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CONTENTS

Museums and Social Media

Showcasing the museums

Communication with visitors – before, during, after visit

Getting people talking – creating ambassadors

Opportunities – Instagram and Vine

Content

Tone

Images

Timing

Two-way engagement

Social media crisis management

Facebook Promotion Guidelines

Promoting social media

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MuSEuMS AND SOCIAlMEDIA

Social media is a fantastic tool for attracting visitors and showcasing what Derby Museums has to offer. However, along with the rest of Derby Museums’ digital offering, it is vital that social media forms part of your wider marketing strategy and that you have clear goals for your activity.

This document outlines what Derby Museums can hope to achieve with social media and also the right approach for targeting these goals.

In general, museums have been notoriously late to the ‘social media party’. The big museums started using social media around 2009 and this has slowly trickled down to the smaller museums. The majority now have some form of presence but only a small percentage is using it to its full potential.

There is a thirst for museums and galleries on social media. Back in 2010 the Tate was the top UK brand on Twitter, with over 50k more followers than Topshop. The Tate has continued to outperform Topshop with 870k followers to Topshop’s 617k but has fallen behind Burberry, BBC and Premier League football clubs. However, it has a high performing page and engages with hundreds of visitors and potential visitors each day. The audience is there – it just needs tapping into.

Derby Museums has six clear targets for its social media activity:

• Getting people to the museums – showcasing the museums

• Communicating with visitors at the museums

• Allowing visitors to engage with the museums and your exhibits

• Creating ambassadors

• Keeping in touch post-visit

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One of the challenges faced by Derby Museums is generating footfall. The museums are a ‘tardis’ of artwork and artefacts that the public might not be aware of. Therefore it is important that the depth and quality of the museums is showcased to a potential visiting audience.

Social media allows visitors ‘behind the scenes’ of the museums. It allows you to show future visitors what Derby Museums is – not just what you have to show them, but who you are and the work and expertise that goes into the day-to-day activities.

It is important that you don’t just replicate your website. Visitors can get all sorts of brilliant and useful information from your website. And your website is where they can expect to see glossy, professional images. On social media people are looking for something different. Your social media activity should complement your website and therefore offer something different to visitors. You want people that use your social media channels to get more out of their experience with Derby Museums than they would if they are not a fan or follower.

Your social media channels should provide an insight into what you do and showcase the experience of the museums. There are a host of opportunities available to you such as photo and video content (see the guide to Instagram and Vine in this document) that will allow you to create a professional but ‘real’ insight into the exhibits that you have to offer.

What might seem obvious to you working there day-to-day may actually be really interesting to potential visitors and those with a passion for your exhibits. While you might not dedicate a news story on your website to a photo of an exhibit that has been on display for years, for a new visitor this could actually be really interesting and form part of the story of Derby Museums. Social media gives you the chance to tell the story of Derby Museums in so many ways and showcase it to a new audience using a new medium.

It is also vital that you showcase the people you have here. You have passionate, personable and knowledgeable staff. Visitors come to museums to learn and immerse themselves in culture. Having access to your staff is a real selling point for the museums and so it is important that social media provides a bridge between your staff and potential visitors. It is your chance to introduce yourselves and the museums.

It is important to remember you are providing a service with your social media channels and that it is something people want. All too often brands get caught up with generating likes and followers and become so grateful to customers for engaging with them in this way that they forget that they are pushing resource into adding extra value for customers. You are giving them additional content that they would not get otherwise and are aiming to improve their experience at the museums.

Therefore, rather than focusing on fan numbers or ‘number of conversations’ as a judgement of success, the success of social media activity should be judged on how it supports you to achieve your central business objectives.

SHOWCASING THE MuSEuMS

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COMMuNICATION WITHvISITOrS

Social media is a valuable tool for you communicating with visitors. There are three stages to this. First is prior to their visit (as discussed in ‘Showcasing the Museums’) where your goal is to convert them from potential visitors to feet through the door.

Next, once they attend the museums they are communicated to as visitors. And finally, following on from their visit you have the opportunity to turn them into ambassadors – sharing their experience with friends and family and encouraging them to become potential visitors.

