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October 26, 2012The Power of Assessments
October 26, 2012by Lori Smith
Everyone is talking about social media these days and telling you to get on board. What does this mean for your organization? Where do you start? Below are six essential things you should be doing online with a list of tools to get you started.
Step 1: Listen
Find out what other people are saying about your organization. How do they interpret your mission and goals? Do they see your organization the same way as you do? By listening you can gain insight into what your constituents think and this can help you craft conversation starters, figure out the best way to start engaging, identify social content to incorporate into your content strategy, identify potential influencers or “brand ambassadors” and potentially address a crises early in the game.
Tools for Listening:
Step 2: Set Goals
This might seem obvious but a lot of people get so caught up with the hype of social media they forget to ask, Why? What do you hope to accomplish from getting on Twitter and Facebook? How will you define “success”?
By setting specific goals that align with your organizational objectives it becomes much easier to execute, manage and measure your social media strategy and deliver results.
Goal Setting Resources:
- Integrated Content Strategy
example: an organization’s spreadsheets for measuring social media impact - Social Marketing Analytics
example: Altimeter Report slide show by J. Owyang
Step 3: Engage
Social media is all about conversations, sharing stories and building relationships. This takes time and effort. It is also takes a real person.
No one wants to interact with a faceless brand. So put a real person (not the student intern please!) behind twitter and facebook accounts. Don’t just promote your organization, tell stories, even personal messages, create a personality.
Also respond quickly. People love getting a response directly and quickly. This makes them feel important and engaged and more likely to try your resources and recommend you to their friends.
Step 4: Share
Now that you’ve shared stories and listened, experiment with different sharing platforms and be innovative. You can use videos, blogs, tweets, discussion and answers on Linked In. See which platform works best with your constituents.
Sharing Content Tools:
Step 5: Re-Evaluate
Are you reaching the right audience? Is it worth your time to tweet everyday or are more of your constituents on LinkedIn? Do people actually visit your facebook page? Can people find your website quickly from these channels?
Ask the right questions, go back to your original goal and re-strategize based on the feedback. You want to make sure your time is well spent.
Measuring Tools:
- 2010 Nonprofit Social Network Benchmark Report
- Altimeter Report: Social Marketing Analytics
- How to use Facebook Insights to Measure Engagement
- Microsoft Excel / google spreadsheet – example: Beth Kanter’s Actionable measurement for Social Media template
- Facebook Insights
- Google Analytics
Step 6: Connect
Social media should be integrated into your daily activities. Develop a process to pool your content, streamline the content by category and disseminate it strategically. If you have events coming up, make sure the messaging is consistent across all your web platforms. Automate tasks that are repetitious or mundane. Finally, create a “force field” around tasks you don’t like doing and move towards tasks you are passionate about. The passion will come through and in the end this will be most effective in engaging followers.
Lori Smith is a technology and social web trainer with a passion for helping non-profits in their social media and web development strategies. She is also the Projects and Partnerships Manager at the Toronto Workforce Innovation Group — a leading edge research and partnership organization in support of Toronto’s workforce development.
