a social business plan for medium-sized organizations

Social Media Plan for Medium Sized Organizations (Draft Version 0.7.3)

Copyright The Lab, http://thelabinboston.com

A Social Media Plan for your medium sized organizations

If you have been reading the news, blogs, heck, even tea leaves, you’ve probably picked up on the

fact that a lot of people seem to be excited by social media. While there is hype, I want to urge you

to focus on one message that is absolutely true.

If you are not listening on social channels you’re missing out.

This book is intended to provide you with a map to guide you and your company in your efforts to dip

your toes in the social waters. This is for any company with more than 20 and no more than 500

employees that have customers engaging on social networks. If you do not fall into this target group,

I would still give this a read as you can still make use of some of this information. Pull up a chair and

let’s chat.

This is also for organizations struggling to understand if social media is useful for them and is intended

to help them dip their toes into the social media waters. Businesses need to invest time, sometimes

several months, understanding the social landscape; truly understanding it. This book will help you to

start listening, finding your voice, and starting to engage with your customers and potential

customers.

Throughout this book we will discuss The Social Ecosystem. I have spent a lot of time speaking with

businesses and government agencies, exploring what is working, what is failing, and seeking to

understand where confusion and hype are preventing these organizations from achieving full value

from their efforts. The Social Ecosystem is the result of this work and is meant to reduce confusion

and offer guidance for organizations across the world.



Table of Contents What is The Social Ecosystem? ................................................................................................................ 4

Do you need Social Media?...................................................................................................................... 5

Your social media business case .............................................................................................................. 6

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY ..................................................................................................................... 6

ALTERNATIVES ................................................................................................................................. 6

BENEFITS ......................................................................................................................................... 6

RISKS ............................................................................................................................................... 7

COSTS .............................................................................................................................................. 7

ROI .................................................................................................................................................. 7

ASSUMPTIONS ................................................................................................................................. 7

PROJECT DETAILS ............................................................................................................................. 7

Your first social media hire ...................................................................................................................... 9

Before we begin… Some stats… ....................................................................................................... 9

Great stats, now what? .................................................................................................................... 9

The first thirty days for your new social media hire ................................................................................ 12

How do they start out? .................................................................................................................. 12

Where do they start? ..................................................................................................................... 12

Your CIO ........................................................................................................................................ 13

Your CFO, Your CMO, and Your VP of Services and Support............................................................ 14

Start to listen, passively at first ...................................................................................................... 14

Listen ............................................................................................................................................. 15

Engagement .................................................................................................................................. 15

Your social media usage guidelines ........................................................................................................ 16

OVERVIEW ..................................................................................................................................... 16

LICENSING ..................................................................................................................................... 17

DEFINITIONS .................................................................................................................................. 17

GUIDELINES ................................................................................................................................... 17

Setting up your twitter account (s) ........................................................................................................ 19

Before we begin, some basics to keep in mind ............................................................................... 19

Who should have a Twitter account? ............................................................................................. 20



What should people be doing once they are on Twitter? ............................................................... 20

The importance of the Twitter Retweet ......................................................................................... 22

Setting up your blog .............................................................................................................................. 24

How do you get started? ................................................................................................................ 24

Boring, I want to start blogging ...................................................................................................... 24

Your Social Business Goals ............................................................................................................. 26

Setting up your Facebook Page .............................................................................................................. 27

Getting people to Like your page ................................................................................................... 27

Your Advocates .............................................................................................................................. 28

All members ................................................................................................................................. 29

How do I know if any of this is working? ........................................................................................ 30

Want to learn more about Facebook? Check out these books (affiliate links) ................................ 30

Using Yammer ....................................................................................................................................... 31

What is Yammer? .......................................................................................................................... 31

Who can see my stuff? ................................................................................................................... 31

Yammer Do’s and Donts ................................................................................................................ 31

Setting up your YouTube Channel .......................................................................................................... 33

Setting up other channels ...................................................................................................................... 34

Other best practices .............................................................................................................................. 35

Case Studies .......................................................................................................................................... 36

Other feedback ..................................................................................................................................... 37



What is The Social Ecosystem? The Social Ecosystem provides a structure within which all types of organizations live and interact.

This ecosystem is open and inclusive of both public and private organizations and remains

independent of geography and language.

In very simple terms The Social Ecosystem is a framework for a common language, a common set of

practices to help organizations of all types across all geographies to deal with the 80% of challenges

that are common across all types of organizations. The remaining 20% is where organizational and

marketplace differences come in, and where people should be focusing their time. There is no need to

constantly complicate this process and regularly re-invent the wheel.

Within The Social Ecosystem lives The Social Organization. Organizations ranging from small and

medium businesses to enterprises to local and federal governments (and so on) are all social

organizations.

The Social Ecosystem is channel-neutral and does not promote any specific tools or vendors. It will

stay open and independent.