BEfOrE

• Showcase the museums and the exhibitions - as discussed above, before people visit the museums social media can be their chance to take a sneak peak behind the doors

• Build excitement for people’s visit – they may plan a trip to Derby Museums days or weeks in advance, so social media is their first welcome. It means that their trip becomes a more important event

• Answer any queries – at this stage the page will act as a customer service tool in terms of making people’s planning process easier and answering any questions that they have

• Point them to ambassadors’ real experiences – these three stages form a cycle, by the end of the cycle you hope to have converted visitors into ambassadors and it is important that you allow prospective visitors to see the positive messages from those who’ve been before to influence their decision to visit. This is explored further in the ‘Creating ambassadors’ section

• Drive people to where they can take action – You want people to engage on your social media channels but it is also important at this stage that you make it easy for them to convert into visitors. Point them towards the areas that they can take action e.g. find the museums, sign up for an event, etc.

• You are the expert voice – Getting across the expertise of the museums and the interesting insights that you have will make you stand apart and encourage people to visit.

DurING

During people’s visit to the museums there is a lot less focus on how to communicate with them using the social media channels, but instead how to communicate with them in the museums in a way that will encourage them to engage socially and provide a link from the museums floor to their own network of friends and family.

Firstly, there is no rule at Derby Museums that you are not allowed to use your phone – whether it’s as a phone, for internet access or as a camera. Yet there is a perception across the industry that it is rude to use your mobile phone in a museum. It is important that this message is communicated well on signs and by staff throughout the museums.

The more people that are taking photos, tweeting about their experience and uploading videos of themselves enjoying the museums, the more publicity you get. The use of social media should be encouraged as a way to express their opinions and spread the word.

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While visitors are at the museums, staff have the opportunity to use them to add value to the social media channels. Creating photos and videos of what is going on across the museums gets across that ‘live’ feel – this iswhat is happening now and showcases the museums as a buzzing place. It is not just photos and videos – some of the questions staff are asked or the comments that are made by visitors could provide useful content for others if pushed out on the social media channels.

Getting visitors involved in the content for Facebook and Twitter also makes them more likely to become a fan or follower as they feel part of the museums.

Seeing ‘social’ activity going on around the museums will encourage them to like and follow when they leave. Signs pointing people towards the official social media channels will also make them more likely to use these channels as a way of keeping in touch in between visits.

AfTEr

Social media is a way for visitors to keep in touch with you in between their visits. It is a chance for them to keep up-to-date with your news and events, find out what’s new and see reasons for visiting again. You are their connection to the museums and the exhibitions that they are interested in.

At this stage there is also opportunity to encouraging people to share photos and reviews of their experience and turn them into ambassadors.

AppEAlING TO All THrEE AuDIENCE

TypES

At each of these stages you are talking to different audiences – or people at different stages in the visitor cycle. However, on Facebook and Twitter you cannot segment audiences – so you cannot restrict messages to only be seen by one stage of the cycle for example. Therefore it is important that although some content will more clearly be addressed to one audience, it is still interesting to all.

You will find that the same content will appeal to different stages for different reasons. For example a video of people at the museums will appeal to the ‘before’ stage as it gives them a glimpse into the museums; for those at the museums they have a chance to feature and will see social activity taking place during their visit; and for those in the ‘after’ stage, this can give them something to share with their own network of friends.

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In this day and age, people are always looking to share their experiences. People continuously document their activities on social media channels – particularly activities that they feel represent them. Derby Museums fits into this, as visitors feel they are improving their knowledge or providing a fun, educational activity for their children.

As the peer-to-peer communication has grown, facilitated by the social networks, the trust in other people’s opinions has also grown. People trust people and therefore ‘real’ recommendations are strong.

The fact that your visitors can now leave your museums and instantly send a recommendation to their hundreds of friends means that you have exposure to an audience you could not otherwise reach.

This has formed what has been called ‘The Human Brochure’. When people scroll through their news feed they are exposed to photos and recommendations of all the things that their friends have done – trips to gigs, theme parks, hotels, restaurants. In the past people’s first exposure to a brand would be a website or brochure; whereas now, for many people, their first exposure to a brand is from a friend’s images or opinion of it.

