Social Media | Today and Tomorrow

The Role of a Social Media Communicator During a Crisis: A conversation with @Chrisbrogan

Filed under Questions, Thoughts, new media by admin on 18 November 2011 at 18:30 {2 comments}

Chris Brogan brought up a good question on his blog earlier today – using myself and our SU social media team as an example. “What’s the role of a social media communications team during a crisis situation like alleged sex abuse scandals? What do you think is an appropriate amount of content about a story that obviously has national attention right now versus the “go back to business as usual” approach?”

You can read his full response here, but this was my comment:

Thanks for bringing up this issue, as it’s a good one. I’d like to take a few sentences (ok… more than that) to let you know how we and the rest of the social media team thought through this situation.

One role I played was to make sure my team had direction in terms of how we should be moving forward as the day progressed. I highlighted several things to the team at the beginning of the day, some of them specific to this issue: This will be at the forefront of the SU community’s mind today and we shouldn’t try to gloss over it, or pretend that it’s business as usual, and; we need to be very careful with what content we put forward, as there is still a lot of unsettled information flying around out there.

In other words: Let’s try to use internal communications that have been vetted by the people closest to the situation and remember that this is by far the issue of the day.

After a discussion around noon today (several hours into monitoring and gauging sentiment) we choose two specific “other” pieces of content to put out: The results of our Class Presidential race (something the specific candidates have put a lot of work into and ARE focused on today) and welcoming a large group (500+) of prospective students to our campus who are here on a weekend visit. I’ll also note the tone of each of those responses as they were carefully chosen (and well so I might add, but I’m biased and think I have a rocking team underneath me). Everything else we’ve placed on the back burner.

As for my own account, my role depends on a lot, and I think it should be looked at carefully.

I’ll say – and this isn’t an excuse – few people in my circle on twitter know of my current position, and the general SU community is only slowly learning of my position. Therefore, I know the eyes are all at @syracuseu for this information, and very few will be turning to me (and this is something I hope will shift over time, but it’s the fact right now).

Even with that in mind, I was very mindful of my tweets today. Obviously I wanted (and needed) to post the Chancellors comments, especially since I was the one up and available at the time, and I also RTed one of our student team member’s posts concerning Boeheim’s reaction to the situation. I answered you in between a flurry of phone calls, and I chose to respond to one particular off-subject tweet, but, because it’s not obvious, I’ll highlight that those two people are both Syracuse employees and currently living through the same thing the rest of the SU community is…. I felt it was actually quote fitting to connect with them on that level during this and I’m glad I did (many people on my feed may not have recognized that, but my goal was to connect with them directly). And as for foursquare… well, let’s be honest, you just don’t like people linking foursquare to Twitter

So that one doesn’t count!

Other than that, I WILL tell you one big role that a social media manager has, and that’s to make sure their team, the ones who are actually the voice of the organization, has the tools they need, and my time today was much more valuable working internally, and continuing in my overall role (scheduled meetings, future goals etc)….I simply didn’t have a whole lot of Twitter face-time today…..and I’m not sure that if I had had more time I would have necessarily flocked to Twitter…. however, this is a very interesting issue…. should that channel now or in the future be part of the higher strategy of communication and how do you prioritize that? As I mentioned, if I begin to be seen as more or a voice for SU communications in general, this will and should shift, but right now, the already well-established channels held my focus for the day….

Again, great conversation, I’m happy to chat more with you about the process, and would love to hear what others think. Sorry if this was a little….wordy

Cheers,

Kate

What Is a Social Media Communicator’s Duty in a Crisis? (chrisbrogan.com)

