In the Know II: Creating Your Social Media Plan

Melissa Beaupierre, Senior Director - CDC National Prevention Information Network (NPIN)
Jennifer Smith, Sr. Web and Accessibility Strategist
Katy Capers, Deputy Health Communications Project Manager

1

Overview
• Selecting a social media platform

• Selling the concept to leadership
• Developing a resource and staffing plan
• Creating content and getting clearance
• Managing social media conflict
• Marketing and promoting your presence

• Using metrics to evaluate your success

Selecting Your Platform
• Know your audience
• Select the platform your audience uses most
often
• Identify cross-platform tools

Selecting Your Platform:
Know Your Audience
• Know who you’re talking to!

• Who will be reading and interacting with your
content? What do you want them to do?
• Who influences them?

• Knowing who’s at the other end will help you craft
your messages perfectly and is a key to success

Study Your Platform
• Facebook isn’t for everyone

• Use resources like Quantcast and Pew Internet
• Consider cross-platform tools to give your content
greatest reach – Many have integrated, like Facebook
and Instagram or YouTube and Google+
• Use metrics to evaluate your success

Know Your Goals
• We’ve left this as the fourth step on purpose because
the platform you choose will change these slightly
• Engaging with content looks differently from
Facebook to YouTube, etc.

Consider Your Content
• Know what existing, pre-approved content you
already have to use
• Does your content best suit one platform over
another?
• Identifying these will help in knowing how big of a
‘lift’ putting the platform in use will be

Selling the Concept to Leadership
Some of you may not have to sell the concept to
your leadership and some may have a tough
convert on your hands.
Either way, acknowledging and talking about all of
these key elements will benefit your organization
with a smoother implementation of your new
social media channel.

Photo courtesy of Jason A. Howie: www.flickr.com/photos/jasonahowie/8583949219/

• Gather
statistics
• Show impact
with case
studies

• Stats:
– Know the demographics of the platform you use
– Should overlap with your core audience

• Case Studies:
– Illustrate the real impact social media can have
– Help colleagues envision the future of social media
for your organization


• Demonstrate
potential
benefits

Photo courtesy of CraftyGoat: www.flickr.com/photos/47066874@N00/1589872952/

• Point out
potential
pitfalls

Benefits to showcase:
– Missed opportunities
– Creating advocates
– Finding new partners
– Two-way communication
– Increased awareness of cause
– Added traffic back to website
– Become a leading voice
– Identify areas of need
– Get community insight
–…and more

Pitfalls to acknowledge:
– Security risks
– Privacy concerns
– Cost
• Not for the channel, but
intangible resource costs
• Explain that many up front costs
can be balanced out with cost
savings in other areas of
marketing and promotion

• Provide draft policies, plans and strategies

• Identify partners
• Justify use within the framework of your
mission

Photo courtesy of Jason Drakeford: www.flickr.com/photos/jasond/86156077/

Draft policies
Roughly plan out any needed
policies, plans and strategies,
including

Partners
– Know your internal allies
– Identify external support of
your new social media efforts
• Create and distribute content,
with existing accounts to
model and/or share content
• Develop goals,
• Measure impact,
Mission alignment
• Report results,
– Without framing within your
• Respond to any disaster or
overall organizational mission,
problem,
you risk launching a presence
• Plans for engaging, connecting,
that loses support and/or has
influencing and impacting users
no long-term staying power

Developing a Resource & Staffing Plan
• Identify team member responsibilities and
account maintenance

• Train staff about platform basics

Photo courtesy of Anna L. Shiller: http://farm4.staticflickr.com/3668/10443476473_09cdb12d03_o.png

• Responsibilities –
– Don’t just pass account management off to an intern
– Consider roles for administration, account management,
content development, content clearance, metrics
collections/analysis
– Identify someone to keep abreast of platform
updates/changes and/or other trends outside of your chosen
platform

• Train staff –
– Train any staff on items like main features, platform-specific
terminology, and best practices
– Inform other, non-communication staff: Get their buy-in, help
them know how to respond as individual, and ask them to
share relevant content with the SM team

Developing a Resource & Staffing Plan)
• Provide best practices for
reference, including tips
about what NOT to do
• Educate team about
tracking and evaluation
tools and metrics used to
measure success
• Specify guidelines for
maintenance activities

Photo courtesy of Anna L. Shiller:
http://farm6.staticflickr.com/5525/10443477423_acc3da2025_o.png