CrEATING AMBASSADOrS

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If you have a strong product and are proud of what you offer, as is the case with Derby Museums, this should be encouraged. There are a number of ways that you can encourage your visitors to talk about you in a positive way on social media channels:

• Provide consistent content yourself – if you have consistently good content, great photos and images of what is going on at the museums, people will be more likely to share their own content with you than they would a page that is not well maintained. It also shows the type of images that you are looking for. So rather than someone feeling intimidated by professional shots – if they see good ‘real’ images they are more likely to share their own

• Rewarding posts – if someone does share an image or an opinion it is important that they are ‘rewarded’ with an acknowledgement – either a like or a comment or sharing their post with the wider Derby Museums following. This will make them more likely to engage again and also encourages others to share their content

• Calls-to-action – you can ask visitors to share their images and opinions – both on social media and with signs and conversation with staff throughout the museums. This may be slow at first but as people start sharing this will build

• Competition mechanic – you can physically reward people for sharing content such as a photo competition etc. This should be reserved for specific campaigns, such as a new exhibition opening, etc., so that you do not become solely reliant on competitions to generate engagements. Furthermore, prizes should be very relevant to the audience to avoid general “compers” entering with no intention of ever becoming a visitor

• Recommendations – remember, it ’s not just images that act as recommendations. It can also be tips, reviews and people’s opinions

• Using user content (with permission) – allowing people to see the value of their content to you by using their images on your website, reviews on posters, etc.

• Creating social content that people are happy to share – people want to seem knowledgeable so your photos, tips and insider knowledge can create content that they want to share with their own network

• Being friendly, welcoming and not just focused on new visitors – both in the museums and on your social media channels. Social media cannot change the experience offline – it will reflect it. So a good experience at your venue means much more likely to post about it

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Derby Museums has loads of great content on a day-to-day basis. Your exhibitions are constantly changing and you have a team of experts that have great knowledge that your visitors are keen to tap into.

It is important that you have the tools to create social content that allows you to get your content out to visitors in an engaging and sharable way. Tools such as Instagram and Vine allow you to create social ‘products’ to share on your already successful Twitter and Facebook pages.

Both Instagram and Vine also function as social networks independently which is an opportunity to reach another audience. However, it is not vital that these channels become successful networks in their own right as they produce content that enhances your overall social media presence.

INSTAGrAM

Instagram is a photo editing tool that allows you add filters to your mobile photos and create professional images that still have the ‘behind the scenes’ feel that works well on social media. Once you have taken your photo and chosen your filter you can share your images on Twitter or Facebook through the app or save it to your photo library for you to upload to your channels at a later time.

You can also see other people’s images and follow relevant people such as other museums, exhibitors and artists which may be good to share with your followers or influence other areas of the museums.

Here’s a guide to setting up an Instagram account: http://mashable.com/2012/05/29/instagram-for-beginners

OppOrTuNITIES - INSTAGrAM & vINE

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vINE AND INSTAGrAM vIDEO

Vine is a short video creating platform, while Instagram recently added video editing to its app. Both apps allow you to film short clips. They only record when you are touching the screen which allows for editing, varied angles and delay between scenes.

The following table is a comparison between the two platforms:

vINE INSTAGrAM vIDEO

Owned by Twitter Facebook

Length of clips Up to 6 seconds Up to 15 seconds

Editing Options No - If you have an errorthen you must restart thefilm

Yes - You have the ability todelete scenes if your are nothappy with them duringfilming

Filters No - Vine works from yourphone camera with noadditional features

Yes - like Instagram photosyou can choose to add filtersthat change the way the video looks. There are 13 filters to choose from

Audience Vine already has a solid userbase who are there forvideo-sharing

Instagram has a biggeraudience but video is a newfeature and has not got thetake up yet that their image editing does

Cover Image Selection The cover image is the firstscene

You can select scenes fromyour film to be the coverphoto

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Both Vine and Instagram will let you switch back and forth between front and rear-facing cameras while shooting, allowing you to film yourself as well as whatever you are showing to create a presenting style.

Neither Vine nor Instagram will let you pull video from your camera roll. Both insist that you shoot your Vineable or Instagrammable video within the respective apps.

Both apps will instantly save your Vined or Instagrammed clips to the camera roll for later use so you do not have to upload your video to Twitter or Facebook straight away.

In terms of using your videos and sharing them to other networks, Vine only lets you share to Facebook and Twitter. Instagram lets you share videos to Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr, Flickr, and foursquare, as well as through email.