Thanks for bringing up this issue, as it’s a good one. I’d like to take a few sentences (ok… more than that) to let you know how we and the rest of the social media team thought through this situation.
One role I played was to make sure my team had direction in terms of how we should be moving forward as the day progressed. I highlighted several things to the team at the beginning of the day, some of them specific to this issue: This will be at the forefront of the SU community’s mind today and we shouldn’t try to gloss over it, or pretend that it’s business as usual, and; we need to be very careful with what content we put forward, as there is still a lot of unsettled information flying around out there.
In other words: Let’s try to use internal communications that have been vetted by the people closest to the situation and remember that this is by far the issue of the day.
After a discussion around noon today (several hours into monitoring and gauging sentiment) we choose two specific “other” pieces of content to put out: The results of our Class Presidential race (something the specific candidates have put a lot of work into and ARE focused on today) and welcoming a large group (500+) of prospective students to our campus who are here on a weekend visit. I’ll also note the tone of each of those responses as they were carefully chosen (and well so I might add, but I’m biased and think I have a rocking team underneath me). Everything else we’ve placed on the back burner.
As for my own account, my role depends on a lot, and I think it should be looked at carefully.
I’ll say – and this isn’t an excuse – few people in my circle on twitter know of my current position, and the general SU community is only slowly learning of my position. Therefore, I know the eyes are all at @syracuseu for this information, and very few will be turning to me (and this is something I hope will shift over time, but it’s the fact right now).
Even with that in mind, I was very mindful of my tweets today. Obviously I wanted (and needed) to post the Chancellors comments, especially since I was the one up and available at the time, and I also RTed one of our student team member’s posts concerning Boeheim’s reaction to the situation. I answered you in between a flurry of phone calls, and I chose to respond to one particular off-subject tweet, but, because it’s not obvious, I’ll highlight that those two people are both Syracuse employees and currently living through the same thing the rest of the SU community is…. I felt it was actually quote fitting to connect with them on that level during this and I’m glad I did (many people on my feed may not have recognized that, but my goal was to connect with them directly). And as for foursquare… well, let’s be honest, you just don’t like people linking foursquare to Twitter So that one doesn’t count!
Other than that, I WILL tell you one big role that a social media manager has, and that’s to make sure their team, the ones who are actually the voice of the organization, has the tools they need, and my time today was much more valuable working internally, and continuing in my overall role (scheduled meetings, future goals etc)….I simply didn’t have a whole lot of Twitter face-time today…..and I’m not sure that if I had had more time I would have necessarily flocked to Twitter…. however, this is a very interesting issue…. should that channel now or in the future be part of the higher strategy of communication and how do you prioritize that? As I mentioned, if I begin to be seen as more or a voice for SU communications in general, this will and should shift, but right now, the already well-established channels held my focus for the day….
Again, great conversation, I’m happy to chat more with you about the process, and would love to hear what others think. Sorry if this was a little….wordy
Cheers,Kate

What Is a Social Media Communicator’s Duty in a Crisis? (chrisbrogan.com)

Thought Leadership and Personal Branding for Higher Education

Filed under Media, Thoughts, new media by Kate Brodock on 29 April 2011 at 11:17 {no comments}

I’ve had several thoughts and a few discussions recently – for various reasons – about how certain schools and universities can elevate their reputations using digital technology and social networking tools.

One very obvious (almost “duh!”) strategy is a refined thought leadership program. As “duh!” as this sounds to me, it’s not happening in enough places. This strategy is becoming well-adopted in the business world, and can be easily transferred into the higher ed setting.

When I say thought leadership, I don’t mean that a university or college find one star, one personal brand, and ride their coattails (though that’s not a bad thing if you’ve got one of those, but it can NOT be your only plan). This isn’t sustainable, nor is it comprehensive.

I mean systematically go through your departments, your centers, your research programs and identify the areas where you have strengths, identify a person or group that can speak to that strength, create a multi-tiered infrastructure, and then start talking. As an added benefit of this process, the school’s particular ability to embrace digital media of various forms is also well-used and ideally visible and applaudable (since we all know that “matters”).

[NOTE: The following is the result of my Friday-morning thought process, and there is definitely room for refinement... be patient, it will come. I also want to thank Sean for some great and insightful conversation on this topic, which will hopefully continue.]

