This weekend I have
the opportunity to deliver a presentation to the Alabama Business Education
Association at its 2016 conference at Samford University. My presentation is
titled “Social Media: The Importance of Your Online Presence” and is geared
toward business educators and individuals who manage social media in education.
The post below summarizes my presentation:
Social media has become an area of major focus for schools
and school districts over the past two to four years. Essentially, the
education world is catching up to business as some 78 percent of companies now
report that they have dedicated social media teams (source).
The Bureau of Labor Statistics indicates that more than 531,000 jobs now
involve some level of social media management, and while it is difficult to
track an exact number because there is no standardization of titles for social
media workers, jobs that mention “social media” in the description have
increased by 89 percent since 2012 (source).
This change is due in large part to changing perceptions on
the value of social media. More than 1 in 4 Millennials say social media
platforms are their primary source of news, rivaling television for the first
time (source).
46 percent of Web users rely on social media when making a purchase online
(source).
Clearly, there is a trend here indicating that brands that are active on social
media tend to be the most relevant brands.
None of this would be possible without the decision by
Facebook in 2007 to launch what it then called “Fan Pages.” These pages were
geared toward the most popular brands, celebrities, and media and allowed these
companies to establish a public presence on social media. This move, however,
leveled the playing field between brands and consumers: for the first time,
two-way communication became a reality as brands and consumers utilized the
same networks and tools for communication.
This has resulted in what I and others call the “social media
multiplier effect:” the idea that public perception of a brand is amplified
through chatter about said brand on social media. Posts on social networks are
amplified through the process of viewing and sharing by multiple audiences: a
user’s friends/followers and their friends/followers; media outlets including
TV, radio, newspapers, websites, and blogs; and the brand itself as well as its
allies and competitors.
This amplification can have dire consequences for
companies that are not prepared to handle the multiplier effect, as was seen in
the case of Domino’s Pizza. On Easter Sunday in April, 2009, two Domino’s
employees posted a video to YouTube which showed them — shall we say, mishandling — food ingredients in the
store. Within hours, the video had received more than one million views. One
viewer that hadn’t seen the video yet: Domino’s. The company’s headquarters had
no idea that the video existed for 24 hours after it was posted. It first
learned of the video when it was contacted by a consumer watchdog news site.
Though Domino’s has since been lauded for its response,
there were several initial problems with its response. First, the company
appeared to have no social media strategy of any kind, as it had hired a social
media team just one month earlier. It also had no presence on Twitter prior to
the incident. The company issued to response until Wednesday, and its first
response was only on its corporate website which drastically limited its
audience. (source)
There were many lessons to be learned from this and the
numerous other social media crises that have occurred to major brands over the
past few years. This has led me to construct a list: what I call the “Habits of
Social-Savvy People.” These are things that smart social media managers do,
intentionally, every day, to maintain control over their presence on social
media and ensure that their brand is represented fairly and effectively.
First, social-savvy people own their social presence. This
means simply creating a profile on every major social network, even if you have
no plans to immediately use each and every social network. Why do this? Because
impersonators and Internet “trolls” are always on the lookout for opportunities
to disparage or misrepresent a brand; this becomes an even greater issue during
a crisis situation. Owning your brand’s name across the social media world
means, simply, that someone else won’t get the chance. It also means posting with enough regularity to let people know that you're out there. I have seen so many brands create Twitter accounts and then do nothing with them; data backs this up (source). While there are arguments as to how often someone should post, my general guidance is that you should post enough so that your social media accounts are a top-of-mind priority for you every day.
Social-savvy people monitor their brands. This is
absolutely essential for all brands, schools and organizations regardless of
size. The ability to listen to what others other saying about your brand is
critical to maintaining a grasp on perception of your brand. Google Alerts as
well as TweetDeck and HootSuite are simple, free ways to get started.
Social-savvy people are ready to pivot. This
means having a means of monitoring and providing a response to something on
social media anytime, anywhere. I have never taken a day off from my job as a
social media manager. Sure, I’ve been to the beach, and to family gatherings at
the holidays, but I was not off the job on those days. Social networks don’t take
a day off, so neither do I.
Social-savvy people practice digital etiquette. This
means reacting with compassion, writing in a natural/conversational tone, and
double-checking messages and replies before hitting “Send.” With abuse on
social media raising the question of which networks are sustainable (source),
social media managers must remember to remain above the fray.
Social media managers fill your “trust bucket.” We should
always seek to provide honest, timely information to our followers and never
obfuscate the truth — something that the public sector in particular seems to
grapple with. We cannot ignore negative feedback, either.
Finally, social-savvy users think mobile. Would it
surprise you to learn that 47 percent of Facebook’s users in 2015 accessed the
service only on mobile devices? It’s true (source),
and it’s a number that only stands to increase. As a result, content that we
push to social networks should be designed around a mobile device. For me, that
means posts that are text-light and to the point, with embedded rich content
(photos and videos) whenever possible.
Armed with these social-savvy strategies, the future looks
promising for brands, schools and organizations on social media. Our job, for
those of us in the educational sphere, is not only to impart these principles
to students but to listen and work collaboratively with them as they lead the
charge to a world that leans more on the power of social networks than ever
before.