• Best practices –
– Research best practices and include these in your plan for
reference.
– Include tips on what NOT to do based on mistakes others have
made in the past.
• Tracking –
– Identify metrics early
– Educate staff about the importance of tracking as you go
• Maintenance –
– Identify staff times and acceptable devices for managing
accounts
– Show leadership you’re proactive to minimize harm

Creating Content & Getting Clearance

• Compile account
profile basics
• Develop editorial
calendar

Photo courtesy of DiamondDuste: www.flickr.com/photos/73835403@N00/2928439313

• Profile basics - Gather and get
approval for:
– Account or org. name/handle
– Logo
– Other art/images/background
– Description/summary
– Other customizable info
• Calendar - helps pinpoint
– Contributors
– Clearance dates
– Posting dates
– Other relevant information

Dovetail dates with:
– Existing important dates
– Observance days
– Projects
– Announcements
– Events already in place
Also leave flexibility for:
– Timely or sensitive updates
– Special events

• Identify pre-approved
content to repurpose

• Outline content style
and tone to be used
• Consider user’s journey
from social media
platform to your site
Photo courtesy of KevyGee: www.flickr.com/photos/99139484@N00/3988111831/

Content:
• Current content has already
been approved and is perfect
to re-purpose. Example are:
– FAQs
– Photos
– Fact sheets
– Brochures
– Posters
– Success stories
– Field images

Tone:
• Platform and audience dictate
tone
• Conversational/open-ended
tone = Facebook
• News headline/one-way tone =
Twitter
User journey:
• Consider where you are
sending your audience
• Don’t make them dig
• Ensure links add value

• QA posts with
checklists for
adherence to best
practices, standards
and policies
• Respond promptly
• Set sharing guidelines

Photo courtesy of AlexKngorg: www.flickr.com/photos/alexkingorg/314461432

Best practices:
• Guidelines for 508 accessibility
• Proprietary style guides
• Consider posts that might
igniting controversy
• Check lists are a great
• Apply lessons learned
Response Time:
• Users expect faster responses
• Pay attention to ‘social care’
• Don’t neglect/dismiss any
chance for communication

Sharing guidelines:
• Administrators should know
what kind of content is safe to
‘like,’ ‘share,’ ‘retweet,’ etc.
• Focus on official partners or
share content from the general
public?
• i.e., NPIN focuses on 4 diseases
aspects and only re-tweets items
that fall within that spectrum

• Outline ideas and rules
for contests or
promotions before
conducting one
• Copyright/ownership of
repurposed content
• Develop calls to action
Photo courtesy of Anna L. Schiller: www.flickr.com/photos/frauleinschiller/10443333595/

Contests/promos:
• Develop policies/guidelines/rules before a contest or promo
• Don’t let an oversight hold you to fulfill a costly or timeconsuming promise
• Don’t upset the audience with a perception of false advertising
Copyright/ownership of repurposed content:
• Identify any content that may belong to others and ensure you
correctly attribute it
Calls to action:
• Know what you want people to do and how you want them to
interact with you
• Give users reasons to come back and interact with you

Managing Social Media Conflict
Before Conflict

• Ensure tone and voice of your org stays intact to mitigate
confusion
• Establish approval and clearance processes, and
determine when to engage and when not to
• Establish user comment policies; CDC and
SMGovernance.com provide some great examples
• Identify sensitivities or existing obstacles, know hotbutton issues ahead of time
• Get HR, legal, and PR teams involved early and tap into
their existing expertise

Managing Social Media Conflict
After Conflict

• Be honest and admit error! The Internet is forever so don’t
ignore problems – acknowledge and move on
• Create a triage plan and determine who needs to be
brought into a conversation and when
• Be consistent but be flexible – Each situation is different,
but be consistent to maintain your brand’s promise
• Know when to take it offline, direct message or e-mail
• Work with special teams and senior leadership, if needed,
to ensure voices from across the org are heard

Marketing & Promoting Your Presence

• Cross-platform
digital
promotion
• Traditional
promotion
• Partnerships
Image courtesy of Giulia Forsythe: www.flickr.com/photos/gforsythe/7196460482/

Marketing & Promoting Your Presence
Basics of digital promotion
• Add icons/links into existing
channels :
–
–
–
–

E-mail signatures
Newsletters
Blogs
Websites

Traditional = offline materials
• Brochures
• Posters
• Swag
• Business cards

• Signage
• You may need to tell people
your handle/profile name
• Having an event or in the
news? Provide a social media
link with news coverage
• Use hashtags during live events
so people can share their
experiences and thoughts in
real time - for example, our
hashtag of #SM4PH

Partnerships
Again, partnerships, partnerships, partnerships.
• Harness what you already have to engage current partners and
have them link in with your new account.
• Have an employee who is an expert who writes content for other
organizations or partners? Make sure they promote your
organizations new presence.
– If you don’t have an ‘expert’ like this, consider enhancing existing
partnerships with someone on staff who could write a guest blog or spot
for a partner so you can begin that relationship to enhance engagement.

