacy

Curate Carefully

Give Attribution Freely

Protect Your Assets

Lighten Up

Time-Shift

Try Something New

Plan Ahead

Step In Communication

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