As they are owned by Twitter, Vine clips will play in your Twitter stream whereas Instagram videos and photos link off to Instagram and cannot be viewed within Twitter itself. However, both can be played from within Facebook.

Vine videos loop, while Instagram videos only play once allowing for continued looping on Vine which can add to the creativity.

With Instagram allowing a longer film and filters, it currently has the strongest offering. However, with Vine constantly releasing new updates (such as a rumoured voiceover tool) the two will continue to compete, so it is important that you keep an eye on both. Vine allows for looping and more creativity from that; however, in terms of knowledge share, you have more time to get your message across with Instagram.

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CONTENT

Success in social media is entirely based on the quality of your content.

The ultimate goal for your social media activity is to increase the number of visitors to your museums. However, social media is not the place for hard sell and it will be the way in which you communicate with potential visitors that will lead you to increased footfall.

When someone chooses to ‘like’ or follow you they are inviting you to appear in their news feed, which is an opportunity for you to communicate with them on a daily basis and appear amongst their friends news and photos. For a brand this is a privileged position and therefore your content must reflect this.

People do not want to see daily sales messages – people follow brands because they feel that they gain from doing so. Therefore a brand must provide some form of service to their followers on Facebook and Twitter.

For Derby Museums this will be content that gives them a richer experience of the museums, with access to your expertise and a chance to increase their own knowledge. A fan or follower must feel that they get more out of their relationship with the museums on Twitter and Facebook than if they merely visited the venues without any two-way engagement.

There needs to be different content for Twitter and Facebook as they are different channels with different audiences. Users of Twitter are more likely to use it on the go (on mobile) as it is a less visual medium and, therefore, short punchy content might be more popular; whereas on Facebook you can feature galleries of photos, set up events and are not limited in terms of characters. This also allows you to achieve different goals with each and gives people reasons to follow both accounts.

It is crucial that content is optimised to encourage interaction from users. On both Twitter and Facebook, the more people interact with your content the more your content will be spread amongst their own social networks and promote your channel to their circle of friends. For example, on Facebook, if someone comments on your post it will appear on their news feed - “Joe Bloggs has just commented on Derby Museums’ status”, providing a link for their friends to click on to access your Facebook page.

It is important to keep content relevant. People are following you because they are interested in your exhibitions and art and museums in general. Don’t be too generic or these posts will get lost amongst other brands that are also doing the same and will appear unnatural in people’s news feed, such as ‘What are you doing this weekend?’ You must consider what you would find useful to improve your experience if you were visiting the museums.

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fACEBOOk

Facebook uses an algorithm called EdgeRank to rank pages within its internal search system. The more an individual or a friend of that individual has interacted with a particular page, the higher that page will rank when they search. Therefore, it is important that users don’t just view your content but that they also engage with it and take action, such as liking, commenting or sharing.

One of the key ways of increasing interaction with your posts is to make sure that there is a wide variety of content on your page. Users will rarely view your content in the context of your page once they have ‘liked’ or ‘become a fan’. Your posts will appear in their own news feeds amongst the wide range of other pages that they have subscribed to and the news of their friends and relatives.

This is a competitive marketplace and for a brand to stand out amongst posts about friends’ new relationship statuses and photos from the weekend is a challenge. If a brand’s content is repetitive - for example, only ever posting links to their website - they will quickly be phased out by users who scroll past the posts to view more eye catching content. By introducing a variety, users will not become fatigued with content and it will continue to grab their attention each day.

CONTENT SHOulD INCluDE

(WHErE pOSSIBlE ON THE plATfOrM):

• Statements/information

• Questions

• Opinion and request for opinion

• Polls

• Images – both individual and galleries

• Videos

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TOp TIpS fOr OpTIMISED CONTENT

• The most effective length of Facebook posts is one to two lines in order to make them appear natural in fans’ news feeds. When a fan views these posts they will see them amongst their friends’ posts, and so large paragraphs will stand out but risk being skipped over unread because they are too long. On average, posts between one and 80 characters have a higher engagement rate than posts with more than 80 characters.

• On Facebook, do not use URL shorteners. Engagement rates are three times higher for posts that used a full-length URL, rather than a URL shortener.

