The document discusses the significance of social media in contemporary communications, emphasizing its role in facilitating interactive dialogue and brand visibility. It highlights the importance of strategic engagement across various platforms, addressing common concerns such as cost, resource management, and measurement of success. Additionally, it provides useful tools and resources for effective social media management and engagement.

1. Communications in the
Digital Era of Social Media
Kathleen Holmlund
Strategic Communications Counsel at
News Strategies™
@PupaKat

2. Communications in the Digital Era of Social Media
Questions?
• What it social media?
• Why should I be using it?
• How much will it cost? or rather: How much time is it going to
take?
• Is it safe? I’m scared!!!
• How can incorporate this into my existing marketing and
communications mix?
• Which platforms should I be using?
• How do I use these platforms and engage effectively on them?
• How do you grow your “followers” and “likes” and the level of
interactions on these platforms?
• How do you measure results and ROI?

3. Communications in the Digital Era of Social Media
What is social media?

4. Communications in the Digital Era of Social Media
Wikipedia says:
Social media are media for social interaction, using
highly accessible and scalable communication
techniques.
Social media is the use of web-based and mobile
technologies to turn communication into interactive
dialogue.

5. Communications in the Digital Era of Social Media

6. Communications in the Digital Era of Social Media

7. Communications in the Digital Era of Social Media
Social Interaction
+
Technology
=
Social Media

8. Communications in the Digital Era of Social Media
The style of discourse has now
changed to engagement, interaction,
listening and immediate and
transparent online conversations.

9. Communications in the Digital Era of Social Media
Who is Today’s Media?
• Mainstream papers, magazines, TV, radio,
cable
• Blogs, social media, forums
• Online news services
• Online news aggregators
• Maybe someone you never heard of ...
• Lines have become blurred between pure
journalism, entertainment and opinion

10. Communications in the Digital Era of Social Media
Who is a Journalist?
• Trained, experienced reporter
• Blogger, with or without experience
• Celebrity, notable, attorney
• Someone with absolutely no skills or
experience in journalism
• Your customer

11. Communications in the Digital Era of Social Media
Why should I use social media?
Whether you are a for-profit or non-profit
organization we are all having to get our
message across in a competitive world of
Googleability where an objective is to
both participate and manage (not
“control”) conversations about the visibility
and brand of your organization in the vast
online environment . . .

12. Communications in the Digital Era of Social Media
In the digital era, organizations can enhance or
even bypass mainstream media outreach
opportunities to communicate their information
and messaging, their way, directly and
effectively, to their audience through social
media channels.

13. Communications in the Digital Era of Social Media
How much will it cost? Where do I start?
Hmmm, how long is a piece of string?
It all goes back to strategy basics:
 What is your communications goal?
 How will you know that you have achieved it?
 When would you like to achieve that goal?
 How realistic is the goal given your resources, etc…
 What are the challenges in achieving this goal?

14. Communications in the Digital Era of Social Media
Which platforms should I be using?
• Which ones are you most comfortable with?
• Which ones are your employees, customers,
suppliers using?
• Which ones are your potential customers using?
• What resources do you have at your disposal?

15. Communications in the Digital Era of Social Media
How does it fit in with my current marketing mix?
These are additional tools in
your marketing mix. You will
want to ensure consistent
messaging across all your
platforms.
The difference now is that
we are moving from purely
“push” PR style promotional
messaging to a more
engaging and
conversational “pull” style.

16. Communications in the Digital Era of Social Media
How do I measure social media?

17. Communications in the Digital Era of Social Media
How do I engage effectively on these platforms?
• Social Media is a conversation
• Be active and responsive
• Be personal and authentic
• Encourage sharing
• Make social media an organization-wide activity
• Bonus: love what you do

18. Communications in the Digital Era of Social Media
Links to useful social media tools
 Tweetdeck (handles Twitter mainly but also FB)
 HootSuite (handles Twitter, FB, and LinkedIn updates)
 MarketMeSuite (handles Twitter and FB, and particularly
effective for people needing to handle multiple accounts.
More so than TweetDeck and HootSuite, I have found as it
separates the accounts better)
 Social Mention (Real-time social media search and analysis. A
Google Alerts for social media)
 Google Analytics and Woopra for website stats (Woopra
provides real-time stats and also has an iPhone app)
 Sprout Social for social media stats and analytics
 Social Media Wordpress Plugins: AddThis, Digg Digg, Leenk.me

19. Communications in the Digital Era of Social Media
Links to useful social media resources
 Rules of Social Media Engagement – by Brian
Solis
 Online Database of Social Media Policies
 56 Social Media Infographics
 Online Marketing Infographic
 Which SM platforms are best for which marketing
outcomes – Very helpful infographic
Time-saving resources
• Egg Timer – Useful countdown timer
• LetMeWork and SecretGeek – SW to help block time-wasting sites