2011 - Page 19 of 27 - AHA Creative Strategies

Planning Out Social Media Engagement

At our Vancouver PR agency we have been working with several clients to define social media usage policies and strategies. While each organization is different – and the policies and strategies need to reflect that – it is interesting to see the trends in how social media is being perceived and use today. It is certainly more commonplace as organizations from government to large private companies to small businesses move towards integrating social media into their overall marketing and communications outreach. For some organizations it appears that throughout the organization – including the senior executive – there is a better understanding that social media can’t be controlled. That’s an important shift and one that is opening up new approaches to social media.

I came across this interesting case study on how Texas Instruments works with employees to help them understand social media and their role online. This U.S.-based organization is providing training for employees, helping them to become conversation agents.

There is a balance that needs to happen for social media to work in any size organization. In a larger one, it does take some additional planning. There is an expectation that those participating in social media on behalf of an organization or brand will have some freedom to be themselves, to share information and stories about the organization and their role there, and to authentically engage. As important as that it, it is also crucial that anyone representing your brand or organization understands what is acceptable and what isn’t. If you don’t let employees know what is ok to share and what isn’t, you aren’t providing them with the proper knowledge to participate effectively on social media sites.

What happens when 100 or 1000 people are social media ambassadors for your organization? How can a communications team make sure that valuable, relevant, interesting information is being shared? That’s where training and planning comes in. A great outreach campaign isn’t random, it’s effective and efficient – and great content needs to be planned out. This doesn’t mean that individuals can’t be themselves, but it means that they aren’t tripping over each other and they are providing information that matter to stakeholders – which is the main reason you are using social media, right?

Get organized, define your voice, identify your boundaries, plan out your content like a magazine or TV news show would and your stakeholders will be much more interested in what your organization has to say on social media sites.

At our Vancouver PR agency, we’re big fans of Ragan.com and we love surveys and reports. That means that today was a great Monday, when I saw the daily Ragan PR news come in and there was a piece entitled 3 Social Media Challenges For Communicators To Face by 2015. And it is backed up by a report.

If you are interested in building an online community or network, this is an important piece to read. It has some solid information on the benefits and challenges, and along with being able to download the entire report, you can also download a tips and hints document.

Content is important; we all know that. Relevant, engaging, informative and entertaining content is a must. Well-written content, to AHA, means more than it just being interesting. It means that it should be grammatically correct, it should be cogent and it should have a solid flow.

Blogs, like this one, have a little bit of leeway because it is written in a more conversational manner. (It would still bother me if there was a typo or other error in this blog.) Anything that is shared internally or externally should be reviewed. Here at our Vancouver PR agency, we have an editing and proofing process that we strictly follow. The input of the crew is important and each person is encouraged to question not just the information presented, but the style, tone and the word structure and grammar. It isn’t always easy or comfortable to do this, but it is important.

Warning: Longer blog post – I’ve had a thought running around my brain all weekend and now it’s time for it to come out!

We have a lot of brainstorming meetings internally at our Vancouver PR agency and with our clients. Creative concepts for campaigns, developing story ideas for pitching journalists, bloggers and other social media communities, events, speeches, content for newsletters. The list goes on and on. As creative as we can be (and we can be quite creative), when we brainstorm there is always a focus on the business objective and on the relevance of the concept we develop.

We have a good reputation with journalists and bloggers for pitching them with newsworthy, relevant ideas. I learned a great deal about writing a solid pitch when I was at Maclean’s – we saw a lot of good, bad and really, really ugly pitches come in and I was fortunate not just to have my take on them, but to hear what my colleagues thought made a pitch relevant enough for them to want to find out more about the idea. We also have a smart crew here at AHA, who put their experience and expertise to the task and who review pitches and put forward additional ideas and concepts because our focus is always on creating something interesting and of value that catches the attention of the journalist or blogger we are pitching.

I had a discussion last week that really got me thinking about the importance of relevance when it comes to pitching. I know that there are sometimes challenges internally at organizations when it comes to defining what makes a good story. When you work for an organization you can lose perspective on the bigger picture. Sometimes, what is huge news for the people of a company or organization isn’t relevant to a journalist or blogger. It doesn’t take away the importance of the initiative, it’s just about who will find the information relevant and interesting.

PR people all have stories of clients who say to them X publication or Y broadcast news outlet should run this story – when, in fact, the story isn’t relevant to the readership or audience of that media outlet. It’s our job to make sure that when a pitch or news release goes out to media, it is of value to the media and bloggers that it goes to. Sometimes that means having a tough conversation with clients and explaining why something isn’t newsworthy outside of their internal newsletter.

I got to thinking about this on the weekend and I think that, with social media, individuals involved in organizations are becoming more and more involved in sharing information. In many ways, that’s a great thing. The challenge is that if people are being tasked with creating content – whether it is a tweet, a blog post, a Facebook update or a pitch, these people need to be given the tools of identifying what is relevant, being able to clearly showcase how this content supports the organization’s business objectives and how it fits in with the overall business strategy and the communications strategy.

I know how easy it can be to watch a morning news show or local talk show and think we should be on there. A good communicator goes through an in-depth process, looking at what the business objective is, to identify the media and/or bloggers that are relevant to the organization (what newspapers, magazines, radio or TV news does your target market consume?) what the story is, how that story can be put forward to specific media in a way to showcase its relevance and value to their audience/readers.

I think one of the challenges that organizations are starting to face is making sure that everyone involved with communication – whether they are in the communication department or not – understands how to effectively communicate. That it isn’t about what you want to tell people, it’s about what they are interested in hearing and how you build information into a compelling story. I do sessions with groups that talk about what needs to be done in order to generate media or blogger coverage or to create positive information sharing on social media networks and I can’t tell you how often someone in the session puts forward the arrogant assumption that because it’s important to them (or the organization), that it SHOULD be important to media or bloggers. That’s when we role-play the pitch to the journalist (me) and I start poking holes in their approach (respectfully, of course).

Collectively, the media experience at AHA is well over 100 years. We take this component of our work very seriously because each time we reach out to a journalist or blogger with a pitch, not only is it the reputation of our client being put forward – it’s ours too. If a journalist or blogger thinks you regularly send them information that isn’t relevant to their readers, listeners or viewers, you lose credibility. We don’t want that for our clients.