Do you need Social Media? Whether you are already using social media or not you should regularly evaluate if your current

strategy and tactics are right for the market now. What made sense six months ago may not make

sense now. As you evaluate, ask yourself these questions.



Your social media business case

In order to be successful with social media you must start with a clear understanding of your goals.

Yes, I will continue saying that until everyone I talk to repeats “start with the goal in mind”. Please

repeat after me…. Start with the goal in mind.

The Social Organization should always start off their efforts with a business case. A business case that

clearly explains the purpose of leveraging social media is critical. A business case that explains the

cost and the expected return on the investment is a must. This template should help you define your

organization’s business case.

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

Explain the purpose for your project, what goals are you trying to accomplish? Include a summary

of:

How much will this project cost in terms of time and money?

How much money will this project earn or save the organization?

How long will it take to see a return on this investment? For example, the return on investment

(ROI) over three years will be 82% with a payback period of 18 months.

ALTERNATIVES

What other options exist for meeting this goal? Decision makers want to know that you have

considered other options, make it clear that you have.

Explain the other options you have considered.

Include the do nothing option. There is always the option to do nothing. Explain why action is

required.

Why did the other options fall short?

What is the cost of the other options and the ROI you would see from the rejected options?

BENEFITS

Dig deeper now, beyond the executive summary, about what this will benefit The Social Organization.

Look at internal and external benefits.



Define real numbers and avoid, as much as possible, weak terms like transparency

and engagement. You are asking for money, make your case.

Explain how you will measure, how you will confirm, that you are on track.

RISKS

What are the risk to the organization if it does not embrace this plan?

COSTS

Provide all cost associated with this effort. Include:

Software

Consulting services

Maintenance fees

Training

In the Executive Summary you explained the total costs. It is your goal to explain where this one

number came from, including all the miscellaneous pieces of the project that brought you to this one

cost number.

ROI

Yes, ROI. I know many people argue that you cannot measure the ROI of social business,

government 2.0, and social media strategies and tactics. They are wrong. If you are asking for

money you had better understand the return you expect to see from this investment. Some people

point to KPIs vs. ROI. KPIs are the levers that control your business engine. If you do not yet

understand how these levers impact your business goals, figure that out now.

ASSUMPTIONS

Be clear about what you are assuming, who you have discussed these assumptions with, and what

you have done to confirm that your assumptions are correct.

PROJECT DETAILS

Provide as much information about the project as possible, fleshing out the executive summary.



Remember, the budget holders in The Social Organization, along with other leaders, are responsible

for maximizing the impact of their investments. Explain how your efforts, the project you are

proposing, will help them carry out this mission. Partner with them and you can make your project a

reality.



Your first social media hire

Before we begin… Some stats…

According to a recent report on Pew Internet “the median age of a Twitter user is 31, which has

remained stable over the past year. The median age for MySpace is now 26, down from 27 in May

2008, and the median age for LinkedIn is now 39, down from 40. Facebook, however, is graying a

bit: the median age for this social network site is now 33, up from 26 in May 2008.”

According to a recent study by Business.com of 1900 social media professionals:

o 65% have less than 2 years of experience working with social media.

o The companies represented by these professionals are just as new to the ballgame with 71%

having less than 2 years of experience with Social Media.

o In 66% of these companies the marketing department leads the social media efforts.

o In 23% of these companies the customer service department leads the social media efforts.

While I was unable to find a perfect match for this position on Salary.com, I selected the Market

Research Analyst on Salary.com, for the Boston area, to try and give you an idea of the salary

range this position might require.

o The junior position (less than 2 years experience) of Market Research Analyst 1, at the 75th

percentile, calls for an average of approximately $63,000 per year.

o The next level (2 to 4 years of experience) is Market Research Analyst 2. Again, at the 75th

percentile, Salary.com calls for an average of approximately $73,000 per year.

Great stats, now what?

I feel that, ultimately, you will need to form a joint department with marketing and customer service

jointly leading the charge on your social media efforts. You need your efforts to be customer-centric

and these two groups understand that need best. With that in mind, here are some thoughts on

experience, skills, etc.., you should be looking for in this candidate.

Experience levels

o This person must understand your company, your culture. If you have someone in your

customer service or marketing team that meets the majority of the other the other

requirements, shift them into this new role.

http://pewinternet.org/Reports/2009/17-Twitter-and-Status-Updating-Fall-2009.aspx



o If you do not have the right person in-house, remember that I will not be around all the time.

You are paying me a l, I will help, but you should look for someone with 3 – 4 years of

experience. This will put you ahead of most companies and get you off on the right foot.

Writing, speaking, grunting, and other modes of communication

o During the interview ask the candidate to define how your company is helping it’s customers.