COMPONENTS

Identify areas within your university that you are strong at and/or want to have a reputation for. Look in all your departments, centers and schools.
Within those areas, identify two sets of people/groups to set up a multi-tiered system:
- High-profile individuals or teams if you have them, their personal brand will be helpful. Goal is to have these individuals become visible experts (they’re experts already), on behalf of the school.
- “Worker” individuals that can shoulder some/most of the content production and dissemination. Goal is to have these individuals doing the bulk of “talking” on behalf of the high-profile individuals and the school.
Develop the digital media framework to support a school-wide program (assuming this strategy is for a full university, you want to avoid fragmented efforts).
- Consistent and streamlined tool usage
- Consistent messaging
- Guidelines/playbook (I try to avoid “rules” and “laws”)
- Buy-in from leaders/legal/communication (reduce red-tape before rather than during the process)
- Buy-in from thought leaders
- etc etc etc
Develop the content strategy, both department/center/group-wide and school-wide.
Start talking!

The end-result looks a little like this, elevating your brand and reputation as a whole, with content flowing out of the departments/schools, on behalf of the university as a whole, with the brand image increasing for both departments/schools and the university as a whole:

[Yes, this does need refinement, but I've got to be getting back to work!]

MULTI-TIERED SYSTEM

Part of the reason for creating a system of high-profile individuals and worker individuals is a resource thing. As always, high-profile individuals don’t usually have the time resources available to continually be creating and repurposing content. Part of what we do at Other Side Group is manage those resources for high-profile individuals for exactly that reason, they don’t have the time, but they want the visibility.

Additionally, by creating a fully-contributing system, you’re decreasing your reliance on the big person-brands, and creating a long-term infrastructure that’s based upon the work your university does as opposed to just the people it has.

Lastly, if your school has an already well-developed and strong reputation, you’re able to harness some of that reputation that may lie in a strong alumni base, a strong board presence, etc (whatever it is that gives your school a great reputation) in a way that’s more realistic in the digital world….. chances are your star long-standing professor who’s been able to wield significant attention for four decades after winning a Noble Peace Prize, writing 10 books and being interviewed every week is not the right or willing person to be embracing digital technology as a way to further thought leadership. In some cases, as an institution you need to do that for them.

[DISCLAIMER: This is really idealistic, I understand that. There are internal hurdles, egos, politics, logistics etc that perhaps make this a hard reality to choke down for some people, but I think wholeheartedly that it can be done, and should be done.]

Hasty Use of Social Media and Responsibilities as Users

Filed under Rants, new media by Kate Brodock on 19 July 2010 at 21:30 {2 comments}

I listened to Shel Holtz and Neville Hobson’s FIR podcast (#555, 12 July…yes, I’m a little behind on podcast listening) on my way to work today, and they had a conversation about something I’ve written about before (see #7), but only briefly. It’s time to open up the conversation more, because I really do think it’s important to talk about as social media users.

For the marketers out there, notice I said AS USERS. That means forget about the marketing components for a second (tough, I know).

Shel and Neville were talking about a case on England where a man had committed murder and was on the run. The police started using social media as part of their hunt. The public started to follow alerts etc, and then….well…. somewhere along the line the public got out of hand. They created fan pages for the hunted man. One even uploaded a photo of the man minutes before he shot himself with a gun to himself.

Why am I telling you this story? Aside from the obvious dramatization and frankly disgusting nature of this, one point came out that’s applicable in a lot of our lives, manhunt or not.

Sometimes (and for some, it’s a lot of the time) users move too quickly, without thinking about the consequences of their actions.

There are several mechanisms at work here that make it easy to be irresponsible as users:

Speed
Platforms have made it really easy to respond, make comments, like or dislike. If you can start the ball rolling in a quick 140-character rant – which takes about 10 seconds – there’s not a whole lot of time to think about it if you don’t force yourself to do so.

Anonymity
People will make statements – good or bad – that they might not normally make if they can do so with little more than a first name or a Twitter handle. At the very least, even if you’re identifiable, there’s something to be said about initiating a conversation or making a case for something online versus doing so face-to-face. It’s amazing what standing in front of someone will do to your diplomacy….

