I just finished watching a Web cast from The Emerging Media Research Council, the research arm of Three Ships Media, on how little-known Senator Scott Brown used social media to win. This is not the first time we have heard of politicians using social media to win in politics. President Obama raised 87% of his funds online. But this Web cast really went into detail and showed me that the rules have changed in the social media world. These are my notes from the Web cast.
Click image to view the Web cast.
As social media has come of age and communicating becomes the norm online, the rules have changed. Getting the most out of participating in social media to further your brand reach is possible if you can adapt to the new perceptions online and can keep these ideas in mind.
It is estimated that 90% of your Web site visitors already are familiar with or support your message. It is important to give these visitors avenues of communication so that they can share your message with others. Now, the idea behind social media is nothing new. It is the electronic embodiment of “word of mouth.” Ever since there has been Marketing, there has not been a stronger method of promotion than hearing from trusted first-person experience. What makes social media different is that now word of mouth is quantifiable. Now we can see what is working and what is not. We can put more energy into the areas where we are seeing return. Even if this means that you find most of your constituents are not responding to online promotion but are more offline, that is where you need to be.
Twitter is a big component of social media. Micro blogging, or 140-character sharing, used to be used as a window into the more personal life of the “tweeter.” In fact social media itself was first seen as a softer side of the cold business face of the corporation or institution. But now as Twitter has become more of a norm in social media, that has changed. We are now hearing that we must Tweet with Purpose. We want to be authentic, but not trivial. We don’t need to share that we had berries on our cereal this morning. When tweeting, ask yourself, “Does this help my constituent become better, smarter, wiser?” Substance trumps the mundane every time. This can be applied to all social media, as well.
Another tip that can be applied to all forms of social media is to watch the overall sentiment of the content. It has been noted that generally, having a positive tone to your posts is received better and shared more often than negative content. If the idea you are sharing is negative in nature, find a way to present it in a positive light.
Remember that social media is communication, a two-way street. When you talk, speak purposefully. When you listen, listen to serve. Social Media should not be used as a direct mail outlet. You will not get anywhere “bullhorning” your message down people’s throats. If you give people ideas, let it be informative and something they want to share with others. If you listen to comments or replies, do so with the care of Customer Service. The ability to quantify customer service ROI (return on investment) may be low, but it is hard to argue with the relationship between great customer service and strong brand loyalty.
Yes, there are risks involved in social media. The biggest risk talked about is losing control of the message. Companies and institutions are always talking about the fear of entering certain spheres and not being able to control how people are talking about them. May I suggest that control is already lost? Whether you enter the social media arena or not, people are out there talking about you and your message. It is in your best interest to enter the conversations already going on and represent the true voice of your group.
Speaking of spheres of conversations, there is a temptation to enter only into the spheres that we feel comfortable in or spheres where we feel we have control. To bring back the Obama example, his social media team entered into all spheres and were not afraid to speak in diverse arenas. Why were they not afraid? Because the had a precisely defined brand. Change and Hope and Yes We Can– these messages were so well defined, the Obama camp could enter any social media conversation without fear. Likewise, your brand, identity, and message should be so clear, that you too can take part in any conversation.
In closing, here are some best practices for participating in social media circles:
Do you have any other best practices for social media that have proven to work for you? Please share them in the comments.
As we come into a new month, I wanted to take the time to thank all my readers for their dedication. I also wanted to welcome the new ones! I hope some of the back-posts have been helpful to you.
Lastly, I wanted to ask if anyone had a Web Dev or multimedia topic they wanted me to cover, please feel free to email me and ask. I would love to hear from you. I will do my best to answer your question.
A couple of new items have been implemented today. We are now highlighting the five latest posts from your blogs at http://blogs.elca.org. Have a look! The more you post, the more homepage face time you get! (MU developers: this was done using the sitewide recent posts plugin.)
Secondly, in addition to Akismet comment spam killer, I have installed some more protection. This should kill a lot of spam before it makes its way to you to have to approve or deny it. It also adds CAPTCHA to the comment field. You’ll notice the “churchy” words I picked if you take a look. (MU Developers: I used the Farms comment spam pack to accomplish this.)
Happy blogging!
Special thanks to @andrea_r for her help!
I am starting a new category of posts that I hope will help our growing number of Bloggers. In case you did not know, the ELCA has a new platform for our blogs. WordPress is very versatile and has already proven to be an upgrade from our previous solution.
