The document discusses building a successful organizational social media program. It outlines seven essential elements: an executive champion, clear lines of authority, a social media evangelist, sensible metrics and measurement, partnership with legal, a solid social media policy, and employee education and training. It emphasizes the importance of having clarity on social media roles and responsibilities within the organization to avoid inconsistencies and conflicts. It also stresses measuring social media success based on defined goals and engagement rather than just reach and numbers.

1. The Social Media Strategist
Building A Successful Program From The Inside Out
Christopher Barger, SVP Global Social Media, Voce Connect
Fusion Marketing Experience: Session 1
January 23, 2011

2. Death, Taxes, and…
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3. Social Media: The Reality
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4. Organizational Social Media:
A Common Mistake
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5. Organizational Social Media:
A Common Mistake
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6. Organizational Social Media:
“Lucky Seven” Essential Elements
• An Executive Champion
• Clear Lines of Authority
• A Social Media Evangelist
• Sensible Metrics & Measurement
• Partnership with Legal
• A Solid Social Media Policy
• Employee Education and
Training
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7. The Executive Champion
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8. Establishing Consensus:
Who “Owns” Social Media?
Source: Flickr, “BrandonB”
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9. Lack of Clarity: Risks
“Too Many Cooks In The Kitchen,” John
• Inconsistent online Cherry
presence and brand
personality
– Audience confusion
• Internal turf wars drain
energy, attention and
resources
• Staff frustration and burnout
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10. The Evangelist
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11. ROI & Measurement
• Define “success” and know what you want
to see before you start
• Know your zero point
• Select the measurement tools that fit your
goals
• Numbers don‟t mean what you might think
they mean
– Up to 47% of Twitter accounts are abandoned
– 57% of Facebook users hide brand content in their
news feeds
• Grow your engagement as zealously (or
more so) as your reach Source: eMarketer
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12. Working With Legal: Why?
• Recognize that you have similar goals: the
company‟s best interests
• Recognize that “the right thing” in social
and the company‟s best interests aren‟t
always directly parallel
– Transparency is not a zero-sum game
• There is no longer anything such as “ask
forgiveness later”
• Opportunity to create your own legal
social media „experts‟
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13. What Legal Brings To The Table
• Understanding & informed
interpretation of regulations and
guidelines
• Knowledge & informed interpretation
of emerging case law
• Experienced eye for policy
development
• Rules and ToC for contests and
promotions
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14. Building Social Media Policies
• Why?
– Protects organization and employees
• Who?
– All functions that affect or are affected by social
• How?
– Sync with established business guidelines
– Compromise will be necessary
– Policy and “usage guide” are not the same thing
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15. Education and Training
• 3 Tiers of Employee Training Needs
– Your employee base
– Externally-facing strategists
– Social media actives
• Doing the training
– Intranet modules
– Classroom instruction – both lecture and lab
– Ongoing education
• Lunch and learn/brown bag sessions
• Newsletters and emails
• Internal social communities (Yammer, SocialCast, etc.)
• Bringing in external speakers
• Conferences and community events
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16. Working Smartly With Online Influencers
• Get over yourself
• Know & follow the FTC guidelines
• Do your homework
• Don‟t be a lounge lizard
• Be involved offline
• Be clear – about everything
• Use the right people from your brand
• Monitor and follow up
• Build your community of advocates
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17. Get over yourself
• Ditch the big brand hubris; they‟ve built
their audience without you.
• Relevance: make sure your pitch actually
fits the influencer‟s
personality, audience, usual subjects – not
• because you saytitle doesn‟t mean
Your executive‟s so.
anything. In fact, no one knows who they
• are. all about you! Lead with their
It‟s not
interests and topics.
• Follow up. Every time.
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18. Publishing: The Golden Rule
• The first question you must always
ask is, “would I watch/read this if I
didn‟t work here?”
• You cannot design “viral” content.
You can design good content that
has a better chance of being
shared.
• Focusing on target numbers rather
than good content is the recipe for
top 40 radio
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19. Social Media Crisis: (Stuff) Happens
• If you are active in social
media, something will go
wrong.
• The trick is not preventing
crisis, it is in how you
handle one when it
happens.
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20. Six To Fix:
The 6 Types of Social Media Crisis
• Individual generated
• Customer service #fail
• Campaign
• Social media #fail
• Organizational brain freeze
• Three Mile Island
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21. Crisis Response: Common Themes
• Keep your social team in the loop
• Apologies go a long way
• Speed is critical
• Don‟t delete criticism
• Your audience isn‟t just the critics
• Use the right tools
• Get caught learning from it
• Keep engaging and follow up
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22. The Book
 How to build an organizational social
media practice
 Available at stores, on Amazon.be, on
Kindle, and barnesandnoble.com
beginning late February 2012
 Facebook.com/thesocialmediastrategis
t
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23. THANK YOU
christopher@voceconnect.com
Twitter: @cbarger