Cross-Platform Case Study #1
Cat Immersion Project
• Engaged followers on
Facebook with request
for cat photos
• Followed up with a YouTube thank you video
• Tracked responses and engagement including likes,
shares, comments and photos
• Check out video on YouTube - “Cat Immersion Project”

This project from SCH was a cross-channel success. It was a
special surprise for Maga, who was confined to her hospital room
because of cancer and a compromised immune system.

• Fantastic showcase of the power of social media
• Created a deeper story

• Shows what can be accomplished when multiple channels
are linked and leveraged
• High demonstrated level of engagement that went beyond
just views and included interaction with story through
comments and led to action represented by gifts and cards
sent to Maga

Facebook posts:
• 1,629 liked original post + more than 1,000 for the follow-up
• 1,011 original comments (most with pictures) + 100 more
comments and pics with follow-up
• 1,900 original shares + 124 more shares for follow-up
• Reached more than 55,000 with original + over 30k in follow-up

YouTube Video:
•
•
•
•

More than 264,000 views
886 likes
125 comments
Received 40 national media attention
36

Using Metrics to Evaluate Success
•

Metrics should be identified during goal setting process, should be meaningful to
YOUR org

•

Draw conclusions based on data

•

Assess what does and does not work, then tweak

•

Keys to evaluation include:
•
•

Engagement - Interacting, like or comment

•

Influence - Adopt the call to action (ex: searching for a testing location or calling
a hotline)

•
•

Exposure - Reach, “reading”

Results - Outcome (ex: did status knowledge increase in the area or did
smoking decrease?)

Difficulty of measuring increases with each step, but the beauty of SM is you get to
set your own—determine your own success

Using Metrics to Evaluate Success
• Determine desired level of engagement:
• Low = One-way communication
• Medium = Two-way communication
• High = Conversion to an advocate/partner

• Know what can be measured in your social media
platform
• Identify the right tools for measurement

Cross-Channel Evaluation Tools
TOOL

SOCIAL MEDIA CHANNELS

COST

Google Analytics

All channels

Free

HootSuite

Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Google+,
Foursquare, MySpace, Wordpress

Free and Paid
Services

Lithium

Facebook, Twitter

Paid Service

Radian6

Facebook, Twitter, YouTube

Paid Service

Simply Measured

Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Google+, Instagram,
Vine, Klout
Coming soon: Tumblr, Pinterest, LinkedIn

Paid Service

Sysomos

Facebook, Twitter, YouTube

Paid Service

Coremetrics

Facebook, Twitter

Paid Service

Omniture

All channels

Paid Service

Resources
• CDC Social Media Tool & Guides:
www.cdc.gov/SocialMedia/Tools/gu
idelines/
• AIDS.gov’s Using New Media Site:
aids.gov/using-new-media/
• Mashable.com

• HealthCareCommunication.com
• SocialMediaToday.com
– Infographic:
http://socialmediatoday.com/bria
nna5mith/1648356/how-choosemost-effective-social-mediaplatform-your-brand

• HowTo.gov’s Social Media site:
www.howto.gov/social-media
• Social Media Governance Policy
Database:
http://socialmediagovernance.com
/policies.php
• Quantcast Blog:
www.quantcast.com/insidequantcast
• Pew Internet & American Life
Project: www.pewinternet.org
• Official blog or feed of the channel
you’re using

Acknowledgements
Moderator
Melissa Beaupierre

Presenters
Jennifer Smith & Katy Capers

Executive Producer
Harry Young

Technical Producer/Director
James Bethea

Social Media Coordinator
Carlos Chapman II

Health Communications Support Team
Cynthia Newcomer, Tracye Poole, Daniel Johnson & Valerie Watkins

In the Know II: Creating Your Social Media Plan

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In the Know II: Creating Your Social Media Plan

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