Can they talk the talk?

o During the interview ask the candidate how their own personal brand can benefit your

company? Are they walking the walk?

o Give them a homework exercise to send you an email, roughly 500 words, that could be used as

a blog post to introduce your company and it’s value to existing customers. When you get this,

share it with people in customer service and marketing… How good is it?

Social networking experience

o They must have existing accounts on Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn. Anyone who is not

participating on these networks is living in the 1990s and does not understand the importance

of social networking.

o What other social networks do they use? I would also give them bonus points for any other

social networks they are on as long as they can explain the personal or business value of that

social network.

o The candidate should be familiar with the key social networks they will be utilizing in this job.

The following numbers are not absolutes. However, as you review the numbers make

sure you ask them about what makes each of these social communities stand out. Who do they

most interact with? For Twitter, how did they attract their followers? How have these

communities benefited them, personally or professionally?

The candidate should have at least 1000 twitter followers.

The candidate should have at least 100 Facebook friends.

o Ideally the person has a blog, demonstrating an understanding, at least at some level, of how to

express their voice.

o Ask them about their favorite blogs, they need to live this stuff.

Candidate Questions



o The candidate has hopefully done their homework and is asking you great questions about your

business, your marketplace.

o The candidate should ask you about why you’re investing in social media. I hope…

o The candidate should mention me by name, just saying.

The above are just a few examples, you need to determine fit within the company and we all know

interviews are not perfect. Don’t screw it up, though, I will be watching.



The first thirty days for your new social media hire

Now, you have your new employee in place, you’ve read all the articles, what do their first thirty

days look like?

How do they start out? Well, hopefully you’ve thought about this already even though I’ve left it out of the series until now….

Who will this new employee work for? Let me make one thing clear as I write this post. In the long

run I feel you need to have a combined team within which both customer support and marketing

functions reside. We are not there yet, though, so my answer is….. Marketing…

To be honest with you, I went back and forth on this answer a dozen times, there are great

arguments for either function to own it.

Regardless of the team that this person reports into it, ensure that the person also reports in a

dotted-line fashion to the other team.

In the end I chose marketing because it is important that the person understands how to define and

articulate a corporate voice, a corporate identify.

At the same time this person must avoid the urge to generate leads, they must focus on helping

existing customers, and potential new customers, in finding solutions.

They are a corporate good citizen with a primary purpose of just helping. Remember that I told you

not to focus on ROI in year one? You will see it but do not focus on it, not now.

Where do they start?

Repeat after me, this is not a sales role. Repeat after me, this is a sales role. While this person is not

looking to sell externally they had better be good at selling internally. In three months the CFO is

going to be asking for results, the CIO will be trying to make the role more efficient, and the CMO will

wonder why they haven’t had one good press release come out of this damn experiment.

Sit down with all teams and understand their needs and concerns. Nothing in life is black and white,

but, as a starting point, understand:

Your CIO is concerned that you’re going to open up holes, leading to viruses, worms, and other

assorted threats.



Your CFO is onboard with the experiment but it had better not cost much as you are not promising

any ROI.

Your CMO is excited about exploring these new channels and is wondering how long it will take for

qualified leads to flow in.

Your VP of Services and Support is excited but skeptical. They have heard that this might reduce

the team’s workload and make them more responsive to their customers, which is great, but they’re

worried it might just be hype.

Your VP of Sales is trying to determine if they can add some numbers to the forecast.

…..

Your CIO

The CIO is worried about corporate security and they should be. Okay, sit down with your CIO or IT

team and discuss:

How does Social fit into the Accepted Use Guidelines?

o Ultimately you may want every employee on social networks. However, especially in the

beginning, focus on getting your key message carriers on board. Work with the CIO to get

every executive team member, key members of your support and marketing team, and

yourself, permission to use corporate computers for “approved” social networking activities.

o For some companies this is a non-issue, for others it is a major issue. However, even if your

company is “wide-open” bring in the CIO and get them on-board with this effort. You need their

support.

What Corporate Governance and Compliance Guidelines do you need to be aware of?

o This will vary by industry but you must seek to understand the issues at play. This is beyond

the immediate scope of this post but I’ll come back to it in a later post.

What are the guidelines around installing software on corporate machines? You are going to start

off with some solid web applications and you are not looking to house sensitive data outside of the

corporate walls (in year one). However, discuss the applications you will be looking to work with

initially in your passive listening phase, applications like Google Reader, Gist, Facebook, LinkedIn,

Twitter, MySpace (?), and others depending on industry.



Are there bandwidth limitations you should be sensitive too? Do you want to avoid posting that

YouTube video?

Your CFO, Your CMO, and Your VP of Services and Support

Work closely with the CFO to define the metrics you are working with in year one and understand the

metrics they want you to track as they look at ROI going into year two. In year one the size of your

twitter community matters…. However, it’s also critical to be able to track things like:

How many leads were generated from each channel vs. the time spent working in that channel?

