VIP Department Training

1. BrandYourself
Basecamp
VIP Workshop | 2017

2. 2What is it
used for?
What is Basecamp?
In short, Basecamp puts everything you need to get your work done in one place. More
specifically, we use Basecamp to:
▸ Keep important client materials in one place
▹ Campaign Overview Doc
▹ Monthly Report Prep Doc
▹ Strategy Doc(s)
▸ Schedule, collaborate on, and execute client deliverables using To-do lists
▹ Foundation Building
▹ Weekly assignments
Like an agency, the VIP Department operates on an hourly basis ($150/hr*). Campaign
budgets are broken down on a monthly basis and deliverables are scheduled out over the four
(and sometimes five) weeks within the month (up until their next monthly report goes out).
What is a deliverable? “Deliverables” are any projects/assignments that are being executed for a client
campaign (social media activity, paid promotions, content creation, research, special projects). Budgets
should be broken down to account for any deliverable assigned that month and reflected in each
individual deliverable created on your “To Do” list.
*Older campaigns may be grandfathered into our old pricing model, for which it would be $125/hour

3. How projects are arranged in Basecamp
VIP operates on a four week monthly schedule. Campaigns are assigned to a certain week
of the month (first full week of the month = A week) to indicate which Friday their monthly
report goes out.
▸ Each campaign folder is named according to: 1) it’s assigned week, 2) campaign
keyword, and 3) budget.
▸ Any campaign that starts with a number instead of a letter means that campaign is
in its foundational period. The number indicates how many weeks left until their
Foundational Report is scheduled to go out.
3What does
it all
mean?

4. Campaign Overview Doc
This document should serve as a quick summary of the campaign including key,
high-level details. Campaign Overview Docs are created and filled out by Brand
Strategists and approved by Senior Brand Strategists during the foundational period
of a campaign. They should be updated throughout the campaign as needed.
▸ Key Info:
▹ Campaign keyword(s)
▹ Start date/campaign length if other than 12 months
▹ Links to Master Sheet and Maintenance Checklist
▹ Overall Goal(s) Summary of Campaign (what does the client want to
achieve?) and Reason for Campaign
▹ Brand Summary
▹ Target Audience
▹ Website Strategy and Social Strategy
▹ Communication Process
▹ Approval Process
▹ Restrictions/Concerns
▸ Example: Devorah Rose
Key Docs:
Campaign
Overview
4

5. Monthly Report Prep
A key step in prepping for a monthly report to go out (which is the Friday of each campaigns
indicated week) is the Monthly Report Prep process. The Tuesday before your report goes
out, the Brand Strategist, Content Strategist/Staff Writer, and Social Media
Manager/Specialist (when applicable) meet to discuss strategy for next month’s deliverables.
Budget is broken down between Fees, Content, Social, Paid Promo, and Special Projects to
account for:
▸ FEES: Any time spent strategizing (including monthly report prep meetings!),
communicating with the client and with your team.
▸ CONTENT: Any content being created (bios/blog posts/thought pieces, special
projects). The scope of each piece should be discussed between Brand Strategists
and Content Strategist/Staff Writer and may need input from the Senior Content
Strategist to allocate appropriate time for research, edits, and pitching to third party
pubs.
▸ SOCIAL: Any time spent creating and scheduling social media posts, executing social
media activity across profiles, and syndicating blog posts/thought pieces to
appropriate places
▸ PAID PROMOTIONS: Three percent of your clients total budget should be allocated for
paid promotional campaigns. How this budget should be utilized should be determined
between Brand Strategists and Social Media Manager/Specialist when applicable. Go
to Senior Brand Strategist for additional input.
▸ SPECIAL PROJECTS: Any additional projects that are either included within clients
campaigns (like newsletter creation/management, infographics) or budget and
strategy show it would be of benefit to current campaign (like slideshows/videos).
Key Docs:
Monthly
Report
Prep
5

6. Monthly Report Prep pt. 2
The Report Prep doc should be a running list of your strategy and deliverables each month.
Copy and paste budget breakdowns/weekly deliverables above the past month and DO NOT
just write over last month's plan.
Key Docs:
Monthly
Report
Prep
6 The top half of your Monthly Report Prep includes a
high-level breakdown of your monthly budget, and
short summaries of Branding, Social Media and
Content Objectives (if changed from the previous
month).
The bottom half of your Monthly Report Prep
includes a weekly breakdown of your
deliverables, including how much money
(time) is allocated to complete each
deliverable as well as working titles of the
next month's content.

7. Monthly Report Prep pt. 3
Now that the Monthly Report Prep doc has been updated to reflect work over the upcoming
month, Brand Strategists need to translate, schedule, and appropriately assign those weekly
deliverables into actionable deliverables on a client’s To-do list.
▸ On your client dashboard, find To-do lists. Click on “Add a to-do list”. You will be
creating a to-do list for each week in the upcoming month.
▸ The title of each weekly to-do list should be as follows: Date of last workday of that
week followed by a shorthand version of the campaign keyword. Click “Save and start
adding to-dos” to enter in each separate deliverable
Key Docs:
Monthly
Report
Prep
7