• With Twitter, it is important that the content you upload is optimised to be shared. The retweet (RT) feature means that people can easily spread your content to their own followers. It is important that people are able to RT without cutting off your content so, although you do have 140 characters, consider that for someone to RT you they must include extra characters to add “RT(space)@XXXXXX” in front of the tweet.

• It is important that, although Twitter is a more limited platform than Facebook, there is still variety reflected on Twitter with questions, statements, images (using a third party platform such as Twitpic), links etc.

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In terms of language, it is important that the words you use encourage interaction and sharing. The following table shows words that encourage ‘likes’ and comments on posts on Facebook.

TONE

It is important that the language used is professional, but there still needs to be a more conversational tone than might be expected in your other communication channels. The expertise and knowledge, as well as the passion of those that work at Derby Museums, should be reflected through the channels.

Your tone should be informative, helpful and friendly when dealing with both positive and negative communication.

When dealing with any negative issues it is crucial that you are clear and transparent in your response and make as much of the resolution process as possible visible to other fans/followers. Responses must be swift, ideally within a few hours of the post being made and during working hours. However, this time pressure is not on the resolution of the issue. As long as the customer is kept up to date with progress and is aware that their complaint is being dealt with efficiently, then the resolution can take as long as it needs to without the problem escalating.

There is more detail about the approach for handling issues in ‘Social Media Crisis Management’.

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IMAGES

Images are the most shared content on social media, with over 100 billion being shared on Facebook every month.

Derby Museums has such a wealth of images which would showcase the museums experience that photos will be a key marketing tool.

There is a mix of permanent and temporary exhibitions in the museums and therefore it is important that there is constant production of photos.

There is also an opportunity to encourage user generated content as people share their experience of the museums. This will obviously be easier at Derby Museums due to the younger audience and the fact that families will more than likely be posting photos of their holiday to Facebook anyway – we just want them to share them on the Derby Museums page rather than just their personal one.

Social media is all about peer-to-peer communication and if you can get real people talking about their positive experience at Derby Museums then this is an invaluable recommendation to their friends and your potential customers.

Fans should be ‘rewarded’ with a positive interaction from the page about their image in order to encourage more fans to post.

Images from the museums can be posted individually or as a gallery. If you are posting as a gallery, try to stick to a maximum of 5-10 ‘highlight’ images so that users do not become bored of scrolling through the images.

Images should be presented in a variety of ways for the same reasons as outlined in ‘content’ above. An image can be posted on its own, with a caption, with a question related to the image etc. This will all help to increase the number of interactions.

Photos can also be shared via Twitter. If a picture is impressive or interesting then they can be popular with users and shared via RTs. Images can be uploaded via Twitter itself or by a third party platform such as Twitpic.

On social media, photos do not need to be of a professional quality. People are not looking for photos that are the standard of the images in your brochures and website. Instead, they want to feel that the images are “real” and give them a behind the scenes insight into what the museums is really like. Therefore, photos taken with mobile can be very successful – particularly if a free photo editing software such as instagram (http://instagram.com/) is used.

Encouraging staff to use phones to constantly take images from around the sites will provide you with a host of interesting content that will appeal to the audience and increase engagements and showcase the museums to their full potential.

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TIMING

The timing of posting is very important. It can have a big impact on how many people see and interact with your content. The most effective time, on average, is outside of working hours (lunchtime and after work, when more people are online) and engagement rates on Thursday and Friday are 18% higher than other days of the week. However, this may be different for Derby Museums, as these are generalisations. It is therefore important that you establish the best time to reach your own audience.

The pattern of your visitors’ interaction needs to influence your activity on social media. Google Analytics can be used to assess the activity on your website and then this data can be transferred to influence your social media activity. Your social media activity can be focused around the key visitor periods to make sure you reach customers when they are most likely to engage.

Along with timing, the number of posts per day also has a huge impact on the longevity of the relationship with fans on your page. The number of posts on Facebook should ideally be limited to a maximum of two posts per day. One of the key reasons for a user ‘unliking’ a page is that it posts too often. There may be occasions where it is crucial to post more often than this but it is important that your average number of daily posts does not reach three or four as this will be off-putting for fans no matter how much they are a fan of the museums and your exhibitions.

