In his Brands-Only Summit presentation, Cox Media Group's Ryan Dickerson teaches a class on how to lead a social media engagement strategy. He shares how to build a scalable, effective plan to engage customers, fans, and critics in social conversations.

1. How to lead a social media
engagement strategy
RYAN DICKERSON
COX MEDIA GROUP
OCTOBER 2729, 2014 ORLANDO SOCIALMEDIA.ORG/SUMMIT2014

2. Social Media
Engagement
@RyanGDickerson

3. What does it even mean?
@RyanGDickerson

4. Defining engagement
Engagement looks different for every brand, and defining
it for your brand is key.
 What’s your brand voice?
 Why are you engaging with people?
 What’s unique about your brand?
 Why would I want a relationship with you?
@RyanG Dickerson

5. The good news
 You likely had a brand voice, brand promise, and
differentiators well before this guys was in diapers.
@RyanGDickerson

6. The challenges
 Engagement is hard to scale… despite technology
advancements
 Engagement costs $$$
 Platform proliferation requires creativity focus
 The noise is deafening, and organic reach is declining
for many brands
@RyanGDickerson

7. The rewards
Product Feedback
Product Promotion
Customer Analytics
From Conversations To Conversion
Improved SEO
Addressing The Haters
Casual Customers To Raving Fans
Brand Awareness

8. Rules of engagement
@RyanGDickerson

9. Rule #1
 Listen First – just like your mom told you
@RyanGDickerson

10. Rule #2
 Be Present – no posting and running
@RyanGDickerson

11. Rule #3
 Have Purpose – conversations should be intentional
@RyanGDickerson

12. Rule #4
 Be Authentic – deliver on that brand promise
@RyanGDickerson

13. Rule #5
 Stay Unique – don’t boilerplate me bro
@RyanGDickerson

14. Rule #6
 Take a Walk – seriously… they are good for you
@RyanGDickerson

15. Customer Service

16. Intriguing stat slide
@RyanGDickerson All stats provided by huffpo social care study

17. @RyanGDickerson
Be present
 A presence isn’t the same as being present

18. Be human
Brands are faceless, and easy to dislike… genuine people
 Don’t fall for the Klout/Kred game… everyone deserves
excellent service
 Listen, and research before you speak
 Be personal… boiler plate won’t cut it
 Empathize
are not.
@RyanGDickerson

19. Scale

20. Can you scale?
@RyanGDickerson

21. Answer: probably not
 Be realistic with yourself and your
team
 Set clear objectives with your
leadership
 Set clear expectation for your
audience
 Leverage technology wherever
possible
@RyanGDickerson

22. Don’t run the benchmarking rat race
@RyanGDickerson

23. Crisis Trolls

24. Are you ready?
People are imperfect… brands aren’t infallible.
@RyanGDickerson

25. You need a social media crisis
management plan
“No matter how bad things are, you can always make
them worse.” – Randy Pausch
 It will happen, and you’ll often be the first to see it
 It probably won’t be exactly what you expected
 Crisis management rarely falls on one person, or one
department
@Ry anGDickerson

26. How to organize the chaos
 Work within your business to gain stakeholders for a
crisis plan
 Legal
 Customer Service
 Public Relations
 Marketing
 Operations (store, web, supply chain, etc.)
 HR
 Identify decision makers, and escalation paths
 Have a process that the business commits to
 Run a test scenario
@RyanGDickerson

27. Trolls will be trolls
@RyanGDickerson

28. People will be people
Nearly a quarter of those who have ever posted content (23%) admit to having
maliciously argued over an opinion with a stranger
Men are more likely to get into a malicious
argument than women.
Millennials are twice as likely as those aged 55+ to
engage in trolling behavior.
All stats provided by reaserch.yougov
@RyanGDickerson

29. Don’t feed the trolls
If you’re ever tempted to engage with overly-negative
comments, start by asking the following questions…
 Do we have a real issue, or is this just hype?
 Where is this comment, and who will see it?
 What can we gain from responding?
 What will happen if we don’t do anything?
@RyanGDickerson

30. Takeaway time

31. Takeaways
 Defining your engagement strategy shouldn’t be an
exercise in free thinking… follow the brand.
 Listen, be present, have a purpose, be authentic
 Be human, and remember that everyone matters
 Be honest with your ability to scale, and set expectations
with your communities management
 Have a crisis plan, and have internal stakeholders
 Don’t feed the trolls, and take those walks
@RyanGDickerson

32. Questions?
@RyanGDickerson

33. Thank You
Feel free to tweet comments, questions, criticisms
and good margarita recipes to @RyanGDickerson

34. Learn more about past and
upcoming events
SOCIALMEDIA.ORG/EVENTS
OCTOBER 2729, 2014 ORLANDO SOCIALMEDIA.ORG/SUMMIT2014