How many calls were deflected by knowledge base articles, community tweets?

and much more…

Start to listen, passively at first

After getting buy-in from the CIO, branding input from your CMO, get your accounts setup on the

following networks:

Facebook. Setup a Fan site.

o Ask every employee in the company to become a fan of the company.

Twitter. Setup a corporate site, and one for each of the people identified above.

o Use sites like Tweepml and Tweepsearch to identify key journalist, analyst, and other decision

makers. Follow them all. As a result of this simple action some percentage of them will begin

to follow you back.

o Do not follow back people to game the system and gain followers. Focus on the quality of the

people you follow first.

Setup a YouTube Account.

Make sure the Company’s LinkedIn Profile is Right.

Setup an account on Gist.

Setup a Google Reader Account.

o As with Twitter identify the key players in your market including competitors, partners, vendors,

customers, thought leaders, etc.. Setup RSS feeds for all of them.

o Setup RSS feeds for key magazines and blogs.



o Setup and RSS feed for my blog.

o Perform google blog searches, by date, for key words and phrases and copy/paste that URL into

your Google reader. You’ll get updates as new data is added, very powerful.

Setup an account on SlideShare.

Setup an account on myBrainshark.

Listen

Alright, sit back, listen to the social chatter that is underway. While there are great tools that will do

the following for you, at a price, I don’t want you to start with the complex tools as I want you to be

very hands on early on. Construct a simple spreadsheet that tracks, on a weekly basis:

Number of mentions your company receives per week.

Number of mentions key corporate team members (like your CMO, CEO) receive each week.

Number of mentions your competition receives per week.

Number of positive, neutral, and negative stories you find each week.

Engagement

Using a combination of your personal and corporate Twitter account feel free to engage but do not

“sell”, just add value. If someone is looking for statistics related to your market, point them out.

Someone looking for conferences that might be useful? Point them out.



Your social media usage guidelines

Rules…. Guidelines…. It does not matter if you are in the 38% of companies blocking social media

(in the United States), are leaving social media access wide open, or are looking to strategically

leverage The Social Ecosystem. Guidelines about what is, and is not, acceptable, are critical to the

success of your Social Organization.

There are hundreds of great examples of real-world Social Usage Guidelines available across the web.

This post is providing you with a template that you can use to create a set of guidelines for your

organization, your Social Organization.

Note that any set of organizational guidelines need to be regularly enforced. I would recommend that

Social Organizations review these with new employees and give regular, quarterly is best, training

sessions for all employees. The use of social media is too much a part of how people live to simply

train once and expect people to remember your rules.

Also note, only 20% of companies worldwide have a policy for their employees (according to

Manpower, see below). Do not make this mistake.

Without further ado, here is our template.

OVERVIEW

You should make it clear, at the top of your guidelines, that the document applies to both internal and

external usage of social media strategies and tool. Helping people understand that different expected

behaviors on both sides of their home/work life is critical for establishing guidelines that make sense

to everyone.

http://thejohnfmoore.com/the-social-ecosystem/

http://johnfmoore.files.wordpress.com/2010/07/socialmediapolicies.png



Clearly note that this guideline document is supplemental to other existing employee guidelines such

as the employee handbook.

LICENSING

Clearly state ownership rules for content created by your employees. I favor the use of Creative

Commons, as used on my blog, but what you use is dependent upon your market, your business, your

legal team. Whatever model is used simply make it clear in the licensing section.

Note that you may also have exceptions in place worth noting. For example, perhaps research

information follows one licensing model while marketing information follows another. The rules are up

to you, of course, just make them clear.

If you are interested in learning more about Creative Commons check out their web site.

DEFINITIONS

Take the time to clearly define the terms being used by your organization. The State Department’s

Social Guidelines provides a good example.

GUIDELINES

While the guidelines you define will reflect your Social Organization there are some basics that I feel

you should add. These include:

There should be different expectations and guidelines established around the use of personal and

organizational accounts.

o Provide guidance on how to indicate if the account is private or organization owned.

o Make it clear that personal accounts reflect personal opinions, not the opinions of the

organization.

Be clear about what happens if your employees fail to follow the guidelines. No one wins if you are

unclear.

Note that employee goals and objectives, or equivalent, will go into more detail about how these

tools fit into their job function and that achieving defined goals remains the number one priority.

Provide guidance on the use of appropriate language

Provide guidance on the types of information that can, and cannot be, shared.

http://creativecommons.org/

http://www.state.gov/documents/organization/144186.pdf

http://www.state.gov/documents/organization/144186.pdf



Provide guidance on how to respond to various request types (e.g. customer service or sales

requests).

Remind employees to listen first, respond second.

Be clear that comments made are always on the record when responding through the organization’s

accounts.

Be clear about ownership. If you respond to customer through a social channel the

customer considers you the owner of their questions. Don’t fail them.

Let me know if there are other pieces you would like to see added.



