From Computer to Community: How To Make Your Social Media More Human (by SciFri)
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Does this sound familiar? You’ve set up your organization's Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram and now they’re full of press releases. You post sporadically when you have a big announcement or during a fundraising campaign, but you get very little traction. Your Executive Director has an account, but it’s just a mirror of your organization. It all feels very… robotic. No, it doesn’t have to be this way. Brandon Echter, community manager at The Science Friday Initiative, offers practical tips and tricks to help you breathe life into your social media. Learn how to create a persona that will humanize your organization’s social media presence, and how to use that persona to help your staff advocate for your mission. Most importantly, learn how to use your social media to emphasize that you and your advocates are a community of people, creating stronger bonds and building a better groundwork for your mission.
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From Computer to Community: How To Make Your Social Media More Human (by SciFri)
- 1. Brandon Echter @bechter The Science Friday Initiative @SciFri
- 3. #Join our #Conversation about #Dogs! NEW CONTENT: http://www.reallylongurl…
- 5. Generic Why don’t these tweets sound human? BoringDisconnected
- 20. To make your organization sound human, you must make your organization into a human.
- 21. Social Media Persona The anthropomorphized version of your organization. If your org was a human, what human would they be?
- 22. The persona is not, and should not, be a specific, high-profile person from your organization.
- 31. Science Friday is… …the really excited person at a dinner party who wants to tell you about this cool thing they learned.
- 33. Who do you want to reach? What is your goal? Write down a short phrase that describes that group.
- 34. Use that as a baseline. …but let’s get more specific.
- 35. 1. What are some adjectives that describe your organization? Come up with at least three. 2. Using those adjectives, what are some of the hobbies (that are unrelated to your mission) that this person would have? 3. What are their demographics? Are they male, female, or is it not important? How old are they? 4. Where is the most likely place you would run into this person? Where would they most likely be on a Wednesday night, after work? 5. Is there a quote you can imagine them saying? 6. How would you describe this person to a friend at a party?
- 36. My friend ___________ is… …the _____________ at the _____________ who wants _______________.
- 38. SHARING TIME!
- 51. Brandon Echter @bechter The Science Friday Initiative @SciFri
Editor's Notes
- Does this sound familiar? You’re working with your organization, trying to do great things in the world, but your social media looks like this… or this… or this. Have you noticed that none of those tweets have any interaction with them?
- In other words, it sounds like your organization is run by a bunch of robots. NOPE.
- THIS IS A NO ROBOT ZONE. Lets analyze why these didn’t work
- In other words, you sound like this. People HATE this – it sounds inhuman. In fact, part of the reason why we’re calling these bots is because it sounds deep in the uncanny valley. As humans, we crave things that are a little unpolished, things with unique personalities. We crave this stuff on dates…
- http://mic.com/articles/125065/the-secret-to-having-an-awesome-date-is-exactly-the-opposite-of-what-you-think
- …we crave it in our music… http://scitation.aip.org/content/aip/magazine/physicstoday/article/65/7/10.1063/PT.3.1650
- …. And we crave it in our social media. And this has actually been studied! A study from just about a month ago found that people who perceive brands to have a human voice think of that brand more positively. And even though this has been recently studied, it’s something that many for-profit companies have figured out for a while. Like, say…. http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2015-09/ica-uah090815.php
- …your friendly neighborhood diner. Denny’s is seen as one of the most innovative in the social field, because they act on social media like their target audience. They share funny thoughts…
- …and images…
- And they respond to their fans with jokes! It’s hilarious. And they did this…
- By essentially hiring someone to run their social media as their own. http://www.dailydot.com/business/dennys-tumblr-gifs-amber-gordon/
- Buzzfeed shares their stories, but also REACTS to them. They have a very distinct editorial point of view
- Associations with staffers
- Responding to fans
- Buzzfeed even has different channels for their different verticals, and they all act distinctly – BuzzfeedGeeky is your favorite Doctor Who fan, WeirdBuzzfeed is essentially Weird Twitter
- Buzzfeed lives without fear! Consistent editorial voice. http://marketingland.com/7-things-buzzfeed-can-teach-brands-social-72969 But what if you have a distinct mission you get across? What if you’re…
- How did we do this?
- With apologies to Carl Sagan…
- Science Friday’s persona is specifically not Ira Flatow. Not only does it limit the ability for this high profile person to be a high profile advocate, but it puts you at immense risk. God forbid there is ever a scandal. See: Livestrong and Lance Armstrong
- How do we do this? ----- Meeting Notes (10/1/15 14:11) ----- How did it come to this?
- Before coming up with this persona, our social was a mess. We would post the same things over… and over… and over again.
- Most of the people in our organization had access to the accounts, so the voice would be different depending on who would use it. We would post sporadically, and everyone would post in their own personal way. ----- Meeting Notes (10/1/15 13:31) ----- It came across as very scattered.
- From the very formal…
- …to the very casual
- So we put on our “Get Along” shirts…
- …and started brainstorming. ----- Meeting Notes (10/1/15 14:11) ----- And what we came up with was a phrase. And that phrase informs who we are and what we do on social media.
- Really excited. @SciFri gets REALLY excited about science and learning. They’re curious. They think everything is the coolest thing ever. They use a lot of exclamation points. Most importantly, being excited implies that they are NOT jaded. They’re earnest in their excitement. Person. While some personas are gendered based on their brand, @SciFri is intentionally not. At a dinner party. This implies two things: Tone and age. Dinner parties are casual and fun, but very specifically a “grown-up” thing to do. You wouldn’t necessarily want to be screaming (or, in this case, using all capital letters) at a dinner party; You wouldn’t want to be too standoffish or formal, either. Wants to tell you about a cool thing they learned. This phrase helps steer the content. Tweets will often include a cool fact, a Did You Know?, or Today I Learned… We use these pieces of trivia to help tease larger stories.
- Now let’s start to make our own! ----- Meeting Notes (10/1/15 13:31) ----- Coming up with a persona requires a LOT of thought and thinking through - but let's create a base for you guys to get started ----- Meeting Notes (10/1/15 14:11) ----- Something that's very important to remember with this stuff is that the more specific you are, the better.
- Who believes in your mission? Who doesn’t yet? Where do they live? How old are they? Write down a three word phrase that describes that group – for example, Science Friday wanted to reach “People Who Are Not Afraid To Geek Out”
- Now, let’s make some friends and explain them! Justify them!
- Now that we have them, what do we use them for?
- Now you’re comfortable in your own skin, you can use more playful language – like emojis…s
- …Or just plain more fun language
- It also dictates content…
- Allows for more playful reactions with users and other orgs!
- Not only that, but it allows your staff to share things relevant to their interest, and expand what you’d normally cover –especially on platforms like twitter and tumblr with easy RT/Reblog buttons
- This also allows you to POST a lot more. When you retweet someone now, it doesn’t appear like it’s coming from Science Friday – it’s coming from Charles, our director.
- Frees up your staff to become personalities in their own right, and advocate for your mission.
- Most importantly – you won’t sound like a robot.