8. Monthly Report Prep pt. 4
▸ Each deliverable should be entered in as follows:
a. The $ amount allocated to the specific deliverable
b. The actual assignment
■ If social activity, it should simply read “Social”
■ If content, first indicate what kind of content assignment it is -- “Bio”
“Blog post” or “Thought Piece” -- followed by where the content will live in
parenthesis then the working title of that piece
● 1200 Thought Piece [for 3rd party pub] -- The Three Foods You
Can Eat After Getting Your Wisdom Teeth Out
● 600 Blog Post [.COM] -- Mac n Cheese vs. Mashed Potatoes:
Which Is Better?
▸ Schedule each individual deliverable to be due by the end of its corresponding week.
▸ Assign the deliverable to the appropriate teammate.
▸ Save the deliverable.
▸ Arrange your To-do lists by date (most timely delivs should be sitting at the top).
Monthly breakdowns/weekly deliverables should be up to date both in Monthly Report Prep
docs and in your To-do lists before Monthly Reports are sent to Senior Strats to review, as
this is something Seniors check over to ensure budget is properly broken down and client
goals are being achieved.
Key Docs:
Monthly
Report
Prep
8

9. Strategy Documents
No campaign is static, so why would their strategies be? Content and Social Strategy docs
should be created by Brand Strategists and updated by appropriate teammates throughout the
duration of the campaign
▸ Social Strategy docs: Contains ideas for
current/future strategy. Doc should be
updated if strategy has been implemented
and if it was successful. This doc is mostly
managed by Brand Strat/Social Media
Manager/Specialist.
Key Docs:
Strategy
Docs
9 ▸ Content Strategy docs: Contains working
titles/content ideas both sourced from
client meetings/calls and Content
Strat/Staff Writer research. Doc should be
updated if certain topic ideas have been
used and/or rejected. This doc is mostly
managed by Content Strat/Staff Writer.

10. Deliverable Communication and Execution
Weekly deliverables are there for many reasons. 1) To help anyone assigned to an account
keep track of their work and weekly schedule. 2) To ensure campaigns are being paid
attention to on a weekly basis. 3) To create a clear visual to help keep track of assignments
to ensure they are executed fully and on time.
▸ Content-related deliverables: the communication process should go as follows:
▹ Start thread under deliverable with any research/client insights gathered by
either Brand Strat or Content Strat/Staff Writer. Ensure both Brand Strat and
Content Strat/Staff Writer are tagged in thread.
▹ Once assigned content is completed, Content Strat/Staff Writer should enter
the link to the appropriate Google Doc and any follow-up questions or requests
that they’d like to be communicated to the client
▹ Brand Strat should then respond to the thread indicating that the piece was sent
to the client for review/approval. Brand Strat should update thread once client
has approved piece or requested edits (and in some cases, update thread each
time content was re-sent for approval).
▹ Once final approval has been given by client, it should be communicated by the
Brand Strat.
▹ Content Strat/Staff Writer should update thread with link to live post (or
indicate if it has been backdated/scheduled for the future).
▹ At this point in the thread, if there are any Social Media Managers/Specialists
assigned to the campaign, they should be tagged in the thread by the Content
Strat/Staff Writer as to inform them when content has been posted so they can
share/syndicate accordingly.
▹ Content Strat/Staff Writer can then check off deliverable as completed.
Deliverables
10

11. Deliverable Communication and Execution
Weekly deliverables are there for many reasons. 1) To help anyone assigned to an account
keep track of their work and weekly schedule. 2) To ensure campaigns are being paid
attention to on a weekly basis. 3) To create a clear visual to help keep track of assignments
to ensure they are executed fully and on time.
▸ Social-related deliverables: the communication process should go as follows:
▹ Brand Strat should start thread under deliverable with any specific focus or
ideas for that current week and tag Social Media Manager/Specialist if
assigned to campaign.
■ If Social Media Manager/Specialist is assigned to campaign, they should
include the link to the campaign Maintenance Checklist in the thread
■ Brand Strat should check over Maintenance Checklist to ensure work has
been executed and let Social Media Manager/Specialist know if all looks
good.
■ Social Media Manager/Specialist checks off deliverable as complete
▹ Maintenance checklist should be updated with details of social work executed
(what profiles, for how long, etc).
▹ Check off deliverable as complete.
▸ Special project-related deliverables: the communication process should go as follows:
▹ Brand Strat should start thread under deliverable with any specific info, links,
research, etc. Any and all info needed to execute special project should be
included. If necessary, tag appropriate teammates assigned to campaign.
▹ If approvals are needed, indicate when project was sent to client/when client
communicated their approval/feedback
▹ Check off deliverable as complete once final version is executed.
Deliverables
11

12. When is using this necessary?
The Discussions section of a campaign on Basecamp allows teammates to update each
other on things big and small that don’t necessarily have to do with a specific deliverable.
When creating Discussion messages, please be mindful of WHO you are updating on this
info.
▸ Example: A Brand Strat is notified of a new, extremely damaging negative that
centers around a current client. They should create a thread in the Discussions
section detailing the nature of the negative and how that may influence deliverable
execution moving forward (i.e. They are being accused of murder, so don’t tweet
about how great guns are/perhaps stop tweeting altogether). For bigger news like
this (the above is a very extreme example), it’s likely best to include Senior Brand
Strat/Senior Content Strat in on the Discussion
▸ Example: A Senior Brand Strats has a call with a client where they express how
much they love Beyonce. They then create a thread in the Discussions section
informing others on the account of this, as it may influence future deliverables and
strategy (and writing it down will help it stick as opposed to communicating it
face-to-face with team).
▹ Go to Discussions > Post a new discussion
▹ Enter in your message/update, and before selecting “Post this message” first
click (just above) “Let me choose who should get an email” and tag the
appropriate teammates.
Discussions
12

13. Discussions
13