Setting up your twitter account (s)

Twitter may, or may not, be the winner when the dust settles on the micro-blogging space. However,

it is the clear leader now and is a social channel you cannot ignore. Twitter is a great doorway into

the social business space. Your goal is to keep the door open, listening to the relevant conversations

that are going on, stepping out and adding value when you can, inviting people in to engage in richer

conversations on broader social platforms where engagement, and therefore relationships, can grow.

While I am writing these posts out-of-order I am assuming you’re following the plan in order. Hey, do

as I say, not as I do. As a refresher, you should have your first social media employee on board, you

are still paying me consulting fees, and we have a plan to execute on. With regards to Twitter you are

supposed to have a Twitter Account for your business and for each of your executives by February. As

a business you will have at least 2000 followers and each executive will have at least 500 followers by

the end of the year. Get rocking.

Before we begin, some basics to keep in mind

Who owns your Twitter thoughts, your Twitter Community? Let me be clear that this concept is one of

those that I find, personally, ridiculous. If you build relationships with other individuals the idea that

you may not “own” those relationships rubs me the wrong way. However, we’re discussing business

here so lets focus on the reality. Since I have not yet written that section of the plan I wanted to

point you to a good post by Jeremiah Owyang that touches on some of the basics.

In short, my guidelines are that accounts that contain clear corporate references, CommunispaceCEO,

as an example, should be owned by the employee’s company. When Diane moves onto her next

great adventure thew new CEO should take over the account. However, personal accounts, like

JohnFMoore, that reference individual names, are maintained by the individual and go with them.

Remember, this is not legal advice, I do not even play an attorney on television.

Your social media employee should already be ahead of the game and have locked down the Accepted

Use Guidelines with your CIO. Again, I have not yet written this section but here are some important

things to keep in mind, items I will include when I get to that section.

Follow the common sense guidelines of avoiding discussions of politics, religion, sex.

If you are in a regulated industry, have your legal team sign-off on the work-related topics you can

discuss.

http://www.web-strategist.com/blog/2009/10/28/your-company-may-own-your-tweets-pokes-and-youtube-videos/

http://www.twitter.com/communispaceceo

http://twitter.com/JohnFMoore



Never discuss customers by name unless the customer has given you permission.

Yes, there will be much more coming in separate posts on this subject.

Who should have a Twitter account?

The short answer is that every “personality” that you want to expose to the world at large should have

a Twitter account. At a minimum, I want you to set up the following accounts: A personal Twitter

account for each C-level executive in the company; A corporate account for your CEO; A corporate

Support account. I would encourage a thoughtful analysis of all of your key externally focused

employees as you should have them setup personal twitter accounts as well. As you setup these

accounts:

Ensure that each personal account has a real photo of the employee. The corporate accounts

should use your logo.

Ensure the biographies for each personal account highlights the employees role, the company they

work for, their areas of expertise.

Ensure the corporate bio gives the elevator pitch for the company. Short, sweet, to the point.

Never setup the account to protect your updates, you want people seeing what you are talking

about, no secrecy.

Have a professional design the Twitter backgrounds for the corporate accounts.

Keep the personal account backgrounds a little less professional but ensure that everyone, at the

very least, uses one of the standard Twitter Themes.

What should people be doing once they are on Twitter?

While there is no one-sized fits all answer, remember that Twitter is a doorway to richer engagement,

it’s not the platform for solving the world’s woes and I do not expect another Pax Romana to occur

due to conversations taking place there.

Find people to follow. Using a client like Tweetdeck setup some very simple searches based upon

your role (#cio, #ceo, #cfo, #cmo), your marketplace (#e20, #crm, #healthcare), your location

(Boston, Rome, Tokyo) and so on. Determine who is discussing topics you find interesting and start

following them.

Tweet, at a minimum, 3 or 4 times a day



Spend minimal time talking about the company but discuss the market you are in.

For personal accounts, do not hand off updating to your staff, do it yourself.

Focus on adding value, not on pitching your company or service. Respond to others, use

RTs (retweets), post links to interesting and relevant articles. Your first two or three months on

Twitter should not have anything at all to do with your business. Focus on becoming a valuable

member of the community first .

Remember that people do want to know more about the people in the community. You should

share some personal information. However, I would not send more than 5 – 10% personal tweets

and remember that whatever you write will be on the web forever.

When you have a phone conversation, a non-confidential meeting, or exchange ideas via e-mail or a

social channel with someone who’s twitter name you know, give them a public shout out, thanking

them for their time and their insights. It is always appreciated.

Have your CRM system setup to capture Twitter IDs. Store these for your staff and for those you

interact with. You will want to leverage this information in 2011.

I know that there is much, much, more to write, but I’ll end here. I hope you find this useful and

please add your comments as we all will benefit.



The importance of the Twitter Retweet

Microsoft Research came out with some very interesting research looking specifically at the act of

retweeting on Twitter. If you’d like to read the full paper it is available for download in PDF format.