On Twitter, this differs slightly as people tend to follow more people than they have ‘friends’ on Facebook. On Facebook your posts predominately appear amongst posts from the user’s friends, which is a difficult market for brands to compete in. However, because people follow brands, celebrities, feeds for work, news feeds etc on Twitter, your posts will not flood someone’s ‘wall’ as easily. However, I would still suggest that an appropriate number of tweets on a normal day would be two to three (broadcast posts, to all followers) and then as many replies as you need to address your followers’ conversations or search out conversations with potential visitors (see ‘Two Way Engagements’).

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TWO-WAy ENGAGEMENT

The key feature of Twitter is the ability to search out conversations that are already taking place about your brand and your content. Twitter is an open platform – meaning all conversations (aside from the few accounts that are locked) are searchable. Therefore companies are able to track all conversations about their brand in real time.

This can allow you to open up conversations with potential leads who may not otherwise know that they can engage with you on Twitter. The etiquette of Twitter means that people are open to being contacted by individuals that they do not know or engaging in conversations with brands about their tweets, even if they did not directly address the brand via their Twitter handle.

A program such as Tweetdeck or Hootsuite will allow you to set up searches for keywords so that you can monitor them in real time. Searches can be set up for topics such your brand name and relevant keywords such as ‘Derby art’, ‘Derby time trial’ or ‘Beyond one step’ etc. Rippleffect can guide you through the process of setting up Tweetdeck or Hootsuite if this is something that you require.

Using Twitter to its full potential as a two-way engagement tool is the most crucial way of growing the follower base. It is important that you approach this in the right way. People are happy to be contacted by brands as long as that brand provides them with conversation that is interesting and useful to them. People will not respond to hard-sell messages. Instead your tweets must form part of a conversation with that user that you want to continue.

Hashtags are a feature of Twitter that allow your posts to become searchable as part of a wider conversation. If you add a # in front of a particular word such as #museums your tweet will appear amongst all conversations using this hashtag when a user searches for this term or clicks on the hashtag. This also allows you to search for these terms yourself in order to find people to engage with regarding your topics or specific events.

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SOCIAl MEDIA CrISIS MANAGEMENT

Due to the immediate and visible nature of social media there can, from time to time, be issues; particularly when visitors use the channels as a method to complain. However, there are ways to deal with this and even the most serious of complaints do not need to become a ‘social media crisis’ if there is preparation and plans in place to deal with them.

The following are suggested methods for preventing and handling social media ‘crisis’ and managing your brand reputation online:

MONITOrING CONvErSATIONS

It is important that you keep track of the conversations which are taking place about your brand. The sooner that you know about their issue the quicker you can deal with it and the less likely it is to spiral out of control with other users retweeting and sharing the negative content.

Tools such as Hootsuite and Tweetdeck will allow you to set up searches that track conversations about your brands and topics (as with two-way engagement) that allow you to see all conversations as they happen and pick up on anything that needs dealing with.

SCENArIOS AND rESpONSES

DOCuMENT

Preparation is key to crisis management and avoiding issues before they arise. Preparing a scenarios and responses document means that anyone in charge of the page knows exactly how to handle any query that comes though the social media channels. A scenarios

and responses document is a list of all the worst case comments, complaints and actions that visitors could carry out on social media. The team at Derby Museums then sit down and define a response for each and, for the more serious, an escalation procedure so that the person managing the page knows who they are to report to and request help from if needed.

The majority of the time none of the issues in your document will arise; however, having this document in place gives page managers the confidence that they have the answers to people’s questions and the support from the wider business.

MANAGING yOur AuDIENCE’S ExpECTATIONS

It is important that you manage your audience’s expectations as to what they can anticipate from you with social media. As a general rule on social media complaints arise or escalate if users feel that they are being ignored. If a complaint is left unanswered for a length of time that the customer judges as being too long, this can actually escalate the problem. Let your audience know when you will be online, particularly if this differs from your opening hours. If you can only manage the page between 10am – 4pm that’s fine, you just need to make sure people are aware of this so that they can take it into consideration for when they can expect a reply.

You also need to be clear and transparent about what you will and won’t accept from users on your page; for example, abusive comments. That way if you do have to delete a visitor’s comment they will know why rather than feeling you are censoring their opinion.

