This document provides an overview of developing a social media strategy. It discusses determining organizational goals and messaging, identifying target audiences, best practices for platforms like blogs, Twitter, Facebook and YouTube, and measuring success. Key recommendations include developing an integrated communications strategy, assessing current audiences, establishing consistent messaging, implementing appropriate social media tools, and setting metrics to evaluate performance. The document provides guidance on audience research, content creation, and community engagement across various social channels.

1. Social Media
Strategy:
Produced by Tony Roberts for EADI
based on original presentation
Created by Vanessa and Colin Rhinesmith
and shared on Slideshare
This presentation is licensed by Tony Roberts
under a Creative Commons Noncommercial Attribution Share Alike 3.0 Unported license.

2. Table of Contents:
 Introductions
 Learning Objectives & Expectations
 Your Existing Strategies
 Social Media Strategy Overview
 Social Media Best Practices
 Next Steps
 Resources

3. [Introductions]

4. Learning Objectives:
 To share experience, knowledge & skills
 To think critically about strategy, aims,
analysts and tools
 To be able to develop a social media strategy
for a development research organisation
 To understand how nonprofits can use
technology to raise awareness, market
services, and build community
 To be able to provide informed advice on
social media best practices and
implementatio
 To know how to access other resources

5. Critical Path:
 To develop a social media strategy we
must first know the organisation's
overall vision, aims, objectives, goals
 What is the goal of social media in our
organisation: thought-leadership,
sales, profile, branding, advocacy?
 Who is the intended audience(s)?
 What is the key message?
 How will we know success?

6. Recommendations:
 Develop an integrated marketing and
communication strategy (that includes
social media specific strategy)
 Assess current client demographics,
communication needs, and opinions
through paper, phone, & survey
 Establish cohesive and consistent
messaging that is audience specific and
can span across various channels
 Implement social media tools as
appropriate – based on resources
available and survey data

7. Before You Begin:
It’s tempting to jump right into social
media and set up a myriad of accounts,
but before you begin be sure to:
 Determine your organization’s goals
 Develop a communications plan
 Know how to reach your audience

8. Where Does Social Media
Fit in Your Strategy?
Sequence of Execution:
 Review your organization’s mission
 Develop a message (i.e., communications strategy) that
supports your organization’s mission
 Identify your target audience
 Determine how social media will support your
communications strategy
 Create consistent – not overwhelming – messaging
across all communication channels
The Four R’s:
 Receive feedback from your
community/members/audience
 Review all feedback
 Revise your marketing communications (including social
media) strategies based on the needs of the community
 Re-implement or adjust your strategy

9. [Getting Started
with Social
Media]

10. Lurking: Listen Before You Engage
 Cultural Sensitivity: Listen and learn about
your intended audience's culture before you
engage with them
 Add Value: Contribute to the community by
providing resources that the community has
reason to value – use bit.ly
 Go where your community is
Use the tools the community uses
 Establish a listening post
Streamline your content production
Tweetdeck – Google Reader – bookmarklets

11. Survey the 'market'
 Surveys are a quick and easy way to
learn more about your community.
Especially useful if you already have a
database of email contacts, they provide
valuable information prior to the creation
of a social media strategy.
 Survey Monkey
http://surveymonkey.com
 Basic: Free (100 responses per survey)
 Monthly Pro: $25/m. (1000/mo.)
 Annual Pro: $250/year (unlimited)

12. Image courtesy of fredcavazza available on Flickr under a Creative Commons license

13. [The Audience]

14. Audience:
 It’s easy to get caught up in what you want to
communicate, but be sure to first identify
your audience – it starts with them
 Write out the type of audience or audiences that
you want to focus on:
 What are their key characteristics?
 What are their communication preferences
and informational needs?
 Some universal tips for developing and
maintaining an audience regardless of what
kind of media you make on the web:

15. Universal Tips &
Questions:
 Be patient, communicating takes time.
 Think about what makes your organization
different from others – your USP
 What do people say about you?
 What advantages does your org have?
 How can you emphasize these advantages
and differences to your audience?
 How will your target audience respond to
different forms of communication?
 Remember your goals; make sure they fit!