Note that the following Twitter pros were behind the research:

Danah Boyd, Microsoft Research, @zephoria

Scott Golder, Cornell / Microsoft Research, @redlog

Gilad Lota, Microsoft, @gilgul

The research is particularly interesting to me as the Twitter retweet is one of the most important ways

to achieve value on Twitter and is often poorly used. While there are a number of reasons that people

retweet, the ones that are most important:

While not specifically noted via their research, you should share great information as a way of

helping your community while promoting your knowledge and awareness of certain topics.

Making your presence known to others. These people could be potential customers, business

partners, or mentors.

As an act of friendship. You cannot succeed without the help of “friends”, help others, good Karma

does exist in this world.

As part of their analysis they reviewed a random sample of 203,371 retweets from 107,116 unique

users. They observed the following (these results quoted directly from their paper):

18% of retweets contain a hashtag

52% of retweets contain a URL

11% of retweets contain an encapsulated retweet (RT @user1 RT @user2 …message..)

9% of retweets contain an @reply that refers to the person retweeting the post Compared to the

random sample of tweets, hashtag usage and linking areoverrepresented in retweets.

From a practical perspective I favor defining communication standards for your organization in regards

to the use of retweets. Following a format like this has worked very well for me:

[Optional Kudos] RT [USER1] [USER2] … [Content] [Hashtags] | [Your thoughts]

http://thejohnfmoore.com/2010/07/18/the-importance-of-the-twitter-retweet/

http://www.danah.org/papers/TweetTweetRetweet.pdf

http://twitter.com/zephoria

http://twitter.com/redlog

http://twitter.com/gilgul



Remove extraneous words and punctuation as needed, but never change the meaning of the

original message.

Always give credit where credit is due. If the author of the content is missing from the original

tweet try to add it to your retweet. I use the beginning of the retweet,the [Optional Kudos] piece,

to give a shout-out to the author.

While hashtags are far from perfect use them. They help keep your message alive longer.

If useful, I try to add my comments to the end of the message, always following a pipe symbol

(|). I insert this symbol to show the end of the original content and help readers understand my

take on the content.

If possible, keep your retweet short so that others can retweet your message.

Standards are a great way of ensuring that your content supports your goals and that your community

understands why you have chosen to share a piece of content with them. Help your community and

help them help you. Everyone will win and that is key to everyone’s success.



Setting up your blog

While Twitter is the doorway for social conversations, your blog is your house, a place where you can

engage in deeper conversations with all that come over to visit. As with all channels you employ for

social conversations, your blog should continue to reflect who you are in a transparent fashion, should

focus on engagement by avoiding one-way blogging, and should seek to add value to the entire

marketplace. In short, it’s not about a rabid focus on selling and shameless self-promotion. If you

want that, just buy some air time and run TV or radio commercials.

How do you get started?

There are some great post throughout the web that cover this subject at length. The key points I

want you to keep in mind, however, are:

Work with your IT team to identify a blogging platform that you can bring in-house and maintain

yourself. If you do not have the technical team in place, find a blogging platform that allows you to

fully customize the look and feel of your content and that provides you with plenty of storage space

for images, videos, and podcasts. You may need it.

If you have branding and user interface guidelines start to use those to determine the look and feel

of your blog. Before you go live with any blog make sure it represents the business, don’t do it half

way.

Get a domain name for your blog and work with your IT team, or the hosting provider, to ensure

that people coming to your blog will see something like yourcompanyname.com, it’s your name,

show it.

Ensure your blog enables sharing of content, place tools for bookmarking, retweeting, digging, of

your content. Make sure your messages are shared with minimal effort on your readers part.

Boring, I want to start blogging

While personal bloggers can “wing it”, your business should not “wing it”. Your social

conversationalist, the employee we hired earlier in the series, should pull together marketing and

customer support/services to come up with a plan for your blog, a strategy, a series of measurable

metrics. Remember, the social conversation is led by marketing and customer service, do not leave

them out of this conversation.

http://johnfmoore.wordpress.com/2009/08/15/the-one-way-blog-a-waste-of-time/



Your blog, as we have noted, should focus on adding value to your market place and as such should

include this type of content:

Guest posts by experts in your market. These guest posts should not focus exclusively on how

great your solutions are. If your solutions fit the topic, highlight that fact, of course, but make the

focus of these posts be on education.

Include posts from your employees about their jobs. Remember, people connect with other people,

not nameless businesses. Put faces to your business so that customers, and potential customers,

can make these connections.

Get your executives into the mix. The executive team should occasionally weigh in, people want to

hear from them too.

Provide reactions to what is happening in the market as it happens. As news about your key

personnel, your company, your market, is developing, react to it by providing your insights.

We have set the bar very low by stating you need to be delivering a blog post a week. You should be

able to deliver compelling content once a week, if not, why are you in business?