Hype
The new “cool” thing to do as a consumer/user is to bash brands in public when they’ve wronged you, or hunt them down to vent to them. While there is absolutely some degree of accountability on the part of brands, wouldn’t you say it’s a little much to sign up for a Twitter account just to find your cell phone company…and cable company…and [insert other company here]…. to try and see if you can get money off your bill by complaining about them because you heard someone got answered by @ComcastCares? Afterall, we deserve a voice too, right?

I argue… well, yes, but not in a manner that cuts them out of the first round of discussions and is just used to kick them while they’re down. I try to treat online conversations/statements/comments/debates as if I were talking to a family member or a coworker. I’m not going to organize a group of my coworkers to hammer another coworker because he wore a shirt that was red and it reminded me of getting my heart broken 10 years ago (that’s not true, by the way, you can wear red around me).

One prime example of this is the Motrin campaign from last year. Ignoring the poor response on the part of Motrin (yes, it could have been better), let’s look at the first part of this scenario: the mommy bloggers.

I refrained from saying this while it was happening, but I found the collective actions of the mommy bloggers to be repulsive, irresponsible, and disrespectful. It got out of hand, too quickly, with no thought to what all of these quick, reactive responses would snowball into.

How can we as users demand brands to listen to us, to respond nicely in 2 seconds flat, to have conversations, to not push their messages on us, without giving them the same in return? How is it that a few angry moms let their message get out of control to the point where a company is shelling out I don’t even know how many dollars to fix a PR problem concerning a video that just wasn’t as offensive as it was getting trashed for? A few disgruntled people started a quick downward spiral into the kinds of depths that no company likes. Was it deserved? I sure don’t think so.

Then they get bashed for having a slow PR response to boot. As I said, they could have done a lot of things differently and better, but companies are still learning. A mark of a good company isn’t always whether they mess up or not, but whether they learn from their mistakes. I say we ought to cut them a little slack in a space (social media marketing) that’s still pretty new to many folks.

More more urgently, I call for us as users to think before reacting so hastily and reactively. We owe the brands we’re “now having conversations with” an ear that’s listening. They should listen when were upset, yes, and we should pause and let them address us before it gets to heated battle. Last time I was in angry at someone, I knew without thinking that screaming at the top of my lungs was going to get us nowhere, and fast.

What we ask from our brands, what we’ve demanded, we owe them right back or these relationships we speak so highly of aren’t going to work.

And the first way we can do that is to stop and think about what we’re saying and how we’re using social media. So ask yourself….am I being responsible?

2010 Predictions for digital technology, social media and other

Filed under Thoughts by Kate Brodock on 5 January 2010 at 09:13 {3 comments}

I posted a few of my marketing predictions over at Other Side Group, but here’s another set that includes digital activism and other goodies.

Location-based digital technology use will give way to several major advances in the fields of citizen journalism and digital activism. Patrick will agree with me – there will be a major increase in convergence of LB technologies and digital mapping tools, and we’ll probably see a lot of new, ad hoc use cases. There may be a little structure put around the field, but the number of new cases will delay its maturity to some extent.
Cases when moderate (“regular”) Muslims speak out against radicalism will not only increase, but the media will start to report on these cases. This isn’t only important when it comes to mobilizing of the positive and progressive voices with Islam, but it will also be incredibly important in creating a more positive image of the religion in the eyes of much of the world, especially this country. We’re already seeing it here and here.
Also for digital activism and citizen journalism, mobile will be a force, not only for marketing, but also for communications and mobilization of people.
People are going to start getting tired of the thousands of fundraising pleas that are in the social media sphere and do something about centralizing efforts.
As I said on OSG, personal branding is going to be very important and influential. I’ve worked pretty darn hard at personal branding, and, if I must say so myself, have done at least a reasonable job at it. But it takes work. Oh, and personal branding online and the effects of web 2.0 on personal brand management are going to be HOT HOT issues.