16. [The Message]

17. What Is Your Message?
Tips for Defining Your Organization’s Message:
 Review your organization’s mission and objectives
 What are the key characteristics of your organization,
your mission and organization’s primary purposed?
 Identify what you want others to think of when they
think about your organization
 Determine if your message differs based on the
intended audience
[Slide by Vanessa Rhinesmith
http://vanessarhinesmith.com
]
 Make a bulleted list of the top three to five most
important message items and share them with
everyone in your organization
 Your message should be considered whenever you’re
talking about your organization, whether your talking
to donors or writing up a press release or drafting a
grant proposal

18. What Is Your Message?
Tips for Defining Your Organization’s Message:
 Review your organization’s mission and objectives
 What are the key characteristics of your organization,
your mission and organization’s primary purposed?
 Identify what you want others to think of when they
think about your organization
 Determine if your message differs based on the
intended audience
[Slide by Vanessa Rhinesmith
http://vanessarhinesmith.com
]
 Make a bulleted list of the top three to five most
important message items and share them with
everyone in your organization
 Your message should be considered whenever you’re
talking about your organization, whether your talking
to donors or writing up a press release or drafting a
grant proposal

19. [The Means]

20. Are You in Control of Your
Digital Identity?
You, and only you, should be in control of your
organization’s online reputation. Here’s a few tips to help
you maintain control of your web presence:
 What does the web say about you? Be sure to do a
basic Google search to see what conversation have
already taken place or are taking place as we speak
 How to take control? Search Google daily, better yet,
set up daily Google Alerts (containing your
organization’s name) and have these alert delivered to
your email each day
 Are you part of the conversation? If someone else is
talking about you, your organization and/or your cause,
then you should be open to joining the conversation (i.e.,
contributing to a blog or forum)
 How to make the web work for you? Having a solid,
updated website with a blog is a great place to start

21. [Best
Practices]
An Overview of Social Media Best Practices
and Implementation Recommendations

22. [Blogging]

23. Wordpress.co
m

24. Best Practices: Blogging
 Set up a blog at Wordpress.com
http://wordpress.com/ or Blogger.com
https://www.blogger.com/start
 Share the link to your blog on your website as
well as affiliated websites
 Wordpress and Blogger will give you an RSS
feed that can be used by your readers
 Keep stories short – and current
 Not used to writing via the web? Read
“Writing for the Web”, Poynter Institute:
http://www.poynter.org/content/content_view.asp?id=35

25. Best Practices: Blogging
 Voice. Pick a voice that is unique,
interesting and reflective of your
organization
 Links. Be sure to link to other
organizations, articles or bloggers
 Tip: When setting up outbound links be
sure to set the links to be opened in a
new window
 Create a conversation. Invite and
encourage conversation by posing a
question at the end of a post and/or
replying to comments in the post’s
comment field

26. Blogger Outreach:
 Do comment on other blogs as much as you have the time to
do so (caveat remember quality over quantity)
 Do contribute to the conversation by offering a unique
perspective or information
 Do find a couple of blogs you respect that are specific to the
issue and read as well as comment frequently
 Don’t evangelize your own mission, commenting is about
collaborating and welcoming a conversation
 Don’t take a defensive tone, even if you don’t agree with
[Slide by Vanessa Rhinesmith what is being stated there are productive ways to contribute
http://vanessarhinesmith.com
]  Don’t use the comment field as a marketing opportunity,
valuable comments and insightful point of views is more
powerful than any marketing pitch

27. [Twitter]

28.  Click to edit Master text styles
 Second level
 Third level
 Fourth level
 Fifth level

29. Best Practices: Twitter
5 Easy Things To Do Daily:
 Check most recent @replies
 Review latest conversation thread
 Join the conversation, for example:
 Share a link
 Post an event
 Respond to a comment
 Search for keyword-based conversations
 Chat with your community (not at them)

30. Twitter Tips for Following:
It’s easy to want to follow everyone and build up a large
community, but quantity does not necessarily mean quality.
Before you follow, review the user’s:
 Bio section. Is it complete?
 Website link. Does their website/blog look reputable?
 Following to follower ratio. Do they have roughly the
same number (or more) of followers in comparison to the
number of people they follow?
 Tweets. Are they offer valuable information or dialogue?
Would you want to be apart of their community or would
you want them to be a part of yours?
 Red Flag: Users who follow a high number of people (in
comparison to followers) are usually spammers
YOU MUST FOLLOW 50-100 people to assess value