We are also rolling out a custom ELCA theme for congregations and synods to create small- to medium-sized Web sites with the church’s branding and useful features. WordPress is not only a great blog platform but an excellent Content Management System.
This category of posts will automatically update into the Dashboard of our in-house blogs, and primarily be geared towards helping our churchwide office users and admins use and maintain their new blogs. But it is also my hope that these posts help those outside of the churchwide offices to gain a better understanding of how to use and implement WordPress in their setting as well.
If you haven’t subscribed to this blog yet, please take the time to do so. And please tell others who are interested in Web Development to sign up also, won’t you?
I’m sure you’re familiar with the little red book Augsburg Fortress puts out called the, well, Little Red Book. A pocket daytimer, the LRB is for those who like to keep it “old school” and write down their appointments. Around the office here, we have come to affectionately refer to it as a “redBerry.”
Well, a friend of mine, Andy Arnold (@adnyla), has made me aware that there is now a downloadable version of the LRB. He has written some instructions to sync the LRB to Google Calendar. Take a look!
This weekend, we took the leap. We heard the bloggers’ cries for a better platform and finally upgraded to WordPress. You, as a reader, will benefit as well, from a much more enjoyable and interactive blog to read.
With this upgrade came the need to switch servers. After migrating all blogs with their hundreds of posts and comments, to the new server, we now wait for the Web site addresses to settle down and begin pointing you in the right direction. This should happen soon enough, but in case you still haven’t found what you’re looking for, check the “Welcome” page for some temporary links to the blogs. Remember these addresses are only temporary. They will be going back to their original addresses, so don’t go changing your bookmarks.
Thanks again for your patience– the new blogs are gonna be great!
Len
Let’s say you have a Web site, but have no real way to place videos on that site. What do you do? You could host your videos on a site like YouTube or Blip.tv and just link to those videos. But why lead people away from your site when most of these video sites allow you to embed a player, with your video, on your own site?
Embedding a video is as easy as opening an account on any one of the popular video sites, and uploading your videos. When that is completed, simply copy the embed code that the sites provide and paste it into your site, wherever you would like the video player to be.
Here are my top five tips is searching for the embedded player that is right for you.
If you have and questions or comments, please feel free to post them.
I just read an article at TechCrunch about a newcomer to the Live Streaming area, who is trying to level the playing field by offering something the competition doesn’t: cheap live streaming services. If you have ever tried to live stream a meeting or are looking into it, you have probably noticed how expensive it is to stream live video at an acceptable quality rate.
Stickam is offering there services in a generic version called StreamAPI. They offer their services with no contract and no minimum use. You pay only for what you use. How much is that? Well, one level of service they offer comes out to just 45 cents per Gig.
Check them out and see if it is something you might be able to use!
I want to thank you all who bore with me the extemporaneous posts that were really just notes from the workshops. I hope that these will be more of a reference to you in the future as you dive in to create your own Web sites.
Toward the end of the Expo, the workshops became more of a hands-on type, which made it hard to blog about. But please know that this expo was everything that it was advertised as being.
If you are at any level of competency, in any area from developer to administrator, there is something at the CMS expo for you.
So here are my main points I came away with.
“So what do I do now?”
This year, the churchwide office will be working on an ELCA template that you can easily import into your Joomla! site. If you do not have a site yet, or are not familiar with Joomla!, I recommend finding a class or user group in your area. If you are the “online learner” type, I would highly recommend the courses at Lynda.com. Joomla! 1.5 Essential Training is a great one. If you like to learn from a book, the CMS expo recommended Joomla! A User’s Guide: Building a Successful Joomla! Powered Website
One last thing. If you are able, I would highly recommend seeing you at the next CMS Expo, wherever it may be. Bookmark the Expo’s site, and plan to attend the next one, whatever your job description or level of expertise may be.
Establish a site purpose statement and goals.
Organize content correctly first.
Create a good site map.
Planning the Joomla structure.
Creating a dynamic site relies on content. In the old days of static sites, you could build out the site and menu, and just have the menu link to nothing and come back and link it later.
But that doesn’t work with dynamic sites. You canbuild the structure of the site and what the menus might look like graphically, but the content must be there to generate the menu.
The rest of this workshop is hands on and handouts.
