Leveraging Social Media for Work and Play
FountainBlue's July 11 When She Speaks, Women in Leadership Series event, on the topic of Leveraging Social Media for Work and Play. Below are notes from the conversation.
We were fortunate to have a wide range of perspectives for our panel, women leaders representing marketing, strategy, management, diversity, and social responsibility. They are impacted by social media through their daily work and working with internal staff, executive management, as well as customer communities. Their vision and leadership drive social media successes for their companies, and they generously shared their advice and wisdom with the audience.
1. Social media will forever change the way we communicate – respect its power and its impact, and integrate it into your everyday work and play.
There is no avoiding social media. People will use it and develop an opinion and perspective because of how you and your company are perceived. So embrace it and learn how to integrate it into your daily life.
Communication is two-way and immediate – more a conversation than a mandate.
Impact is probably broader than you intended.
Impact is immediate and can spread rapidly.
Impact will probably live longer than you expected.
Messages will reach people you don’t know.
Whether or not you know someone, he or she will have an opinion of you based on what you communicate on social media.
2. Given the above, be strategic about how you leverage social media in work and in play. Make sure that the message is clear, is in alignment with your values and your goals.
Leverage social media to get the word out, cost-effectively, engaging communities strategically.
Know your audience and be clear what your message is to that audience, and what results and engagement you’d like from that audience.
Focus on the business objectives for the social media campaigns/messages and deliver measurable results.
3. Leverage the power of social media and the analytics behind it to amplify the voice of the customer, to translate their desires to your internal teams, to connect one with the other.
Know what you’re measuring and why. Communicate that to the right people and plan accordingly.
Don’t count on automation and reports for making judgment calls about the community and what they are saying.
4. If a social media message brings negative response:
Develop and communicate a social media triage plan.
Leverage your relationship with the people who are responding badly.
Understand where they are coming from, and make them feel heard.
Diffuse the situation.
Decide whether it’s best to take a conversation offline, respond directly, ignore it, etc.,
5. Respect the person delivering the message.
Don’t try to control or over-manage the way people communicate. Let her/him have an authentic voice.
Do help them keep in alignment with corporate policies and strategies.
6. Train your internal staff to embrace social media.
Have clear policies in place.
Set up templates.
Provide materials and examples.
Encourage execs to lead the way.
Leverage what they are already doing, already comfortable with to bridge into social media communications, brand and message.
Refresher courses and ongoing tips would help most people more successfully embrace social media.
7. Build engagement and involvement within the communities, connections across communities.
Nurture your most involved community members and convert them to become advocates.
Deputize members of your team to represent different perspectives in the community. For example, having developers manage developer communities would make sense.
8. What you say across social media platforms will impact your brand, how others perceive you, so be proactive about understanding, communicating and managing your brand.
9. Connect with a larger group of people – across generations, across cultures, through the power of social media.
10. Create campaigns that leverage the power of communities and social media to spread the word, while saving money and increasing impact.
The bottom line is that social media is not a fad, it’s here to stay, changing the way we communicate and connect with each other, blurring the lines between personal and business, between employee and customer, and broadening and expanding and engaging all.
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Please join us in thanking our hosts at Visa and our panelists for FountainBlue's July 11 When She Speaks, Women in Leadership Series event, on the topic of Leveraging Social Media for Work and Play:
Facilitator Natascha Thomson, MarketingXLerator, Co-Author of 42 Rules for B2B Social Media Marketing Book
Panelist Christina Gleason, Director, Global Digital Strategy, Visa Inc.
Panelist Pegah Kamal, Social Media Marketing Manager, Aruba Networks
Panelist Petra Neiger, Senior Director, Integrated Marketing, Polycom
Panelist Keren Pavese, Program Manager, Western Division Office of Sustainability, Community Outreach & Diversity Councils, EMC Corporation
Panelist Mary Anne Petrillo, Strategic Marketing and Media Partnerships for Cisco Corporate Social Responsibility