31. Tips for Creating Content:
 Promote and talk about the issue, and
 Listen to community concerns
 Share and comment on their stories
 Share expertise and information
 Establish reputation and expertise
 Focus on a call to action, including:
 Announce events
 Prose questions to the community
 Options for volunteer involvement
 70-20-10 Engagement Model:
 70% sharing other voices, opinions and tools
 20% responding, connecting, collaboration and co-creation
 10% promoting and/or chit-chatting
[70-20-10 Engagement Model courtesy of David Dombrosky’s presentation Social
Media And Social Networks From Experiment To Strategy
http://tinyurl.com/yzz6xre]

32. Tips for Having a
Conversation:
 @ Reply: a comment or reply to a specific user.
To do: start with @username - and insert
comment specific to that user
 Re-tweet (RT): a comment tweeted by another
user, but you would like to share. To do: start
with or include RT @username - and then the
users comment that you'd like to share
 Direct Message (DM): a private message
between two users, but you must be following
one another for the functionality to be enabled
 @ Reply v. Direct Message: to many (public),
to one (private)

33. Tip: Download TweetDeck
 Download TweetDeck
http://www.tweetdeck.com/beta/
 It's easy to use
 Helps you make Twitter more time efficient
and manageable
 Customizable columns make it easier to follow
the conversation and keep track of
conversations
 Savable search functionality let’s you stay
aware of conversations that contain keywords
specific to your needs
 PC and Mac compatible, also an iPhone
version available for quick mobile use

35. TweetDeck:

36. [Facebook]

38. Best Practices: Facebook
 Set-up a FacebookPage:
 Provides analytics
 Enables Fans to share your content with
their Facebook friends
 Allow fans/supporters to create Groups
 Use Events to generate visibility
 Use Causes for donations or visibility
 Additional Tips:
 Profiles are for People
 Use Groups for Controlled Membership
 Use Events to Generate Attendance

39. Multimedia Tips:
 Tagging. Whether writing a blog post, posting a
picture or uploading a video be sure to tag (keywords
specific to the content of the piece)
 Play with podcasts. Check out easy-to-use platforms
like libsync.com and BlogTalkRadio
 Take it up a notch. Audacity is a free and user-
friendly audio editing platform
 Share your photos. Post your organization’s photos
at Flickr and share by setting up a quick photo gallery
to share on your website or blog
 Need to tweak those images? GIMP offers easy
(and free) image editing software

40. Multimedia Tips:
 Tagging. Whether writing a blog post, posting a
picture or uploading a video be sure to tag
(keywords specific to the content of the piece)
 Play with podcasts. Check out easy-to-use
platforms like libsync.com and BlogTalkRadio
 Take it up a notch. Audacity is a free and user-
friendly audio editing platform
 Share your photos. Post your organization’s
photos at Flickr and share by setting up a quick
photo gallery to share on your website or blog
 Need to tweak those images? GIMP offers easy
(and free) image editing software
Put Twitter/Facebook buttons on your sites
https://www.addthis.com/get/sharing#.T_NgmUilgUQ

41. [YouTube]

42. Best Practices: YouTube
 Set-up a non-profit channel
http://www.youtube.com/nonprofits
 Buy a Flip Mino video camera
 Produce member video spotlights
 Upload to YouTube and share on your
website or social network (Facebook,
Twitter, etc.)
 Make time to respond to comments
 Tag your videos with keywords

43. [Next Steps]
Measuring Success & Sample Work Flow

44. Strategy Management
 Determine who will manage your online identity
and accounts:
 Executive staff
 Marketing department
 Younger staff members
 Determine time and resources available to spend
on social media activities
 Establish internal policies and procedures around
social media use that are agreed upon by the
organization
 Develop user guidelines that state your
expectations when others comment and what you
as an organization deem appropriate as well as
inappropriate

45. Measure Success
 Set up Google Analytics for your website
as well as other types of analytics for
your blog and other social media service
to measure traffic to your content
 Examples:
 FacebookPage
http://www.facebook.com/advertising/?pages
 Bit.ly (URL shortner) http://bit.ly/ that
tracks link analytics
 Google Analytics
http://www.google.com/analytics/

46. Sample Social Media
Workflow:
 Step 1: Publish an editorial, personal story or
research piece to website or blog
 Step 2: Shorten the link to the published piece
using Bit.ly http://bit.ly/
 Step 3: Share the shorten link on Twitter
 Step 4: Share the link on Facebook
 Step 5: Measure success using Bit.ly, Facebook
Beware of Automation: Insights, or Google Analytics
Cross posting between  Step 6: Note any lessons learned (i.e., was it
your blog, Twitter and viewed more on Twitter or on Facebook? Was
Facebook might seem the topic interesting to your online community?
easy, be sure to treat each Was it re-tweeted or shared by others on
space separately. Online Facebook or blogged about)
users do not like
automated content and
are quick to call out
offenders.

