Balance.
The two most common social media blunders are like most things in life, at opposite ends of a best practices continuum. If you blog, FB, Tweet or G+ to get your vital message out, consider a self-audit exercise. It won’t take but a few minutes.
Quickly review your past month of posts. Note the media type, frequency and maybe rank your content as fluff / personal / on-target / vital.
Now consider your communication goals via social media. You have goals, yes? Think about this for a while. Jot some first thoughts down and save this for future pondering-planning.
The most common social media blunders are To Much Information (TMI) and an Untended Social Presence. Based on your industry, your target audience and key messages, you pretty much know where you want to be in the space between these extremes of blunder.
What is the solution? Preplan and be intentional. Just because you can and have a thought doesn’t mean you should share with everyone impulsively. Consider pre-writing in draft your week’s (or day’s) content in social media that represents your key messaging to your target audience in the best media. This may differ from FB to Twitter to LinkedIn. Come back to it later, review what you’ve written and schedule the release rate. Sure there’s room for timely response to what you read, commenting etc. Just be sure you are making room for that in the strategy and not simply firing off posts willy-nilly without a plan.
Balance requires discipline, time and a budget. Your company, non-profit and you deserve that deliberate investment.
Photo: Carla Swope from InnerVisionYoga.ca. Justin Brown Photography
Recently the Vancouver Sun’s Education writer, Janet Steffenhagen, presented a list of BC School Superintendents who blog. I followed the links and with considerable interest noted the variety of blog presentations.
I say with considerable interest because these bloggers represent the top of the administrative and leadership heap for the school districts they lead. Their readership consists of a more diverse mix than most bloggers have to consider. They are writing to their bosses, the Board. Also their staff, their principals, teachers, students and the toughest crowd of all, their students’ parents. So, how do the leaders of the fundamental educational pillar in our communities present? What do they present?
I toyed with the idea of a superintendent blogging report card but decided against this. Here however are the basic items I consider when reviewing or developing and invite you to add your own.
While blogging has been around for a while, for many institutions it is a new venture. Like everything else the institution does, blogging involves an investment of resources. Time to write, time to research, time to edit, gather and edit photos, develop guidelines, write policy and evaluate.
While some of the blogs on this list are clearly in early days, others were engaging, well considered and warrant return visits. Interesting reading. Thank you.
Oh my, I feel a rant coming on!
I’m ready for a productive day of work with a client meeting late afternoon. S’all good. Quick morning scan through some things and we’re off, yes!
Apparently not. What is happening to this morning?
Please, before you publish, send, text, launch or even phone, consider who your target audience is and be clear about your message.
If the goal is engagement, please endeavor to inspire confidence. Maybe this can be accomplished by outsourcing the communication task, choosing a message worthy of the reader’s time and attention, simply closing your loops and sometimes, just not communicating until you know you’re ready. And hey, how about a proofer? Now there’s an idea!
I get asked; “Should I invest in our FB presence or will it (Facebook) fade away soon?”
My thinking is that if FB was leaving anytime soon, innovative integration and partnerships FB related would slow down. Innovation and FB related development definitely aren’t slowing down.
F A C E B O O K S T O R E F R O N T S
What is now coined as f-commerce is evolving continually and quickly. Online stores can be set up with providers such as Payvment.com. Here are two examples.
- https://www.facebook.com/DoLifeNow?sk=app_135607783795
- https://www.facebook.com/bikerchicjewelry
F A C E B O O K R E A C H
FB is now extendable to your website via Open Graph. For a while now we’ve been integrating FB live feeds into your website pages, now we can go the other way as well. We’re jumping on this and would encourage you to consider this as well. It is new, innovative and seems to be where online interaction between the target audience and your organization is headed.
C U S T O M F A C E B O O K P A G E S
Make a great first impression with a welcome page! Here is Target Baby’s FB page. Other custom FB pages can detail your service. Here are two examples.
So, why not just have a FB page instead of a website? Good question. All the features are certainly there. Truth is, some people don’t spend time on FB. I know, hard to imagine, yes? A website anchor presence is still a very good idea.
And why is all this new functionality so brilliant and suddenly so necessary? Well, think about how and why FB works. Fundamentally it is still about a ‘friend’ or ‘like’ connection responding to something on your FB site or FB enhanced website, and their 438 friends noticing.
The Student Intervention Manager is a tool for School Counselors to use for Student Interventions. We’re pretty excited about it and are working hard to get the word out.
Imagine, every time you as the School Counselor make a good action decision to benefit the student you are working with, your wisdom will immediately help someone else who is also using siM. Likewise, as you make your best prescribed action decisions, you are instantly provided with perspective from everyone else who has ever used siM!
You’ll also find good information about siM at our Simcolab.com website and you can spread the news around by ‘liking’ the Simcolab Facebook page.
This is one of the most exciting projects I have been part of, right up there with HirGrnd.ca. Why? Well, they’re both meaningful and actually designed to help people!