What should you be measuring? For year one of this plan, let’s keep it simple as we will learn more,

throughout the year, about what metrics are critical to your business success. However, some simple

metrics that should always be paid attention to include:

Number of posts. Hit those targets I gave you.

Number of comments. Comments and postbacks provide some insights into your influence.

Standard web metrics like traffic, time spent viewing pages, etc, should also be measured. You

want your blog to be “sticky”, a destination people that people regularly visit.

Subscribers to your blog via e-mail, through google reader, through any other source you can

measure. These are your “fans”, keep them coming back.

Visitor source. How successful are your other channels, like Twitter as an example, at bringing

traffic to your blog.

Visitor destination. Is your blog leading people into your corporate web site where they can learn

more about you, becoming leads. After all, this does come back to helping you generate leads,

reducing support traffic, not just about making you a social media rock star.



While there is much more that could be said about your 2010 blogging approach, this will get you

started.

Your Social Business Goals

First off, you have just agreed to pay me a lot of money to come in as an independent consultant and

help you “get social”. Here is your mission, become an active listener and a valuable member of the

social community. Here is how we will measure your success at the end of year one:

You will have a clearly articulated strategy and goals for investing scarce resources on these

activities.

You’ll hire someone by the middle of January to make this all happen. Read my thoughts on what

you should be looking for in this candidate.

o Here is a look at their first thirty days on the job.

You will have a Twitter Account for your business and for each of your executives by February. As a

business you will have at least 2000 followers and each executive will have at least 500 followers.

Read more here.

You will have a blog setup and be averaging no less than 1 blog post a week by Q4 of 2010.

You will have a Facebook Fan page setup by Q2 and have at least 500 fans by the end of the year.

You will have a YouTube account and have a minimum of 10 videos posted.

You will have a SlideShare and myBrainshark account with a minimum of 20 presentations uploaded

by the end of the year.

You will have identified at least 5 external brand advocates defined.

You will be listening on social channels for data about your company, your executives and staff,

your competition, your marketplace.

You will have clear guidelines for when to respond and how to respond, to the discussions taking

place on social channels.

You will have established social media usage guidelines for your business by the end of Q3 so that

all employees have a clear picture of how they can engage on social media.

This short book will cover many aspects of this process.

http://johnfmoore.wordpress.com/2009/11/07/your-2010-social-media-plan-get-that-person-hired/

http://johnfmoore.wordpress.com/2009/11/12/your-2010-social-media-plan-your-thirty-days/

http://johnfmoore.wordpress.com/2009/11/15/your-2010-social-media-plan-making-140-characters-count/

http://bit.ly/7gl0pi

http://johnfmoore.wordpress.com/2009/11/28/your-2010-social-media-plan-who-needs-guidelines-we-all-do/



Setting up your Facebook Page Facebook can be a tremendous tool for your organization. The sweet spot is not acquisition, however, it

generally works best for those that are already on board with your message (customers, citizens, voters,

etc...), your existing social customers. This means:

The members of your Facebook community are generally on board with your message; you do

not have to keep selling them on your value proposition.

You need to help these members become your advocates; missionaries carrying your message

to a wider audience. You essentially have two types of members in your community:

o Those that are ready to become your advocates. Give them the tools they need to

spread your organization’s message.

o Those that like your message but are not interested in becoming advocates. Give them

reasons to keep coming back to your page. Provide coupons, free value adds like

whitepapers, games, etc…

Getting people to Like your page

Your first challenge is to get people to join your Facebook community, your Facebook page. To do this

well you need a custom tab using the FBML (Facebook Markup Language) Application. You will use this

application to create an easy to understand Welcome Page.

FBML applications, for those unfamiliar with Facebook, are essentially HTML containers. Your welcome

page needs to explain why people want to join this community. Once created, make this new Tab the

default for non-members by:

Select Edit page for this page.

Edit your Wall Settings

Select your new Tab in the list box for “Default Landing Tab for Everyone Else”. Non-members

will now see this new Tab when they come to your Facebook page.

As an example, here is what The Lab’s welcome Tab looks like today:

http://www.facebook.com/pages/John-Moores-Random-Thoughts-of-a-Boston-Based-CTO/300143367748?v=app_4949752878



Note that the page is kept simple, providing a message of who we are and the services we

provide.

Make it easy to Share this page with others with links to popular sites at the bottom of the page.

Your real work begins as people join your community, you need to:

Identify potential advocates and arm them with tools to spread the word.

Provide value to everyone, giving them reason to continue to come back to your page.

Your Advocates

The identification of advocates is beyond the scope of this conversation about Facebook. However,

ensure that you are providing your advocates with the tools to spread the word from Facebook. Some

of these tools should include:

Easy to find Share options so that users who find valuable content, valuable offers, can pass it

along.