47. Step 1: Publish Your Story
l

48. Step 2: Use Bit.ly to
Shorten URL

49. Step 3: Share Link on
Twitter

50. Step 3 1/2: Share Link on
Facebook

51. Step 4: Measure Success
(Bit.ly)

52. Step 4: Measure Success
(Facebook)

53. Step 4: Measure Success (Google)
http://www.google.com/analytics/

54. Next Steps:
Options:
 Create a Social Media Strategy
 Learn How to Measure Success
 Develop Policy and Procedures
 Attend a Class at EADI
 Play! Setup a Personal Account
 Connect to Friends, Family & Colleagues
 Take Time to Become Familiar with Tools

55. Next Steps:
Options:
 Create a Social Media Strategy
 Learn How to Measure Success
 Develop Policy and Procedures
 Attend a Class at EADI
 Play! Setup a Personal Account
 Connect to Friends, Family & Colleagues
 Take Time to Become Familiar with Tools

56. What Are Your Next Steps?
 Please take 5-10 minutes to think
about 1-3 solid next steps that you will
take.
 Share your next steps with your
partner and be prepared to share them
with the group.

58. Conclusion:
Remember that blogs, social networks and
other social media platforms are just tools – and
tools are only as good as their users:
 Take your time learning how to use the tools
effectively
 Identify which tools work for you and the
needs of your organization
 Respect your capacity and the
resource/time capacity of your organization
 Be flexible and adapt to the tools that are
the most valuable to your community
members and intended audience(s)

59. [Resources]

60. Resources:
Non-Profit Social Media Workbook
http://www.idealware.org/reports/nonprofit-social-media-policy-workbook
Social Media Guide for Non-Profits – http://nonprofitsorgs.wordpress.com/
Web Analytics
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Web_analytics
Google Analytics
http://www.google.com/analytics/
Facebook Insights
http://mashable.com/2010/09/03/facebook-insights-guide/
Bit.ly short URLs are customisable
bit.ly
Add This: social media buttons
https://www.addthis.com/get/sharing#.T_NgmUilgUQ

61. Resources:
Social Media Strategy 101:
http://www.slideshare.net/billyfischer/developing-a-social
Social Content Strategy: Beth Kanter
http://beth.typepad.com/beths_blog/2009/11/wearemedi
What Employers Really Think About Social
Media Use
http://mashable.com/2012/06/10/employer-social-media/
What you Klout Score Really Means
http://www.wired.com/business/2012/04/ff_klout/
Web Analytics
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Web_analytics
Do dod

62. Resources:
What Does a Social Media Strategy Look Like?
http://blog.coherentia.com/index.php/2010/07/what-does-a-social-m
A Social Media Strategy Example
http://kathyknorr.wordpress.com/social-media-strategy-examples/
Return On Investment Calculator for Social Networking
http://www.frogloop.com/social-network-calculator
The ROI of Social Media
http://nten.org/blog/2008/01/11/the-roi-of-social-media
Media Trust Tips
http://resources.mediatrust.org/
Social Media strategist blog: Beth Kanter
http://beth.typepad.com/beths_blog/2008/11/your-organizations-soc
Step-by-Step: How to Set Up A Nonprofit Listening Post
http://beth.typepad.com/beths_blog/2008/12/stepbystep-how-to-set
Mashable on Social Media Strategy
http://mashable.com/follow/topics/social-media-strategy/

63. Thank you!
Tony Roberts, ICT4D Centre
Royal Holloway, University of London
Contact me:
tonyroberts@hotmail.com
Twitter https://twitter.com/phat_controller
Facebook http://www.facebook.com/phat.controller
Wordpress http://laptopburns.wordpress.com/
Linked-In http://www.linkedin.com/pub/tony-roberts/1/514/98b
Flickr http://www.flickr.com/photos/tonyroberts/
Delicious http://www.delicious.com/stacks/phat_controller
YouTube http://www.youtube.com/roberts56tony
Slideshare http://www.slideshare.net/tonyroberts
Based on an original presentation given by Colin Rhinesmith
License = creative commons share alike 3.0