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WHEN THErE HAS BEEN A COMplAINT:

• Respond quickly – even if you do not have a definitive answer let people know you will look into their issue and you will be back to them shortly. By quick, within an hour or two, so that there is not time for the issue to escalate

• Where possible, take complaints away from the page – ask them to direct message you an email address so that you can go into more detail away from the public view

• Tone is key – be friendly but professional, helpful and knowledgeable

• If the problem is taking a while to resolve, keep people up to date – make sure they know that work that is being carried out in the background to resolve their issue

• Once the issue has been resolved make sure to take the conversation back onto social media by commenting on the original post something like ‘Glad we managed to get this all sorted, looking forward to seeing you next time you visit the museums’. This way you are showing other customers that you do listen and act on customer issues

• Remember, the PR skills that you use across all forms of communication are applied to social media, so don’t panic! You have the knowledge and you know the answers to people’s problems or can at least access the answers

• A well-resolved problem can actually turn a negative into a positive as you can present yourselves as a company that cares about your visitors and prioritises the visitor experience

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fACEBOOk prOMOTION GuIDElINES

Facebook has strict guidelines for running promotions and competitions. It is important that you are aware of these. However, Facebook is unlikely to crack down on smaller pages and if they did get in touch they would more than likely ask you to change the competition rather than take action against the page. The pros can outweigh the cons so it is worth being educated of the rules and then making a decision on what risks are worth taking.

Here is a summary of the key points of the guidelines (The full version can be found here: http://www.facebook.com/promotions_guidelines.php)

If you use Facebook to communicate about or administer a promotion, you are responsible for the lawful operation of that promotion, including the official rules, offer terms and eligibility requirements (e.g., age and residency restrictions), and compliance with regulations governing the promotion and all prizes offered in connection with the promotion (e.g., registration and obtaining necessary regulatory approvals).

• Promotions on Facebook must be administered within Apps on Facebook.com, either on a Canvas Page or an app on a Page Tab.

• You must not use Facebook features or functionality as a promotion’s registration or entry mechanism. For example, the act of liking a Page or checking in to a Place cannot automatically register or enter a promotion participant.

• You must not condition registration or entry upon the user taking any action using any Facebook features or functionality other than liking a Page, checking in to a Place, or connecting to your app. For example, you must not condition registration or entry upon the user liking a Wall post, or commenting or uploading a photo on a Wall.

• You must not use Facebook features or functionality, such as the Like button, as a voting mechanism for a promotion.

• You must not notify winners through Facebook, such as through Facebook messages, chat, or posts on profiles (timelines) or Pages.

• These rules apply to any promotion that has a prize of monetary value and a winner determined on the basis of skill or selected on the basis of chance.

There are no promotion guidelines for Twitter so promotions may be run in whatever way you like; however the platform is more limited.

There are also no promotion guidelines for Vine or Instagram.

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prOMOTING SOCIAlMEDIA

The Facebook and Twitter page should be promoted across all of Derby Museums’ marketing activities in order to present them as a key service for visitors to keep in touch with you. Rippleffect recommends that both the Facebook and Twitter links are displayed:

• On the Derby Museums website – currently only the icons are displayed on the home page at the very bottom left-hand side which relies on the visitor making the decision to find out more if they stumble across them. Tweets are pulled through but this currently does not load. If you are going to be carrying out interesting and useful content on your Facebook and Twitter pages then it is important that visitors to your website are made aware of this and social media is presented to them as an additional service that you offer. Therefore there should be a strong call to action and clear links to social media in a more prominent place on the homepage. There should also be links to social media on news stories and throughout the site to encourage people to talk about that news or event. There is also opportunity for specific news stories about your social media activity – e.g. a live chat with an expert.

• A specific email to be sent to all contacts on your email database announcing a revamp to social media activity or to share news about specific social media activity that fans and followers can get involved in.

• In all of your email marketing – either as updates e.g. “This week on Facebook we’ve been...” or as clear links in the same way that they are presented in the website.

• Around the museums – posters and signs letting people know about the pages, how they can get involved, what they can gain from engaging with you in this way and any specific initiatives you are running.

• On physical marketing collateral – such as exhibition guides, newsletters, promotional leaflets.

• Artist promotion – if artists or exhibitors have their own social media channels there can be mutual promotion by tagging each other on in statuses.

• Encouraging staff to follow and like the social media channels and keep up-to-date with them even if they are not directly involved so they are able to naturally promote the channels during conversations with visitors.

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