Educational material relevant to your social customers. Ensure that this is not just your content,

share content from across the web that is relevant to your market, your business, your

customers.



All members

You want to ensure that all community members keep coming back to your community. If the majority

of your members are not coming back, on a daily daily, than you are not providing sufficient value

While many Facebook communities seem to stick with the standard tabs (and generally do have much

traffic), I think a better approach is to create customized FBML tabs with the content your customers will

care about. These tabs enable you to better control the message, the content, and the style to match

your brand. Your customer’s experiences are too important to leave to third party application

developers. For example, on The Lab’s Facebook pages we display three custom FBML tabs that provide

value to our customers, our members. This content includes:

The Lab’s Spotlight Member. We highlight a member of our community every week, across our

blog, our web site, and within our Facebook community. Check out our current spotlighted

member for an example.

The Lab’s services, products, and partner offerings. This includes links to free e-books, links

about our products and services, and affiliate links to people we partner with who regularly

provide good discounts.

Dozens of free case studies and interviews from people and organizations, across the world and

across the public and private sector. These studies can really help others to understand what is

working out there.

What you use, of course, will depend upon your business and what your social customers find of value.

Be daring, however, and try different things. Your community will let you know how you are doing by

their visits, their comments, and the word of mouth they spread about your organization.







How do I know if any of this is working?

The use of Facebook is a tactic that should ultimately lead to achieving your goals; otherwise there is no

point in investing in any of this. While your CRM system may not be directly tied to your Facebook page,

Facebook provides some useful statistics that you should be paying attention to on a regular basis.

Insights. You should see this section on the left side of your page (assuming you are an administrator for

the page). In this section click “See All”. At the top level page you will see metrics on:

Active users (Monthly). If you drill into the Users section (in the left-hand navigation) you can

see even more details about your users.

o Daily Active users. This is what I care about most. What % of my community is coming

back daily.

o Activity Details. At the bottom of the page you can see which Tabs have the most traffic

and adjust your tabs as needed based upon this data.

Daily Post Views.

Want to learn more about Facebook? Check out these books (affiliate links)

http://astore.amazon.com/rathofabobacx-20/detail/059651817X

http://astore.amazon.com/rathofabobacx-20/detail/0470527617

http://astore.amazon.com/rathofabobacx-20/detail/0321637984



Using Yammer This short overview of Yammer was written by Sonny Hashmi, CIO for the city of Washington, DC.

While short, it provides good insights into the use of Yammer and the standard best practices. It is

written from the perspective of a local government entity but the advice applies across different types

of organizations.

What is Yammer?

Yammer is a web system that allows users to communicate, share and collaborate with each

other via short messages (a few lines).

Users can share files, discuss ideas, add pictures and documents, and ask questions.

Discussions/comments are only accessible to users with dc.gov email addresses

Users decide which updates they want to see, and can control who can see their updates

Great way to increase collaboration and team building

All of DC Government is considered the same “organization”

Just like “twitter” for DC GOV

Who can see my stuff?

Yammer works like Twitter or FaceBook but private for DC GOV

Only “dc.gov” email addresses can login

You can post to the public “feed” or to one of the private “groups”.

You see posts from other users who you “follow”

Anyone who “follows” you can see your posts.

If you post inside a group, only group members can see your post

You decide which groups to join, and can even create groups to communicate with specific

teams or people

You can also send and receive private messages to other users

You can invite coworkers to Yammer. they will receive an invitation email.

Messages can be sent and received via SMS, Email, IM, etc.

Yammer Do’s and Donts

DO NOT post confidential information on Yammer.

Use the same cautions you use with email. Be courteous, helpful and do not post things you

wouldn’t want folks outside OCFO or DC Government to see

Join the “Team OCFO” Group

Create Groups for your organization/team/division and invite coworkers to join them.

Use Yammer as a way to communicate with coworkers, or to see whats going on in DC

Government

Find people to follow in the “Members” tab. See what people are doing/saying/working on.

Introduce yourself, add a picture, add update your profile.

Use as a mechanism to show others what great work OCFO is doing.



Invite friends and coworkers

Create groups of people you talk to frequently and be smart about privacy settings

Update the “Org Chart” to add your direct reports, peers, etc. so others know about your role

and title



Setting up your YouTube Channel



Setting up other channels Foursquare, Gowalla, Scvngr, Empire Avenue, others…



Other best practices So many, will keep iterating…



Case Studies Include examples from my case studies page… http://thejohnfmoore.com/how-business-and-

government-really-gets-done/

http://thejohnfmoore.com/how-business-and-government-really-gets-done/

http://thejohnfmoore.com/how-business-and-government-really-gets-done/



Other feedback

Shane Gibson left a comment

My feeling is you need a social media calendar organization wide and then drill down and have one for

each individual involved.

http://www.scribd.com/Shane-Gibson

a social business plan for medium-sized organizations

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